Linda Smith

Linda Ann Smith (née Simpson; born July 16, 1950) is a member of the Republican Party who represented Washington's Washington's 3rd congressional district from 1995 to 1999 and was the unsuccessful Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in 1998, losing to incumbent Democrat Patty Murray.

After leaving politics, she founded Shared Hope International, a nonprofit organization focused on ending minor sex trafficking.

Since its creation, Smith has worked around the world and within the United States on behalf of those who have been victimized through sex trafficking.

Smith grew up in a working class home.

Her father abandoned the family and her mother remarried a mechanic, and in 1966 the family moved to Vancouver, Washington.

Smith has an older sister, two younger sisters, and two younger brothers.

In high school she had part-time jobs as a fruit picker and a day-care aide.

She later recalled, "I felt like by 17, I had had more lives than most people."

She was 24 years old when her mother died of cancer, leaving her two younger brothers at home.

In 1968, she married Vern Smith, a young locomotive engineer, and they raised two children.

She became the manager of a number of independent tax offices in Southern Washington.

She currently lives in Vancouver and has two children and six grandchildren.

Smith began her political career in a special election in 1983 when she defeated a Democratic Party incumbent to win a seat in the Washington House of Representatives.

In 1987, she moved up to the state Senate, giving Republicans control of that chamber, and remained there until her supporters began a September 1994 write-in campaign to elect her to Washington's 3rd congressional district, after Republican candidate Tim Moyer suddenly dropped out of the race.

Smith began a 19-day-long grassroots campaign that resulted in her defeating the only Republican candidate listed on the primary ballot.

Having secured a ballot line as the Republican nominee through her September write-in campaign, she went on to defeat liberal three-term Democrat Jolene Unsoeld in November.

She narrowly won reelection in 1996, defeating Democrat Brian Baird by only 113 votes.

Smith was known for her strong pro-life stance and supporting campaign finance reform, and being one of 9 House Republicans to vote against confirming House Speaker Newt Gingrich in early 1997.

In November 1997, Smith was one of eighteen Republicans in the House to co-sponsor a resolution by Bob Barr that sought to launch an impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton.

The resolution did not specify any charges or allegations.

This was an early effort to impeach Clinton, predating the eruption of the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal.

The eruption of that scandal would ultimately lead to a more serious effort to impeach Clinton in 1998.

On October 8, 1998, Smith voted in favor of legislation that was passed to open an impeachment inquiry.

On December 19, 1998, Smith voted in favor of all four proposed articles of impeachment against Clinton (only two of which received the majority of votes needed to be adopted).

Giving up her House seat in 1998, Smith ran for Washington's U.S. Senate seat.

She defeated former King County Prosecuting Attorney Chris Bayley to face sitting U.S. Senator Patty Murray, only the third Senate race between two women.

Ultimately Murray won by a 58%-to-42% margin.

In the fall of 1998, while still a member of the U.S. Congress, Smith traveled to Falkland Road in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, which is one of the worst brothel districts in the world.

The hopeless faces of desperate women and children forced into prostitution compelled her to found Shared Hope International (SHI), a non-profit organization dedicated to eradicating sex-trafficking.

Since Smith's retirement from Congress, she has devoted her energy to this cause, traveling around the world to prevent, restore, and bring justice to victims of trafficking.

Shared Hope supports shelter and service creation for sex trafficking survivors using a comprehensive model for restoration.

By partnering with local organizations, Shared Hope provides restorative care, shelter, education, and job skills training at Homes and Villages of Hope where women and children can live without time limit.

Today, Shared Hope provides leadership in awareness and training, prevention strategies, restorative care, research, and policy initiatives to mobilize a national network of protection for victims.

To build momentum in the international anti-trafficking movement, Smith also founded the War Against Trafficking Alliance (WATA) in January 2001.

WATA coordinates both regional and international efforts necessary to combat sex trafficking.

In February 2003, WATA co-sponsored a World Summit with the U.S. Department of State, which brought together non-government and government leaders from 114 nations, all demonstrating a sustained commitment to prosecuting trafficking, providing assistance to victims, and building regional strategies to protect the vulnerable from the sex trade.

In 2005, WATA was invited to participate, along with UNIFEM, in the first ASEAN conference to address child sex tourism in East and Southeast Asia.

With a grant from the U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Smith and her team have worked in the field conducting research in Jamaica, the Netherlands, Japan, and the United States in order to reveal the sophisticated business model behind sex trafficking, exposing the buyers who increase demand and the traffickers who supply the victims.

This extensive research led to SHI's release of the DEMAND.

report and documentary in 2007.