Linda Teasdale

NS Nation Name: Convallaria
Character Name: Linda Teasdale
Character Gender: Female
Character Age: 47
Character Height: 5' 2"
Character Weight: 115
Character Position/Role/Job: Representative for Arizona's 2nd Congressional District
Appearance:
Character State of Origin: California
Character State of Residence: Arizona
Character Party Affiliation: Republican
Main Strengths: Politically experienced, charismatic, powerful small donor base
Main Weaknesses: Tempered, overly ambitious, unpopular with millennial voters.
Biography:

Teasdale, the daughter of an accountant and a homemaker, grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena, California. She graduated from Mount Prescott High School in Pasadena, and attended UC Berkeley the following year. After earning her Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude, where she wrote political editorials for the university newspaper, she moved to Los Angeles in preparation for law school. She graduated with a Juris Doctor degree from the UCLA School of Law, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the UCLA Law Journal. In the summer of 1997, she interned at the United States attorney's office in Los Angeles. In 1999, she moved to Tucson to serve as a summer associate at Rothstein & Olson, specializing in constitutional law. After 3 years, she was elected first to the board of the University of Arizona, then to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, where she served for 10 years.

In 2013, Teasdale entered the Republican primary in the 2nd district, after Adam McCarthy retired after 18 years in Congress. Teasdale entered a crowded seven-way primary—the real contest in this unpredictable district. A decided underdog, she managed to defeat the favorite, former Phoenix mayor Bob Powell by a very narrow margin, with 30% of the vote, one point ahead of Powell. It can be assumed that much of her success stemmed from the support she received from prominent 'Rockefeller Republicans' at the University of Arizona, who greatly assisted with funding her campaign. While it initially ran on a platform based in reducing unnecessary government expenditure, and improving K-12 education, she has been somewhat unsuccessful in making any significant strides in the beliefs that managed to just barely get her elected. Despite this, she is known to have at least some seasoned supporters, including parents, farmers, teachers, and small business owners...which constitute a very large proportion of the voting demographic in the 2nd district. While this played a large part in her narrowly successful reelections the years following, many experts actually owe her success to widespread political apathy in the region.

Linda is not necessarily the most likable person in the world - she has a tendency to be shallow, vain, and snobby, along with obsessive-compulsive tendencies and other neuroses. Noticeably, she also suffers from mysophobia when she's stressed, once driving her to set an elderly couple's trash on fire because it was piled too high. She saw a therapist for her obsessive tendencies. However, Linda genuinely loves her husband Fitch and extended family, and did the best she could to help him when he was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2007. Linda doesn't hesitate to offer advice to other people, but often fails to practice what she preaches. Nevertheless, she is supportive of her family especially her children. She is also quite impulsive, not thinking through her actions, even though she does have good intentions at heart. She appears self-centered, shallow, sharp, and opinionated, but is very devoted to her children and cares deeply for her friends. Teasdale seems to strictly watch her weight and is big on eating healthy, and low fat food. She can be frequently found perusing the aisles of organic or health-food stores. She also appears to harbor an obsession with unusual patterns, from aztec to paisley; she is almost always portrayed wearing a patterned scarf and many elements of her home decor, including her kitchen appliances and bed linens, are designed in unusual and exotic styles.

Currently, Teasdale serves as the chair of the Committee on House Administration. She also serves with the Committee on the Judiciary, Science, Space and Technology, and the Modernization of Congress. Her subcommittee involvement includes Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet, Immigration policy, and Space and Aeronautics.

Other Info: n/a

I have read and accept the rules of the roleplay: Convallaria