From Braille to Yale.

• Author: Householder, Stacy
• Position: LEGISLATORS - Interview with Washington State legislator Cyrus Habib - Interview

When Cyrus Habib was elected to the Washington House in 2012, he became the first and only Iranian-American to hold an elected state office. But that's just a part of his story.

After two years in the Washington House, Cyrus Habib ran for the state Senate and won. This session, he served as Democratic Senate whip. But what led him to the Washington Capitol is not your average tale, nor was his path a well-traveled one.

Habib was born in Baltimore to immigrant parents who left Iran in the late '70s. He grew up in Bellevue, Washington, in the district he now serves. Habib received a bachelor's degree from Columbia, a master's from Oxford and a law degree from Yale. He is a Rhodes scholar, a Truman scholar and a Soros fellow. As a lawyer and professor he has focused on the application of technology to public policy.

Seattle magazine named him one of the "most influential" people in the greater Seattle area. The Washington Post named him one of its "40 Under 40" political rising stars in 2014. He holds a black belt in karate and plays jazz piano.

And, he has survived three bouts of cancer and lost his eyesight to the disease at age 8.

Here's the rest of his story in his own words.

State Legislatures: How has your experience fighting cancer and losing your eyesight shaped your perspective as a legislator?

Habib: In many ways, as I mature, I am more honest with myself about how these incidents in my childhood affected who I am. The fact that I lost my eyesight as a child and was able, as I like to say, to go from braille to Yale, allows me to understand how interdependent we are. The easiest thing in the world would be to say I did this all on my own. The only problem is I know that's not true.

It was because of the work that Democrats and Republicans had done together here in Washington state and in the U.S. that I was able to take advantage of great public schools, and gain access to braille and talking books, and learn how to use a cane, get on and off a bus, plan travel routes and get around the New York subway system when I went to college.

All these services--that the private sector was never really going to provide--didn't guarantee me an outcome, but guaranteed me opportunity. In many parts of the world, and even in some parts of this country, having cancer twice as a kid and then once later on and becoming blind at age 8 would relegate you to an institution or a life subsisting on charity.

Instead, I got an opportunity that allowed me not only to not need those social services, but actually to become a tax-paying contributor and help others get those...