Sorry for interrupting your longform protest for racial justice, your eternal hunt for instant yeast, your guiltless Netflix binge, your Animal Crossing zen hour, your YouTube exercise video, your deeply unsatisfying Zoom party, your longstanding date with the unemployment officeâs hold music, and the private simmering existential panic youâve valiantly kept hidden just below the surface since early March.
But there is a major primary election on August 4. We need to make some decisions about who is going to lead us out of this howling pit of despair and tragedy. And do you realize how many fucking boring meetings with politicians we sat through so you didnât have to?
We thought getting tear-gassed for a week in our own offices was bad, but it pales in comparison to a month of Zoom calls with mendacious COVID-truthers and mealymouthed incumbents. After a few days, we had to start taking bong rips of tear gas between meetings to just feel alive.
We endured these trials and subsequent gastrointestinal catastrophes for youâour responsibly quarantined, dutifully masked, frantically masturbating readershipâand for the fate of our over-policed, unemployed, virus-ridden state, which is slip-ânâ-sliding into a Second Great Depression as our malignant President plays golf from the safety of his bunker.
Weâll deal with that asshole in November, but right now we gotta focus on cleaning up our own house. In addition to nearly every seat in the state legislature, this year we will elect all of our statewide executive positions, all ten of our seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and gobs of judicial positions. Broadly, the choices are progressive taxation or barbaric austerity. Police reform or gas for kidz. Governor Jay Inslee or literally the most embarrassing collection of Republican grifters the SECB has ever seen.
You will be getting your primary ballot in the mail any moment, and it is due on August 4. The top two candidates in each race advance to Novemberâs general election.
As always, the Stranger Election Control Board is here to make things easy. So wash your hands, mask up, grab your ballot out of the mailbox, find a black pen, load your bong with your less-lethal chemical agent of choice, and read every single one of our lovingly researched but scornfully written endorsements below so you donât sound like a fucking rube at your next socially distant Dungeons and Dragons tournament and/or orgy.
The Stranger Election Control Board is Matt Baume, Chase Burns, Christopher Frizzelle, Nathalie Graham, Jasmyne Keimig, Charles Mudede, a retired CHOP guard who gives his name as âBlade," and Rich Smith. The Stranger does not endorse in uncontested racesâwhich, for this primary election, means races with two or fewer people in them. We also donât endorse in races we totally forgot about because of tear-gas poisoning.
United States Representative
Congressional District No. 1
Suzan DelBene represents about a third of King County in the US House of Representatives (but only the boring parts, like Kirkland and Bothell) and then lots of snowy, rural communities all the way up to the Canadian border.
Even though sheâs wishy-washy about some issues SECB very much cares about (defunding police, decriminalizing sex work, and the Green New Deal), she is also a Democrat whoâs figured out a way to hold a district filled with fuckwits wearing MAGA hats around the house.
The SECB endorsed DelBene in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018, and every single time we complained about her dullness, once calling her the human equivalent of a shrug emoji. But guess what? The people running against herâall menâare two Republicans (fuuuuck off), a libertarian (hell no), a businessman in the mining industry (lol), and a Mormon who does not have a political party. Weâd rather endorse anal beads dipped in Pop Rocks dipped in COVID than any of those guys, so DelBene it is!
Besides, even though sheâs not a progressive heroâshe voted for Joe Biden in the primaryâshe actually gives a shit about things like reducing child poverty, expanding affordable housing, funding mental health services more fully, and protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination. Vote DelBene.
United States Representative
Congressional District No. 7
Almost four years ago, Pramila Jayapal won the seat in Congress vacated by Jim McDermott, who retired from politics. And so sheâs spent her time in the House of Representatives entirely in the shadow of a White House run by someone who thinks we should inject ourselves with bleach to protect from COVID. After you, Mister President!
Jayapal hopes when she is reelected in 2020 that Trump will officially become a thing of the past. But even if this happens, which seems likely, she wants the leader of her party, Joe Biden, to stick to a clear leftist agenda. âItâs the only way we can prevent another Trump from happening,â said Jayapal. âI told Biden that it was centrist politics that made Trump possible, and centrist politics will only bring him or someone like him back into power.â
On the political spectrum, Jayapal stands close to Bernie Sanders. And her record in office is pretty consistent with that position. She has fought for the deep reduction of student debt, and for free tuition for working families. She has pushed for legislation that addresses the environmental crisis, which has not taken a break because of the pandemic. She also wrote the damn House version of Medicare for All. But at the moment, her focus has been protecting people from the economic crash caused by the pandemic and Trumpâs deranged mismanagement of it.
This is the core of her famous proposal, the Paycheck Recovery Act: to keep people working and insured. The act has received national attention because the US does not have a structurally deep plan to deal with the social consequences of the pandemic.
Interesting detail about her office: In her first term, she has responded to over 300,000 emails and letters from constituents. Jayapal said, âThatâs impressive, right?â Yes, it is Congresswoman. Keep up the good work. Vote Jayapal.
