On Wednesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren attempted to read aloud a letter written by the late Coretta Scott King. Decades ago, Mrs. King had written the letter to oppose the confirmation of Senator Jeff Sessions to the federal court; Senator Warren tried to offer it as the basis of her opposition to Sessions as attorney general. Rather than allow Senator Warren to speak, the Republican majority invoked the rarely used Senate Rule 19, which bars senators from impinging the character of their chamber colleagues. Warren was halted from reading the letter, officially censured by the Senate, and barred from speaking for the remainder of the debate.

On the other side of the country, this impulse to silence Warren is pushing from the Republican Party one of its rising stars. State Representative Beth Fukumoto, who served as the youngest House Minority Leader ever in Hawaii and was preparing to run for Congress as a Republican from one of the country's most reliably Democratic states, is considering leaving the GOP.

On January 21, Fukumoto took part in Hawaii's Women's March. There she spoke of the importance of being a political party that respects all people and respects racial minorities, women, and those who need a voice.

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These are values Fukumoto insists are consistent with Republican Party history and values. The Republican Party, she said, can't continue to call itself the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt unless it reckons with this challenge: "The Republican party is now facing a great crisis. It is to decide whether it will be, as in the days of Lincoln, the party of the plain people, the party of progress, the party of social and industrial justice; or whether it will be the party of privilege and special interests, the heir to those who were Lincoln's most bitter opponents."

"In Hawaii, Democrats have a super-majority. It's not good for government when one group has too much power."

"I was feeling an identity crisis in the party, " she told me, referring to the 2016 election. "Voters were frustrated about where the country should go and what it meant to be an American. I went door to door speaking to my constituents, and people felt the rhetoric was just completely out of hand. They were deeply concerned with what kind of world their kids were going to grow up in."

The world Beth Fukumoto grew up in makes her an unlikely Republican. The granddaughter of a New York City union organizer and a fourth-generation Japanese-American, she was born and raised in Hawaii, where more than 80 percent of elected officials are Democrats. But in 2012, when she decided to seek office representing Hawaii's 36th district, where she'd grown up, she ran as a Republican. I asked her why. "In Hawaii, Democrats have a super-majority. It's not good for government when one group has too much power. As a moderate, I believed I could find a place in either party, and I wanted to be an alternative voice for the state. I chose the Republican Party."

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Fukumoto did not anticipate pursuing a career in politics. She studied English literature at Georgetown University, with plans of earning a PhD and becoming a college professor. But a bleak job market in higher education derailed that plan. In 2009, she returned to Hawaii and took a job as a file clerk at the state legislature because, "even though I had a master's degree, it was the only place I could get a job." The experience gave her a front-row seat to American political power as she filed bills, overheard conversations, and sat in on committee meetings. "There were important decisions being made and there wasn't enough diversity," Fukumoto told me. "It was the same voice at the legislature. There were a lot of men and most of them were older. I realized many more people needed to be heard."

"As the only Republican caucus leader to hold a position as a millennial minority woman, I felt that if I didn't speak, then no one would."

Once you understand her motivations for seeking office, it is clear why Fukumoto chose to take the stage at Hawaii's Women's March, even though she must have known there would be negative repercussions for her decision. This is how she described it to me. "As the only Republican caucus leader to hold a position as a millennial minority woman, I felt that if I didn't speak, then no one would. I've never felt that level of responsibility before, but it seemed wrong not to say something. I knew that if I felt disenfranchised by my own party, then many others in the country must be feeling even worse by watching the presidential election. I believed somebody within my party needed to step up and say, 'We don't all believe this. And some of us feel the way you are feeling too.'"

According to Fukumoto, both the Republican Party and her state caucus have demanded she commit to not criticizing President Trump for the remainder of his term and that she "take a more partisan approach to working in the legislature." Instead, she is considering leaving the party altogether. In a letter to her constituents Fukumoto writes, "It is my belief that I can no longer remain a member of a party that punishes dissent…. I have always said that we should work to find common ground, even when we disagree, but powerful voices in the Republican Party continue to fight against compromise."

That Beth Fukumoto is thoughtful and measured is immediately clear in conversation with her. This deliberate style is likely the reason she effectively crossed the aisle. Leaving her political party could not be an easy decision. "I had a ton of hope when I came into the Republican Party," she confided. "I believe this party can win with a diverse base, and there is no better place to test that idea than Hawaii.… But after this election, what I've seen is that the national forces are just too strong. Even in Hawaii, our local party is the party of Trump. I had to accept that. I have a lot of personal goals. I wanted to run for Congress. But I am willing to walk away from those goals because speaking out is what is right. This is about America. This is about what America is going be for the next generation."

Melissa Harris-Perry As editor-at-large, Melissa Harris-Perry acts as a guide to the stories, experiences, challenges, policies, and defining pop culture moments of women and girls of color.

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