I started working to try and organize people within the restaurant industry, and then we started lobbying up the statehouse, which was infuriating. We would go down there every single day and say, "Hey, I'm really poor, and this is really hard," and just hear this resounding, "We know, and we don't care." It took six full months of badgering them everyday—"Hi, can we have a dollar? Can we have a dollar?"—until they finally gave it to us, I'm sure not because they knew we needed it, but more because they wanted to get us out of their hair. That was the point when I realized that there has got to be a better way.

If you go to your boss and your legislator and ask for a raise and they say no, where do you go from there? That was the point at which I decided that if these people weren't going to represent me, or even pretend to care that we were struggling, then they couldn't really call themselves my representative, could they? That was when I started the process of running because I was tired of being told that they would tend to me later.

Green: What were some of the experiences that you had in the restaurant industry that made you feel like you needed to fight for higher wages?

Walsh: One of the problems with having your base wage not be your full wage is that you are relying on the kindness of strangers, because tipping is not legally required. It puts you in this diminished capacity, because if one of these kindhearted strangers who is going to be paying your rent decides that he wants to make a comment on the quality of your butt, or how your pants look, or slap you with a menu on the butt—all of these are things that have happened to me on numerous occasions—I have to then make the decision on whether I’m going to stand up for myself and say, "Hi, that is sexual harassment and you can't do that," and run the risk of him not tipping me, because I need that money to pay my rent. When you put people in a place where their income is dependent on how much of a doormat they are willing to be, you really set people up for failure.

Green: It sounds like your restaurant experiences were central to your reasons for running for office. What was it like for you to run a campaign with no political experience?

Walsh: From the start, I’ve said that my incumbent was going to outspend me, but he wasn't going to outwork me. We managed to win just by knocking on doors. Before I ran, I very much did not think that regular people could do this kind of thing. I thought it was for the lawyers, the business owners, and the people whose dads were state representatives who could pass it on to them.

It wasn't until I was a grown woman that I realized that those were elected positions. I don’t know if it had to do with what is going on on a national level, but as I mentioned, I come from an industry that is rampant with sexism. I was truly appalled by the way that people—legislators, union organizers, and voters—would talk to me because I am a young woman.