United States Representative
Congressional District No. 9
Adam Smith is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, so naturally we started off our meeting by talking about what a fraud and a turd Trump is.
That took a little while, and then the subject turned to Smithâs record. Smith negotiated the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which shamefully did not include a one-year ban on arms sales to Saudi Arabia. But it did include âthe largest social welfare increase since the Affordable Care Act,â Smith said, âand that would not have happened if I had not been chairman of the Armed Services Committee.â The big thing in that legislation was paid parental leave for all federal employees, but there were also hundreds of other things, like fixing a problem with benefits for widows and widowers, giving service members the ability to sue for medical malpractice, sending $10 million in aid to Puerto Rico, and more.
His priorities if heâs given another term? âWe desperately need to update, upgrade, and improve the Affordable Care Act to get better health care to people,â he said. He also talked about comprehensive immigration reform, fixing âglaring holesâ in gun laws around background checks, systemic racism in law enforcement (âWe have got to totally reexamine the way we do law enforcementâ), equality in general (âI have always been very vocal about the fact that our society is fundamentally racist and fundamentally sexistâ), climate change (he has signed on to the Green New Deal), and progressive taxation (heâs âexcited about the tax that Seattle just passed, because I really believe that a huge part of the problem in our country right now is the concentration of wealthâ). This oneâs easy, mostly because no one is running to the left of him this time. Vote Smith.
United States Representative
Congressional District No.10
We are not sending anyone to Congress from a reliably blue district who does not unequivocally support Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. The only person who fits that criteria in this raceâand who actually showed up to our fucking meetingâis Beth Doglio, the two-term House Rep from Olympia.
As the founding executive director of the Washington Conservation Voters, Doglio has been fighting for the environment since the early 1990s, and sheâs gotten results. She stood up to the coal industry as regional director of the Power Past Coal campaign, which stopped seven export facility proposals dead in their tracks. Sheâs taken on the chemical industry and won, and sheâs organized with NARAL.
In the House, she was an early supporter of the successful I-940 campaign, she proposed a couple decent housing bills and got one passed, and she sponsored a bill to tax big businesses based on the wealth gap within their own companies. She cites Rep. Pramila Jayapal as the model for how sheâll run her own office if she gets to Congress, and that combined-sewer overflow of spineless dorks could certainly use another organizer-representative like Jayapal.
Former State House Rep. Kristine Reeves, who is also in this race, blamed former House Speaker Frank Chopp for all the bad votes she took in the legislature, which didnât exactly inspire confidence. And the reasoning Reeves gave for her bad vote against modest eviction reforms, which Chopp said he didnât tell her to take, was complete and utter bullshit.
Some of us were sort of rooting for Joshua Collins, a 26-year-old socialist trucker who got into this race early and raised an impressive amount of money on Twitter, TikTok, and Discord, but he didnât show up to our meeting after saying he would. Plus, his campaign is a messâthe Thurston County Democrats accused him and his campaign staff of violating âfair campaign practicesâ by making false accusations and harassing their members online. Plus, he implied on Facebook that Bernie Sanders got the idea to cancel all medical debt from him. Uh huh. Vote Doglio.
Governor
Okay, so letâs see, our choices for the highest executive position in the state are Tim Eyman, an alleged chair thief liberator of discount office furniture who wants to take away trains and busses; Loren Culp, a small-town police chief who promised not to enforce voter-approved gun safety laws and who was âaccused in a lawsuit of botching a child sexual-abuse investigation and intimidating the victim with threats of a false-claims charge," according to the Seattle Times; Joshua Freed, a churchy anti-vaxxer that newspaper called a âmagnet for controversyâ; Goodspaceguy and literally 31 other people who are self-evidently bonkers or who have no chance; or our current two-term Governor who spends most of his political capital trying to tackle the largest and most pressing existential threat to humanity.
Uh, weâre going with mountain zaddy and half-decent whistler Jay Inslee. Yes, heâs basically a standard-issue corporate Democrat who once delivered Boeing the largest tax break in U.S. history, who actually thinks we may not need new progressive taxes that we definitely need to fill our $9 billion budget hole, who dismissed riot gear as âshin guardsâ in our meeting, who voted for Joe Biden in the presidential primary, who approved COVID-19 guidance for farmworkers that doesnât go anywhere near far enough to protect them from the outbreaks theyâre already enduring, etc., etc., etc., we really could go on. But, aside from caving too often to industry concerns, he has done a good job steering the state through the pandemic. And if he gets a few more Democratic Senators who are serious about climate change, he promises âreally, really good things are going to happenâ on that rapidly melting front. Vote Inslee.
Lieutenant Governor
Sen. Marko Liias bills himself as the progressive in this race. And he is. But mostly because the other options are a handful of washed up Republicans and retiring U.S. House Rep. Denny Heck.
