La Follette won election to the 38th district in the California State Assembly, succeeding fellow Republican Paul V. Priolo.
La Follette left the Assembly in 1990 to care for her ailing husband John Travis and endorsed her top aide, 24-year-old Rob Wilcox for the Republican nomination.
John Travis died in 1990 and she returned to public life in 1992, moving to Thousand Oaks to run for state senate.
Davis, a former Los Angeles Police Chief, didn't much like the declared candidate for the seat, state assemblywoman Cathie Wright (whom he dubbed "The peroxide princess of Simi Valley"),[3] so he openly recruited La Follette to run in the GOP primary (a decision Wright said was "out of spite").
In the mid-1990s, La Follette ran an inn in Downieville, California, which she credited with saving her life following her husband John Travis's death.