Before she lifted her eyes to the next rung of the political ladder, Pat Spearman was gaining recognition in state and national politics as a woman on the rise.

The retired Army lieutenant colonel and pastor defended LGBTQ rights in a speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Spearman said she was offended as a member of the LGBTQ community by proposed policies of then-candidate Donald Trump and his vice presidential pick, Mike Pence.

“No matter the cost to our country, Donald Trump and Mike Pence will strip away the progress that we have fought so hard to win,” Spearman said. “Why? Because they fear diversity.”

In the Legislature, Spearman, a two-term progressive state senator, led the charge to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, which if added to the Constitution would guarantee women the same legal rights as men. The ratification came exactly 45 years after Congress first submitted it to the states.

Now Spearman is running in the crowded 4th Congressional District race to replace fellow Democrat Rep. Ruben Kihuen. Her rivals in the race include former Rep. Steven Horsford, who was the first person elected to the seat in 2012. Spearman will also face progressive Amy Vilela, high school principal John Anzalone and Regent Allison Stephens in the June 12 primary election.

At a recent National Organization for Women (NOW) meeting, Spearman said she is running on her record in the Senate.

“I’m not the anointed one,” Spearman said, echoing news that the powerful — and deep-pocketed — parent entity of the Culinary Union was spending $331,125 on TV and radio ads supporting Horsford. “I’m not the one with people behind them with a lot of money. You don’t get a chance to make money and come back and get treated like the incumbent.”

Horsford, the former director of the Culinary Union’s job training academy, nabbed that group’s coveted backing. Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings from April show Horsford has raised more than three times as much as Spearman. He has raised $250,060 while Spearman’s campaign raised $71,024.

But Spearman is undeterred by the uphill battle to overcome Horsford’s existing name recognition in the district along with the money and influence of the Culinary Union, which helped Kihuen take the district by a wide margin in a 2016 Democratic primary with several viable candidates. She alluded to Horsford’s decision to stay in the Washington, D.C. area after losing re-election in 2014; he most recently worked as a consultant at his own government affairs and public relations firm.

“I am the best person in this race because when I moved here in 2005, I never left. I think Congressional District 4 has been the only one that has turned over every time there is an election,” Spearman said of the district that has only had three elections, adding that the large biblical warrior Goliath, was defeated by a shepherd boy.

“David had five smooth stones and nobody believed in him, either,” Spearman said.

District 4 has flipped between Republicans and Democrats in the past two elections. The seat became a serious option for other Democrats in mid-December only after Kihuen announced he would not seek re-election. That decision came after multiple women accused Kihuen of unwanted sexual advances and sexual misconduct — allegations he has denied, but that are the subject of an ongoing congressional ethics inquiry.

Created in 2012 as a result of the 2010 Census, District 4 stretches from the urban areas of North Las Vegas into the rural counties of southern Lyon County and includes all of Esmeralda, Lincoln, Mineral, Nye and White Pine counties.

“Congressional District 4 has yet to have a representative with the capability to hold the congressional seat for more than one term,” Spearman said. “This constant change of leadership does our community more harm than good both at home and in Washington, D.C.”

Spearman says when -- not if -- she is elected, she plans to focus on veterans, particularly creating more access to health professionals.

“It’s not just PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder),” Spearman said. “It’s M-S-T. Do you know what that is? It’s military sexual trauma. I guarantee one of the reasons nobody knows what that is because nobody is talking about it. They talk about PTSD. But no one is talking about MST. If you ask any woman who has ever been harassed by a superior, she will tell you that unless it was really, really, really, egregious like rape, most of the time it's a private hell and just seething anger. Ask me how I know. It happened to me.”

When she was a captain stationed overseas, Spearman said a senior officer propositioned her in a sexually graphic manner a few days before appearing uninvited at her residence.

“In Panama, they had the single officers staying in hotels because they didn’t have on-base housing for us,” Spearman said. “He came to my hotel that Saturday in civilian clothes; knocked on my door. Most of the time I would have said ‘Who is it?’ but it was like something said ‘don’t say anything.’ I went over and I looked out the door and my heart just started racing.”