During his time in the Senate, Liias floated a bad car tab fix, voted along with the rest of his colleagues to create a giant premium tax loophole for big business, and sponsored a bill to enrich predatory payday lenders. But we forgive him these trespasses, as heâs since offered reasonable replies/excuses/apologies. And heâs done some great stuff, too. He created real and lasting structural change for the LGBTQ community by helping to draft the LGBTQ Commission legislation, he supported good health care bills, and he promises to throw his weight around to FINALLY pass the clean fuel standard and a state-based or regional single-payer bill.
He also pinned a recipe for a Doritos casserole to his Pinterest board, and thatâs exactly the kind of apocalyptic party snacking energy the SECB expects to see in our leaders. Most importantly, as the Senate floor leader for the last three sessions, Liias knows parliamentary procedure inside and out, and he wipes the floor with GOP knuckle-draggers when they start spewing bigoted bile during debates.
Meanwhile, Heck was going to retire from politics to spend more time writing novels full of steamy sex scenes until outgoing Lt. Gov. Cyrus Habib vacated his seat to join the cloth. We donât want someone whoâs going to treat the office like a gig as a Wal-Mart greeter. And we definitely donât want someone who wouldnât say if he supported just-cause legislation, who thinks cops can be hate-crimed, and whose primary ambition is to be a steadfast champion of âcivility.â
To quote Liias, âCivility is the way the white power structure prevents change. I donât think we should be uncivil, but I donât think that placing civility as one of our top goals is going to help us make bold change.â Neither do we, motherfuckers!!! This will be an uphill battle for Liias. Heck has more name recognition, and the last time Liias ran for statewide office he didnât even make it through the primary. This time, he will. But only if you do what we say. Which you should. Vote Liias.
Secretary of State
Washington needs a Secretary of State who will keep our elections fair, accurate, and free from shadowy networks of hackers with admittedly cool handles. But we also deserve someone willing to defend our voting system against attacks from our very own President, and someone who will campaign hard to continue expanding voting rights in Washington. Rep. Gael Tarleton is the only candidate in this race who will do both.
Tarleton worked as a senior defense analyst for the Pentagon. She brought that knowledge to bear as Majority Floor Leader in the House, where she passed laws to beef up cybersecurity in our elections, improve voter outreach and education, and expand voter access across the state. She has no experience administering elections, but sheâs written the damn bills on elections, and sheâs fired up about defending democracy.
In her two terms as Secretary of State and in her 12 years as Thurston County Auditor, incumbent Kim Wyman has directed over 100 elections. Despite all that experience, her implementation of the stateâs electronic filing and voter registration system has been a fucking shitshow. According to the Seattle Times, some of the systemâs issues were âso troublingâ they prompted King County officials to âuse parts of King Countyâs existing systemâ to run last yearâs August primary. Wyman waved away the issues as minor glitchesâbut they werenât.
Like nearly every other Republican with a college degree, she actively distances herself from Donald Trump, selling herself as a nonpartisan actor who wants to keep the office politically neutral. She wouldnât vote in the last presidential primary or explicitly condemn the Presidentâs recent attacks on the voting system she oversees for that very reason, and said she doesnât âweigh inâ on âsocial issues.â
But thatâs horseshit. She was happy to oppose the âsocial issueâ of extending local voting rights to noncitizens (as was Tarleton, for that matter) in our meeting, and happy to oppose the Washington Voting Rights Act in 2012. And though she says she didnât use her clout as a Secretary of State to testify against H.R. 1âa bill proposed by House Democrats that would expand voter registration, limit voter purges, and end partisan gerrymanderingâshe and the other Republican Secretaries of State signed a letter to U.S. House leaders in March of 2019 expressing their âdeep concern over, and opposition to, HR 1.â Signing a partisan letter opposing a voting rights bill isnât merely âdescribing our experience in Washington,â Kim. We may be doing bong rips of tear gas, but weâre not morons. Vote Tarleton.
State Auditor
With COVID-19 drilling holes in state budgets, with the entire Employment Securities Department basically up in flames, and with more investigations likely coming down the pike in the wake of the stateâs response to the pandemic, thereâs only one person we can depend onâthatâs right, the fucking State Auditor. And we want that State Auditor to be Pat McCarthy.
This unglamorous, pencil-pushing position is about as stale as youâd expect, but, boy did we have a lively endorsement head-to-head with McCarthy, who is the incumbent, and Joshua Casey, the King of People Who Refer to Themselves as CPAs (not his official title, but maybe it should be). Caseyâs main position is that a CPA should be in charge of the auditorâs department. McCarthy said that you donât have to be a CPA to run the office. Casey bit back, saying he was sure that McCarthy was ârolling in comptrollers.â Weâre guessing thatâs a go-for-the-throat insult in the auditing world.
