Nine months after resigning from Congress, former U.S. Rep. Katie Hill is set to release a memoir Tuesday detailing the events that led up to her high-profile departure and her game plan for the future.
“In writing this book, I needed to lay out what is going to be my mission for moving forward — and that’s supporting woman getting elected for office and helping to dismantle the roadblocks that we all face systemically to facing misogynistic society,” Hill said Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Her memoir, “She Will Rise: Becoming a Warrior for True Equality,” expands on Hill’s viral resignation speech to Congress, where she slammed the “double standard” women face in politics and the “misogynistic culture” that “gleefully consumed my naked pictures” and “capitalized on my sexuality.”
Hill, 32, a California Democrat who is openly bisexual, served 10 months in the House before resigning last October amid an ethics investigation into allegations of having inappropriate relations with staff members. Hill blamed the scandal on nude photos of her that were published online without her consent, and she blamed her estranged husband. He has denied leaking the photos.
Hill told MSNBC on Monday that the “salaciousness that happened with me and the fact that I was a young woman all contributed to me feeling like I needed to step down.”
When asked by MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski about her self-reflection since leaving Congress and whether she had any regrets about her actions while in office, Hill said, “Of course there’s things I wouldn’t have done.”
“Writing the book and being quarantined and having these last eight months, there’s been nothing but self-reflection,” Hill said. “Some of the mistakes are obvious, and when it comes down to it, the simplest way of describing it is I allowed myself to get too close to my staff and to not draw the clear boundaries that you should, and I think that was a trap I fell into for a number of reasons that I discuss in the book.”
Hill said she doesn’t regret her decision to leave Congress and hopes that being outside Capitol Hill will allow her to support other women in getting elected to public office.
“The bottom line is that we need to elect more women, up and down the ballot,” she said. “For us to achieve true change, that’s going to be what it takes.”
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Brooke Sopelsa contributed.