The first-time candidate says being adopted out of foster care as an infant changed her life trajectory and shapes her support of policies such as Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and removing corporate influence in political campaigns.

Morgan Harper has an Ivy League education, a law degree from Stanford and experience working in a government agency designed to protect consumers.

Before the "randomness" of opportunity put Harper on a track that would land her in a Democratic primary in the 3rd Congressional District against Rep. Joyce Beatty, though, she spent the first nine months of her life in a foster home.

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Her future, Harper said, was "uncertain."

But a Columbus City Schools teacher adopted Harper, and a scholarship to attend the Columbus Academy, an expensive private school, changed her life trajectory, she said.

"That showed me just how unfair things can be and how much is driven by the randomness of who your parents are, what neighborhood you're born into, school district, all of that," she said. "And once you are awoken to these things, it's hard to let that go."

Harper said that has been key to her support for some of the uncompromising policy positions she has pressed in her campaign: Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and removing corporate influence in political campaigns.

>> Related story: US Rep. Joyce Beatty touts experience in primary race

People are "waking up" to issues of economic insecurity and climate change, she said, but "political leaders and elders in the community" have done nothing to fix them.

"I don’t think we’re going to see the type of bold policies I’m pushing from the representative," Harper said, referring to Beatty.

Harper, 36, is a first-time candidate. After graduating from Columbus Academy, she left central Ohio to study Spanish and community health at Tufts University in Massachusetts. She went on to earn a master’s degree from Princeton University and a law degree from Stanford.

She said she chose to run for Congress rather than a state or local office because she understands how the federal government can affect people’s lives.

The winner of the Democratic primary almost certainly will go to Washington representing the heavily Democratic district. Cleophus Dulaney and Mark F. Richardson are running in the Republican primary.

In Washington, Harper worked in the then-new federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the direction of former Ohio Attorney General and Treasurer Richard Cordray, who has endorsed Beatty.

While she was writing rules at the agency for the disclosure of fees associated with prepaid cards, Harper said, a parade of attorneys from the financial services industry tried to influence the outcome. That opened her eyes to the influence that corporations have in the federal government, she said.

Harper has lobbed criticism at Beatty for accepting campaign contributions from the political action committees in the financial services industry that the four-term incumbent is supposed to be overseeing in the House Financial Services Committee.

Beatty, in turn, has questioned the number of undisclosed small contributions that Harper has received and the share of her campaign cash that has come from out of state. That has fed Beatty’s effort to paint Harper as an outsider who only recently returned to Columbus after spending years in other parts of the country.

Harper’s campaign has been likened to that of other upstart progressive candidates such as U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York who have challenged established Democrats from the left. The same organization that helped propel Ocasio-Cortez’s successful 2018 campaign, Justice Democrats, has endorsed Harper, helping her to expand her fundraising nationally.

At the same time, though, Harper said that about 90% of Columbus ZIP codes have contributed to her campaign, and small donations from a national network have helped her raise about $550,000 for the campaign. Beatty had about $1.7 million in her campaign account at the end of 2019.

"I didn’t move to Columbus to run for Congress," Harper said, adding that she left her job at a housing initiative because she wanted to work on issues in her hometown.

Federal resources are needed now — not "incrementally" — to address the issues that Harper said are central to her campaign, including health-care access and expansion of job opportunities.

"I couldn't sit back and continue to see a lot of our communities in the 3rd District slip away from us," she said.

For more information about the candidates, visit Dispatch.com/votersguide.

rrouan@dispatch.com

@RickRouan