McCarthy has been at the helm of the auditorâs department since 2017, and, as far as we can tell, sheâs doing a perfectly fine job. McCarthy was the first woman to fill the role, sheâs had a lifetime of public service, and sheâs currently leading the audit of ESDâs benefit delivery processes, paying special attention to that little detail about getting plundered by a Nigerian fraud ring.
She does have plenty of room to grow, though. Her biggest boast about her time in office was modernizing the auditorâs website, and she answered a question about equitable hiring practices in her department by saying they had âyoung, diverse, and olderâ people. But weâre sticking with Pat. Especially since Casey scoffed at the retainment rate in the auditorâs office by saying a $62,000 annual salary is pennies for a CPA. Read the room, Joshua; weâre journalists! Vote Pat.
Attorney General
Bob Fergusonâs office fights for just about every issue that matters with the casual intensity of a chessmaster in the middle of an 18-person simul, and we cannot get enough of it. Whether itâs lawsuits over nondiscrimination, gun safety, immigration rights, campaign transparency, environmental protections, or the Trump administrationâs batshit executive orders, heâs fighting and heâs winning. (He also sued Comcast, fulfilling the fantasies of anyone who has ever had to interact with that company.)
Sure, heâs not as radical as some might want, telling The Stranger that he supports a âreimaginingâ of police budgets rather than massively defunding them. But heâs also âopenâ to the decriminalization of sex work, which is a lot better than youâre likely to hear from his competitors.
Republican opponent Matt Larkin opposes safe injection sites and says the stateâs coronavirus response was too aggressive. Another candidate, Brett Rogers, a lawyer for the Seattle Police, opposes gun control and says the state AG shouldnât enforce consumer protections when businesses turn away queer customers. Donât vote for those assholes.
If Ferguson wins re-election, he says he plans to tackle opioid abuse, and to expand litigation around civil rights and environmental issues. Given his track record of wins, Washington is in good hands with him continuing that work. Vote Ferguson.
Commissioner of Public Lands
We stan Hilary Franz. With a background in environmental justice, Franz has been taking the Department of Natural Resources to new heights since her election win in 2016, and when you speak to her itâs clear that sheâs a huge nerd for the kind of nitty-gritty policy minutiae that would put lesser leaders to sleep.
Just a fleeting mention of salmon, firefighting, and invasive ghost shrimp is enough to get her talking a mile a minute about her officeâs work to literally save the planet. And she puts her money where her mouth is when it comes to supporting tribal access to land, improving wages for inmates who fight wildfires, and installing wind and solar fields to transition Washington to 100 percent clean energy. Meanwhile, her only Democratic opponent has a campaign website that is just a WordPress blog that he hasnât gotten around to filling out yet; her other opponents are Republican and a Libertarian blowhard. Vote Franz.
Insurance Commissioner
Mike Kreidler has served as the insurance commissioner since 2000, and the SECB wants him to continue serving for a number of reasons, one of which is the key role he played in ending âsurprise billingâ in the State of Washington.
This devious practice, which is backed by private equity firms, is when a hospital hides from the insured patient the actual status of their health providers. You think everything is covered, but thenâsurprise! You get a bill you did not expect from such-and-such a doctor who is not a part of the hospital you are covered for. âThe bill often runs into the thousands,â explains Kreidler, âand it puts the customer at the center of the billing process, when it really should be a matter between the hospital and the insurance company.â
The next thing Kreidler is working on is the credit score scam. Since around 2000, insurance companies have used credit scores to determine the cost of a plan. If your credit is bad, you pay more. âI have fought against this since entering office,â explained Kreidler. He wants to bring an end to it because it unfairly impacts the poor, a large number of whom are Black. âSo, there are cases where a person with a DUI on their record is paying less for car insurance than a person with a bad credit rating,â says Kreidler, who sees this as a form of structural racism.
âYes, the companies are not looking at color,â says Kreidler, âthey are using an algorithm. An algorithm sees no color, they say. But for historical reasons, Blacks are overrepresented in poverty. And so, they will end up paying more for car insurance.â Kreidler also points out that in this period of the pandemic, a period when many are unemployed, credit scores will only get worse, and this will only make life harder for those already in a hard position. Vote Kreidler
Superintendent of Public Schools
Chris Reykdal, the current Superintendent of Public Education, needs to keep his job. In the face of COVID-19, Reykdal has been responsibly closing schools, navigating remote learning when 735,000 Washingtonians donât have internet access, providing meals for the kids who relied on school for getting fed, and much more.
Reykdal does not have an easy job ahead of him this year, especially as it becomes clearer and clearer that opening schools might be a big fucking mess. Despite what Trump has said around opening schools completely, Reykdal has acknowledged that school wonât happen this year without some form of remote learning. Reykdal told the SECB heâd love to see the internet as a public utility, and that universal connectivity is âfundamentalâ to learning.
