“Well so, you guys know who Madonna is? Madonna signed my band to her record label, and we toured all around the world and got to play all the big coliseums like Madison Square Garden, and then we had videos - you guys know about MTV? - we had two of them, and you can still find them online from a long time ago back in the 1900s.” Westrich then tries to explain her past to the school group of children too young to remember Kanye West at the VMAs, let alone the mid-90s alternative rock scene. “She was in a famous rock band when she was young you can find the videos on YouTube.” It’s a school group from his district but he had left Westrich babysitting them for a few minutes. Just then, another legislator, Steve Holt, interrupts with a smirk. Her audience is a group of about two dozen middle school-aged kids seated on the floor in the back corner of the room. Westrich, a petite cheery blonde, is just finishing up explaining how a lawmaker can summon a legislative page to their desk if they have a specific request to add to a bill. The state Legislature is out of session, and only a handful of members are lazing about the chamber catching up on correspondence. It’s a drowsy rainy Thursday at the Iowa State Capitol, and Iowa State Representative Cherielynn Westrich is speaking to a school group about how a bill becomes a law.
