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One of the first things Tarra Simmons tells voters when asking for their support isn’t the prestigious fellowships she’s won or the legislation she’s helped write. It’s about the years she spent behind bars.
It’s a story Simmons, a candidate for state representative in Kitsap County, Washington, has shared at countless campaign events, which these days are entirely online: How she lost her car, her house, her nursing license, her voting rights. How after coming home in 2013, most of her minimum-wage paychecks from Burger King were taken to pay the $7,600 she owed in court fees. How she managed to climb out of that life, get a law degree and begin a civil rights nonprofit. And how all of it made her realize that only those who have lived through the system can fully understand how to fix it.