Aside from excelling at the job in the last few months, heâs running against some absolute bozos. The only other candidate who responded to our endorsement Zoom call (the event of the season, ask anyone) was David Spring, a so-called âProgressiveâ who only showed up to tell us that the coronavirus was fake, to yell about the comprehensive sexual health education bill that passed in the legislature last session, and to pitch his book. Spring doesnât want kindergartners learning the kama sutra, which is all well and good since the sex ed bill that Reykdal spearheaded doesnât do that! Reykdal said that itâs not okay that some people âwant to live in the darkâ on sex ed, and heâs right.
Reykdal is also fully aware of the racial inequities within the Washington school system. He and his staff are committed to anti-racist work, and theyâre looking into fixing policies that create equity gaps. Weâll be watching. Vote Reykdal.
Legislative District No. 11
Representative Position No. 1
For 18 years, one of the most diverse districts in the state has been represented by Zack Hudgins, a white, incrementalist Democrat who insists on spelling his first name with a âk" instead of an âh.â Hudgins is also a landlord who has racked up four violations and five complaints from Seattle, including one 2017 violation of the cityâs just cause ordinance.
Though he has pushed for some good bills in his day, his recent accomplishments include voting against modest eviction reforms (shocker!) that passed anyway, and stopping Senate Democrats from passing a bad data privacy bill, which was honestly a low-key big deal. Hudgins now says he âprobablyâ should have amended the eviction reform bill rather than vote against it, but he was too busy âfighting the biggest tech companiesâ on the privacy bill to pay attention to one of the biggest issues in his district. But if Hudgins really is such a wiz legislator, he wouldâve just amended the bill in the first place.
Hudgins also credits his, uh, âsuccessâ this cycle with his ability to âbring Republicans along,â and adds that his own âmid-western white boyâŚgood mannersâ prevent him from standing on the table and truly championing progressive legislation. A couple things: (1) Um, what? (2) How many times do we have to say this? Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the Governorâs mansion. Itâs BEEN time to USE the LARGE majority instead of wasting time watering down bills on the off chance a Republican decides to co-sponsor some fucking task force. GOD. DAMN IT.
Luckily for the people of South Seattle, David Hackney plans to actually use the large majority Democrats already have to get shit done. Hackney is a former federal prosecutor who most recently took a job in HR at Amazon investigating discrimination/harassment claims, but he says he didnât like the vibe and left. Heâs never been elected, but he has worked on Jessyn Farrellâs campaigns, the campaign to repeal the ban on affirmative action, and the gun safety initiative.
He promises to champion tenant protections (including just cause and rent stabilization measures), single-payer health care, police reforms, and criminal justice reforms, and he vows to bring the energy of an organizer to this office. Weâre not particularly pumped about backing a prosecutor, but Hackney says heâll use his knowledge of the system to fix it by advocating for independent investigations and independent authorities to prosecute cops who kill. Vote Hackney.
Legislative District No. 30
Representative Position No. 1
Jamila Taylor is an attorney who has done a lot of work on domestic violence and criminal justice issues, and who has clearly memorized the list of talking points that someone has passed around to every single first-time candidate running for the legislature on the Democratic ticket. While she didnât exactly bowl us over with her original public policy ideas, sheâs an experienced nonprofit leader, a caregiver, and a renter who has been gouged for years like the rest of usâso sheâs lived the issues weâre sending her to Olympia to fix. We also know we donât want her competition, Cheryl Hurst, anywhere near a political office. Hurst is an iPad mom with a Karen haircut who took a church group crash course on how to solve homelessness. She said the fear of walking through the woods near her house prompted her to buy a gunâŚto shoot trees, we guess? Weâre not sure. At one point she referenced the kings of Iraq, and the SECB was trying so hard not to laugh during our Zoom call that we blocked the whole thing out.
Taylor, at least, is in favor of progressive taxation. Hurst prefers cuts. From where? Great question. She suggested âmaybe itâs management we take out.â Okay, Cheryl, why donât you just fire the âmanagersâ of the government. The rest of us will vote Taylor.
Legislative District No. 30
Representative Position No. 2
Thereâs really only one option in this race, and itâs Jesse Johnson. Earlier this year, the King County and Pierce County councils appointed the former Federal Way City Council member to fill this seat. Though the short session was a manic whirlwind, Johnson lost no time passing bills to expand access to dental care and mental health services and to establish an environmental education program in high schools across the state. If reelected, he plans to continue focusing on health care, education, affordable housing, and supporting small businessesâall good things!
Johnson also stepped up to serve on the Black Caucus, where he tells us he wants to continue to work with other members to push for police reform (though he does not support defunding the police, womp womp). As for his opponents? One is perennial candidate Mark Greene, who refers to Olympia as âPotemkin Village,â and who may have been catfished during his last race; another is a Mormon ice cream shop owner-cum-partypooper who campaigned to keep legal retail pot shops out of Federal Way; and the otherâs last name looks like a typo. Vote Johnson.
