hi, I had copied that from the existing tests. I'm looking above under __init__() where another tester has defined:
self._root_element = self.selenium.find_element(*self._modal_locator)
not sure the purpose of that, is self._root_element used to chain locators like website or user name to the _modal_locator? 
I can make the change you requested but am not clear why _root_element was used earlier b/c it seems like a similar case.