Selected in April 2012 by Republicans in House District 13 as their first choice to fill the House Seat left vacant by the death of Rep. Carl Gatto (R-Palmer). Selected as one of 15 aspiring conservative policy leaders nationally in 2010-2011 to join Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell in being named an Abraham Lincoln Fellow by the Claremont Institute for Statesmanship and Political Philosophy.[3]