She stayed quiet behind her door while he kept knocking. A hotel maid acted as a patrol and told her he was waiting in the lobby. Spearman received updates from the maid so she was aware of the man’s location throughout the day. Eventually, the maid helped Spearman avoid the officer by guiding her into a service elevator and then through a back exit by the hotel dumpster.

Transferring from her unit or out of Panama was not an option as Spearman’s alleged harasser was also the person who had a say in not just her career choices, but also in the careers of her immediate superiors. Critics who question why women don’t speak up about sexual harassment don’t understand, Spearman said. When it happened to her, she had limited choices.

“In that moment, I had to make a decision whether or not I was going to call him out, lose my career or whether I was going to take that incident right there and become more vigilant in looking for pariahs just like him,” Spearman said.

Years later, Spearman says the man got his comeuppance. He was accused of assaulting an officer’s wife and left the military.

To counter what happened to her, Spearman decided she would make it easier for military women ranked below her to speak up against sexual harassers. Spearman was instrumental in pushing for an investigation of Democratic Sen. Mark Manendo when she was told he was acting inappropriately with women who worked with him.

Spearman said hearing the allegations against Manendo brought her back to her experience with the officer in Panama. With a lowered voice, Spearman said she understood how the women remained silent because they “just kind of take it and suck it up.”

In a July 2017 statement, the Senate Democratic Caucus said independent investigators found at least 14 incidents in which Manendo had inappropriate contact with female staffers during the 2017 legislative session. The caucus also found instances of misconduct in past sessions. Manendo, a longtime lawmaker, resigned after the two-and-a-half-month investigation.

Still, Spearman doesn’t think there is any irony in running for a seat that is being vacated by a man accused of sexual harassment.

“I don’t think irony is the word for it. The accusations are there and I don’t know where they are with the investigations,” Spearman said, before quickly pivoting to another topic.

Growing up in the Civil Rights era

Born into a religious family in June 1955 in Indianapolis, Indiana, Spearman moved frequently. Her mother was a traveling evangelist and her father was an electrician.

She said her father’s involvement in the civil rights movement grounded her. Growing up, Spearman said she was taught faith, religious tolerance and the value of public service. Seeing how laws and the legal system affected “the least of these” among us in society pushed Spearman to commit to a career in public service.

She said the biblical teaching of looking out for the marginalized and oppressed guides her in the Legislature, where she’s been known to use scripture and stories from the Bible to illustrate her points.

“We learned to appreciate diversity,” Spearman said about her frequent moves. “Every place we went was different but we could always meet people we could relate to.”

The military was never something Spearman was particularly interested in growing up.

“I’d never even thought about the military,” she said.

But a Norfolk State University student in 1973, she needed to fulfill a gym class requirement. She thought her only option was a modern dance class but was not thrilled at dancing in public while wearing tights. That was when someone told Spearman the school had a Reserve Officer Training Program (ROTC), and she enrolled.

“I really liked it,” Spearman said. “It wasn’t just a class. It was the way it made me feel. Not just as a person. I don’t know how to describe it. It meant something that was bigger than you. It just felt different.”

She joined the Army a few years later in 1977 and retired after 29 years.

Spearman’s candid, snappy and rally-ready answers have the intonation and modulation of a motivational speaker. It comes from preaching at the pulpit on Sundays from the time she was six years old. An ordained minister, Spearman was an elder in the United Methodist Church but resigned when she decided she wanted to live publicly as a lesbian.

“I came out in 2009 when I was working to repeal ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell,’” Spearman recalled. “I served in the U.S. Army for 29 years while in the ‘closet.’ I was terrified someone would out me and that would be the end of my military career.”

An energized, progressive arm of the state Democratic Party has favored Spearman since she took on incumbent John Lee for a state Senate seat in 2012. Before Lee was mayor of North Las Vegas, he was a candidate endorsed by powerful former Sen. Harry Reid and the Senate Democratic Caucus.

Spearman branded Lee, who opposed gay marriage and abortion, as too moderate.

She beat him by 26 percentage points in the June 2012 primaries.

In the state Senate, Spearman introduced bills that focused on equality, veterans and energy. Spearman shortened it to “EVE,” giving a nod to the first woman of the Old Testament. It is the year of the woman, she said, and “EVE” is the platform that will take her to Washington.