Cross-posted at Unified Patriots
In November 2011, Mia Love filed to run for Utah’s newly formed 4th Congressional District based on her demonstrated leadership on conservative principles. She credits her parents with providing the foundation for her ideals. After many years of living in the unstable, regime-torn socialist island country of Haiti, her parents immigrated legally to the United States with $10 in their pockets in hopes of achieving the American Dream.

Mia was born in Brooklyn, New York and eventually moved to Connecticut. Mia recalls both parents working hard to earn a living, her father at times taking on second jobs cleaning toilets to pay for school for their three children. On the day of Mia’s college orientation, her father said something to her that would become the ethos for her life:

Mia, your mother and I never took a handout. You will not be a burden to society. You will give back.

Mia graduated from the University of Hartford with a degree in fine arts. She found the Mormon faith. Then she found Jason Love. And then she found herself in Utah. Her political involvement began in 2002, when she heard talk about taking the phrase “Under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. At that time, Love taught her then 2-year-old daughter to recite the pledge with the reference to deity in it, so she would know it the way her mother had learned it in school. She was elected to the Saratoga Springs City Council in 2003 and has served as its mayor since 2009.

Mia’s leadership and principled decision making during the challenging times her city faced resulted in her election as Mayor in 2009 by an overwhelming majority. One of her first acts as mayor was to reduce the residential property tax. These acts were the basis for Saratoga Springs receiving the highest Standard & Poors municipal rating available to a city of its class, at a time when many cities were being downgraded.

Mayor Love is best known for her conservative positions on limited government, increased citizen liberties and limited restraints on business. She believes the best thing she can do as mayor is stay out of the way of business and out of the lives of citizens. She advocates a return to the personal responsibility and reduced government dependency engendered by her father.

She believes she is the candidate with the best shot to force Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson into retirement. In order to balance the budget while cutting taxes, Love said she would start by abolishing the Department of Education and the Department of Energy, delegating their responsibilities to the states. She would slash regulations and open up federal land to energy drilling.

Love, who became the first black female mayor in the state when she took office in 2009, would become Utah’s first minority to serve in Congress and the only black woman on the Republican side of the aisle. But she does not expect her race to be an issue in her campaign.

Here are a few quotes by Mia on this subject:

I was elected with 60 percent of the votes in this city because people care more about what is happening in their lives, what is happening in their back pockets, what is happening in their homes than they care about the color of someone’s skin.

Love said that, if she is elected, she would gladly join the Congressional Black Caucus.

Yes, yes. I would join the Congressional Black Caucus and try to take that thing apart from the inside out. It’s demagoguery. They sit there and ignite emotions, they ignite racism where there isn’t any. They use their positions to instill fear. ‘Hope and change’ has turned into fear and blame.

I have yet to meet a tea party member who wants to see me “hanging on a tree,” as U.S. Rep. Andre Carson of Indiana recently suggested. He says the tea party considers me a second-class citizen. In truth, as a black conservative woman in Utah, I have been welcomed into the arms of a freedom-loving movement. The tea party reflects the principles of freedom and prosperity black Americans have long fought to win.

The 4th District was created because Utah gained an extra seat as a result of the Census. There is no incumbent, but current Democratic Congressman Jim Matheson will be running in the 4th District. There are three Republicans with whom Mia will be competing for the Republican nomination: long-term State Senator Carl Wimmer, State Senator Stephen Sandstrom, and lawyer Jay Cobb.

The process in Utah is that there will be caucuses with Republican delegates and then a convention in the spring. If no candidate gets 60% of the delegate votes, there will be a primary between the top two.

Mia is pro-life, pro-Tea Party, pro-Israel, and pro-2nd Amendment. Mother, runner, shooter, Mayor, small government conservative who got into politics for the right reasons, unafraid to take on the powers that be all started from the words of her father.

Mia’s website is Love4Utah.com, she’s on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Mia she needs to raise funds pretty quickly to catch up with her competitors, to get her message out to Utah delegates, and to build the infrastructure for a primary race and general election. You can donate here.

I have seen in the past a lot of great black Republican candidates running for a US House seat from New York city, Chicago, and Los Angeles. They could not get enough votes to win. It’s from conservative districts in Oklahoma, South Carolina, and now Utah that we get winners. I am also impressed with children of parents from Cuba and Haiti who understand and appreciate the American Dream more than those who descended from those who were on the Mayflower. I am definitely supporting Mia B. Love.