Legislative District No. 32
Representative Position No. 1
We ended our meeting with Cindy Ryu wishing we could go to a Thanksgiving dinner with her. Sheâs frank in a way that other legislators are not.
Ryu is down with progressive taxes, but she canât commit (though we wish she would) to standing on a table and championing any of themââI have acrophobia,â she joked, âIâll fall off.â Nah, but really, she says she supports a capital gains tax, but argues that it wonât help in the short-term, so lawmakers will have to fill the gaping budget hole with regressive taxes and fees for the time being. We didnât love to hear it, but we appreciated the candor.
In better news, Ryuâs record on police reform is solid. She fought for I-940, she was part of the leadership on establishing a joint legislative task force on community policing standards, and weâre confident sheâs got more stuff up her sleeves the cops will not like very much!
Ryu is also decent on housingâsheâs up for density and for tackling single-family zoning, sheâs on board with just cause protections for renters (but not quite rent control, she is a commercial landlord, after all), and she wants to fight for home-grown pot.
Her opponent, Keith Smith, has run against Ryu three timesâonce as an independent, once as a centrist, and now, it seems, as a progressive. Apart from his rapid, um, evolution as a political thinker, heâs so used to running against Ryu that he felt comfortable wearing an Aeropostale t-shirt to the SECB meeting. We donât know which sin is worse. Vote Ryu.
Legislative District No. 32
Representative Position No. 2
Lauren Davis spent her first term in the Legislature sponsoring good bills that touched on reforming the criminal legal system, mental health, treatment and recovery, domestic violence, safety, and health care. Davis has another laundry list of shit to do next term, so weâve got to keep her there. Sheâs down with a capital gains tax, and will commit to voting for one. Sheâd be in favor of an income tax but doesnât see a path forward there. She wants to plug budget holes by passing legislation that would close the tax preference for the opioid industry and by adding an opioid impact fee, which sounds good. Tamra Smilanich is a ânon partisan partyâ candidate who wants to âavoid a state income tax,â and Grey Petersenâs heart is in the right place, but he has no experience. None for us, thanks! Vote Davis.
Legislative District No. 36
Representative Position No. 2
Here we have a choice between Sarah Reyneveld, an assistant attorney general; Liz Berry, a lobbyist who runs the trial lawyerâs association; and Jeffrey M. Cohen, a cheery pile of protein powder who holds progressive views but says his favorite book is Atlas Shrugged. (Our guess is he stopped reading after college.)
All three promised to fight for progressive taxation, vote for meaningful climate change legislation, defund police, help end cash bail, back the right housing bills, and increase tenant protections. Most importantly, they all agreed to name and shame Democratic colleagues who donât support all of that. But Berryâs commitment to lead on gun safety legislation stood out, and she was the only candidate who said she wouldnât respond to the massive statewide budget crisis by voting to impose austerity measures next session.
Unfortunately, we only learned that bit of information after our endorsement meeting, when Reyneveld told the Seattle Times Editorial Board that âessential services...must be preserved even if that means some nonessential state employees are let go,â as the Times put it. She characterized her position on cuts a little differently in our meeting. âWe canât make the mistakes of austerity,â she said. Cutting public sector jobs is making the mistakes of austerity. And even though most of these Democrats are going to end up folding and voting for cuts anyway, we trust Berry to hold the line. Vote Berry.
Legislative District No. 37
Representative Position No. 1
Ugh. UGH. Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. John Stafford is a white, bellicose political hobbyist and Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos is an absolute incrementalist who has done very little with the power sheâs accrued over the last 20 years. What horrible choices. Weâre voting for Santos because, well... hold on, let us check our notes... mostly because sheâs not a huge windbag.
The 37th district, the most diverse in the state, deserves a representative whoâs actually going to do something, and for that representative not to be Stafford. Still, Santos is middling on police reform, she defended her vote for a predatory payday lending bill as if it was good for people of color, and she openly admits to knowing jack about climate change. When we asked about her accomplishments last session, she pointed to some workgroups.
She has taken some good votes over the years, though. She refused to vote for the big Boeing tax break, she ultimately voted for a comprehensive sexual health bill this year (despite some setbacks we blamed her for last year), and sheâs sponsored bills to help ex-cons reintegrate into societyâeven if she canât remember them. And no one in Olympia should be subjected to Staffordâs tedious tirades. Vote Santos.
Legislative District No. 37
Representative Position No. 2
Kirsten Harris-Talley is the real deal. Sheâs the whole package. You may remember good olâ KHT from when she filled in at the Seattle City Council during the budget process after Mayor Ed Murray resigned in disgrace. She was a progressive force in that process, directing more than $400,000 toward human services. She also bravely re-introduced the head tax, which would have helped pay for housing.
