Sheila Kuehl
When Kuehl was elected as a Democrat to the California Assembly in 1994 a Republican majority was seated for the first time in 20 years. This was due largely as an out-flowing of the enthusiasm stoked up by Newt Gingrich's strategy supporting Republicans for the Federal Legislature. Kuehl recalled "The Republican majority was quite a different kind of Republican, not a moderate, not a Rockefeller Republican. They were primarily Bible-thumpers and very right-wing. So it was not the most welcoming Republican group, though they loved Zelda Gilroy, and it was very difficult for them because they already liked me so much…. And to their surprise, we all got along very well. ...The Republicans were pretty horrible about LGBT stuff. They all virtually said stuff like, 'Well, they're all spawn of the devil, oh, but not you, Sheila….'"
Ron Heisler
Heisler describes himself as "becoming politicised" during the Suez Crisis of 1956 and became involved in the Young Socialists in Hackney Central in London where he was influenced by Robin Jamieson. He began to seriously collect political literature when he was 18 and says that he became obsessive about it, visiting all the left wing political bookshops of London. His collection relates to all forms of radical politics but is mainly related to left wing thought. It also is devoted at least 20% to socialism and the arts which Heisler says is poorly represented in other political collections, for instance he collected over 2,000 works of fiction related to politics and has also tried to collect works of working class poetry. He accumulated over 2,000 items about anarchism. His collecting expanded rapidly after he dropped out of active politics in the 1980s after he became disillusioned with the Labour Party politics of the time.