Bill Richardson

The newlyweds Bill and Barbara Richardson headed to Washington, D.C. after college. Bill worked on Capitol Hill and began to understand how politics could create positive change. After a few years in D.C., the Richardsons decided it was time to move west to New Mexico.

Once he arrived in New Mexico, Bill worked as a staffer for the local Democratic Party and taught Government at a Santa Fe Community College. In 1980, Bill entered his first campaign to challenge Republican Manuel Lujan in New Mexico's 1st Congressional District. That first campaign taught Bill the basics of campaigning: he worked for months, and shook practically every hand in Northern New Mexico, he pulled together a grassroots organization that had the support of many local leaders and motivated the Hispanic electorate like never before. And he lost by less than one percent.

But he tried again, and two years later 35 year old Bill Richardson became one of the youngest freshman Congressmen of the class of 1982. He represented the newly created 3rd Congressional District, one of the nation's most diverse.

Congressman Richardson got straight to work for the people of New Mexico, and was known for holding more town-hall meetings with his constituents than any other Congressman over 2,500 eventually. Reflecting the values his parents had instilled decades before, Bill wanted to make a difference, not just for the people in New Mexico, but for the whole country.