Chukundi Salisbury is the other major candidate in this race. Heâs an Environmental Engagement Manager at Seattle Parks and Recreation, a DJ, and a prominent member of the district he aims to serve in the Legislature. As much as we loved Salisbury, we are confident KHT will be more effective in the position. She knows the ins and outs of Olympia, she knows the right lawmakers to talk to, she knows the commissions to work on, and she just knows...everything. There was not one issue we raised that she hadn't already considered in a million different ways.
Harris-Talley supports a capital gains tax, an income tax, and sheâs passionate about addressing the air quality inequity that constituents in her district face. Salisbury also supports these measures, but Harris-Talley spoke about what she would do in specific detail--get the HEAL Act passed, support a carbon tax and a clean fuel standard, invest in transitâŚand she called Tim Eyman âthis fuckinâ guyâ in the process). Salisbury is also more conservative on tenant issues, and he thinks that you can gouge rents in a patchwork fashion on high-income neighborhoods. How about just no gouging anywhere? Vote Harris-Talley.
Legislative District No. 41
Representative Position No. 2
Rep. My-Linh Thai is a trained pharmacist, a Vietnamese refugee, and a pragmatic leftist. When asked if she supported free transit for all, she said sheâd rather build a more robust transit system statewide before we started talking about making it free. Kind of a false choice, but weâll take it, especially from someone with the unenviable task of representing Mercer Island. Woof.
Anyway, Thaiâs wheelhouse is education. In her first term, she sponsored a bill to mandate 20-minute, sit-down school lunches statewide because we live in a barbaric state of madness where some schools donât guarantee 20 minutes for a kid to sit down and have a goddamned lunch. A few Senate Democrats resisted *cough* Palumbo, Mullet *cough* and now all we have is a study to determine whether or not 20-minute lunches are a good idea.
But Thai wants to push toward implementation after the study is done, plus get cops out of schools and get the state to fund rooms near schools where homeless kids can crash. Her opponent is an âindependentâ Issaquah school board member and emergency room physician who makes specious arguments to justify his burning desire to relax social distancing guidelines to get kids in school faster.
So, vote Thai.
Legislative District No. 43
Representative Position No. 1
Washington state renters have few allies like two-term incumbent Rep. Nicole Macri, who has repeatedly introduced bills to repeal our statewide ban on rent control. Those bills havenât passed because âseveralâ of Macriâs colleaguesââmostly Republicans but also Democratsââare grimy ass landlords.
Despite these landholding numbnuts, Macri frequently corrals Dems into supporting her agenda. Perhaps Macriâs ability to unify electeds is whatâs stopping significant challengers from entering this race. Sheâs facing off against a rando Republican who says heâs running to give Republicans âsomeone to vote for besides Donald Duck or Minnie Mouse,â and an independent who wants all issues in the House to be decided by a public vote from every single Washingtonian. Who has the time?
The only problem we currently have with Macri is that thereâs only one of her. Washington needs a statehouse full of Macris, but until we can get some undertaxed tech giant to make us a cloning machine, we suggest you reelect the one Macri we have. Vote Macri.
Legislative District No. 43
Representative Position No. 2
There is no way longtime former House Speaker Frank Chopp is going to lose this seat. This straight, white, cisgender mustache has been representing the queerest district in the state for 25 years now, and heâs just too well-connected, too well-funded, too powerful, and too mustachioed to go down.
But if thereâs anybody prepared to replace himâand to hold him accountable in the meantimeâitâs Sherae Lascelles. As Lascelles made clear more than once during our endorsement meeting, Democrats like Chopp talk about bringing marginalized and vulnerable communities to âthe table,â but they so rarely get out of the way so that someone from those communities can run the fucking table.
âIâm told people who donât look like me know better how to represent me. Itâs gaslighting. Itâs a literal mindfuck,â Lascelles said. Lascelles has lived in teen homeless shelters east of the mountains, theyâve been through the foster care system, theyâve rented in Seattle as prices have skyrocketed, theyâve endured institutional racism and survived life as a sex worker. And in response, theyâve dedicated their career to reforming a system designed to jail or to kill them.
That work included founding two nonprofits focused on sex work: People of Color Sex Worker Outreach Program and Green Light Project, which built a hand sanitizer factory for sex workers during COVID and pushed the Seattle City Council to repeal its drug traffic and prostitution loitering laws. They want to take that success to the state level, where they support taxing the holy fuck out of the rich, investing massive dollars in housing, and ending the homelessness crisis.
During his eons in this seat, Chopp has consistentlyâto borrow a phrase from his fellow lawmakersââChoppedâ pieces of progressive legislation in order to build and preserve a majority that Democrats then refuse to use to its fullest extent. Now that heâs stepped down from his leadership role, Chopp says heâs free to dream big, but weâre not buying it.
His Public Priorities and Progressive Revenues Plan would only nearly patch our $9 billion budget hole, and it would do so with watered-down versions of taxes already proposed by other lawmakers. Though getting these taxes on the books and increasing them later is a nice thought, the fact is weâve been suffering through several major crises BEFORE the pandemic, and this incremental shit just doesnât cut it anymore. Choppâs business-friendly strategy has produced real results that have undoubtedly helped the people of his district and the state in generalâbut itâs far from enough, and his path forward is unacceptably slow. The 43rd deserves a representative who will fight for more.
Vote Lascelles.
Legislative District No. 45
Representative Position No. 2
Look, we donât love incumbent Larry Springer. Heâs been pretty blegh. Like when he voted against tenant protections or sponsored a bill to give a tax break to people selling private planes out of state. Seriously, Larry? A tax break for private planes??? Still, his competition is Amber Krabach, a QAnon Republican who keeps posting antifa conspiracies on her Facebook page, and who asked whether Washington was ready to apologize to Rep. Matt Shea yet. (Uh, no, Amber!) Springer has been the representative for the district for over a decade, and it looks like thatâs not going to change any time soon until someone in Kirkland gets their act together. Until then, vote Springer.
Legislative District No. 47
Representative Position No. 2
Republican challenger Ted Cook doesnât think trans people exist. Republican challenger Peter Thompson Jr. may be running a troll campaign, as he lists âpraying for the souls of roadkillâ as his community service in the voter guide. (He also promises to âcreate an Evergreen Grocery Card so every person gets three hundred dollars a month for unprocessed, unfertilized, unpoisoned food.â) And Republican challenger Joseph Cimaomo Jr is a Covington City Councilmember who calls himself âa follower of Christâ and a âbook worm [sic].â Maybe he can follow Christ right on over to the dictionary, where he will learn that bookworm is a fucking compound word.
Anyway! That leaves us with Democrat Pat Sullivan. At the beginning of the year, we were excited to learn that the moderate House Majority Leader nobly planned to retire, paving the way for the more progressive Kent City Councilmember Satwinder Kaur to run. Then COVID fucked the budget, and âa few people,â including House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, called Sullivan and asked him to come back. And so here he is.
Sullivan has negotiated the last 11 budgets in the legislature, starting all the way back with the grim ones passed during the last Great Recession. Sullivan says his experience will help âthe team get through this hard time,â and claims Democratic majorities will give him âthe ability to solve the problem without damaging the social safety net, or putting people who are already hurting in worse shape.â
He supports a capital gains tax and tentatively supports a wealth tax, though he says âthe devilâs in the detailsâ on that. He also promises to âlook at proposalsâ to cut the Washington State Patrol budget and the Department of Corrections budget, and says heâll stay away from cutting childcare assistance and welfare. Normally this is the time in the Sullivan endorsement when we yell at him for having a lifetime âAâ rating from the NRA, but the Alliance for Gun Responsibility gives him an A rating, too. Times really have changed, havenât they? Vote Sullivan.
Legislative District No. 48
Representative Position No. 1
Rep. Slatter is a clinical pharmacist and a reliable Democratic vote who sees bills as âsalmon swimming upstream, trying to spawn while avoiding predators.â She sees the legislature as the Seattle Seahawks, a team composed of different kinds of people with different strengths all working together to win the Super Bowl ofâŚ.yeah, we lost the thread, too.
Slatter uses A LOT of metaphors when she talks, but those metaphors have served her well in her efforts to passâŚsomewhat minor but useful laws. She reset Washingtonâs emissions limit for greenhouses gasses to the appropriate level, secured a dedicated funding source for telemedicine programs, improved the data we have on homeless youth, and limited the ability of universities to hold transcripts when students owe library fees, which, holy fuck, fuck right off, universities!
She claims sheâll support bills to demilitarize the police, tax the rich, and implement just cause eviction protections and rent stabilization measures. As a member of the Future of Work Task Force, she also says sheâs interested in looking at policies âinspired by Universal Basic Incomeâ to âgive people transitional dollars to help them get through different stages of their work life,â which is the kind of shit we needed to put in place yesterday. If we send Slatter back, hopefully she can get that football to the spawn hole, or whatever. Her opponent is an ancient Republican who ironically quotes Obama campaign slogans and describes himself as a âroads guy.â No thanks! Vote Slatter.
Legislative District No. 48
Representative Position No. 2
Some members of the SECB who grew up on the Eastside are deeply triggered by the word âKirkland,â as it evokes a sort of monied, liberal politics thatâs more interested in appearance than action.
Incumbent andâahemâformer Mayor of Kirkland Amy Walen doesnât do much to assuage those SECB membersâ anxiety. BUT, sheâs the wisest choice in this race full of losers, which includes a Democrat who describes himself as a âfiscal conservativeâ in 2020 A.D. Go fucking figure.
While Walen certainly isnât leading the charge on rent control (sheâs a landlord), or defunding the police (âI believe we should use resources differently than we do nowâ), she was part of the big push to pass the comprehensive sexual health education bill this year, which will help reduce our rising STI rates. She is also a strong advocate for gun and debt reform. In other words, the bare minimum. How suburban! Vote Walen.