Believe it or not, there’s a primary election ahead. The biggest decisions come in November, but in the ballots mailed this week and due by Aug. 7, two large levy measures will be decided, and the top two candidates for the fall ballot will be chosen from crowded fields in several key state and Congressional races.
This time around, I want to look at the ballot measures and Congressional races. Then, in my next column, I’ll examine some of the surprising number of open state legislative seats this year — most of which are highly competitive and feature several candidates.
U.S. representatives
With new congressional district boundaries, parts of four different districts now lie in King County.
District 1, Jay Inslee’s old district, lost Seattle’s far north end but winds from Kirkland and Redmond to the Canadian border.
District 7, Jim McDermott’s turf, remains mostly in Seattle.
District 8, on the Eastside, lost Kirkland and Redmond but added Ellensburg.
And Adam Smith’s District 9 now includes much of South King County.
Three of these races are worth commenting on here, but the only one with major implications is District 1, where a crowded field is contesting a rare open seat in a true swing district. Both parties will pour tons of national money into this race, especially the Republicans, for whom this is a rare chance nationally to pick up a congressional seat.
Only one Republican, Tea Party favorite John Koster, is running; he’ll easily advance to November. Three Democrats have the best shot at joining Koster: Darcy Burner, Suzan DelBene and former state Rep. Laura Ruderman.
(Full disclosure: Burner is both a personal friend and a business colleague, though I’m not involved in her campaign. That said, she’s also the best choice of the three leading Democrats: the most progressive, the most experienced campaigner, the most grassroots support and the most experience on both the issues and how Congress works. She’d be formidable.)
DelBene has the support of the state’s Democratic Party leadership and her personal wealth. She’s strong on some issues but is by far the most centrist and corporate-friendly of the candidates.
Ruderman is better on issues but hasn’t been able to keep up with Burner’s or DelBene’s fund-raising — she’d get swamped in November.
Likely to advance: Darcy Burner.
In the District 7 race, Jim McDermott will coast to reelection, but Andrew Hughes is running a strong, independent campaign and deserves your support to light a well-needed fire under McDermott’s complacent seat.
The big story in this year’s redistricting was that District 9 became the state’s first majority-minority district. It’s a shame, then, that incumbent Adam Smith is a corporate-centrist Democrat and middle-aged, white guy whose time in D.C. has included almost no attention to the concerns of his new constituents.
What he did do, recently, was introduce and successfully push for a bill that made it legal for the U.S. government to propagandize its own citizens.
Smith will coast against his four opponents (two Republicans, a Democrat and a Lyndon LaRouchite), but the best choice is fellow Democrat Tom Cramer.
Ballot measures
Seattle Proposition No. 1 — Renewal of the Seattle Public Library levy would raise $122 million over seven years for this most essential public resource. My vote: Yes.
King County Proposition No. 1 — The Children & Family Services Center capital levy would increase King County property taxes by 7 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation in 2013 and then an undetermined (but not likely to be smaller) amount in the next eight years, to replace the county’s Orwellianly named Children & Family Justice Center.
Sounds like a nice, helping place for kids, doesn’t it? The real story is that the county wants a new juvie jail. Every other service here can go in any office building in the city.
Here’s an idea: Why not legalize pot in November, stop locking kids up for drug use when what they need is health care or a parent who cares and divert other nonviolent offenders into community service or education programs? Voila! You’ve relieved overcrowding, and you can rehab what’s wrong with the old center (e.g., the decrepit plumbing and electrical systems) for a fraction of the cost of a new building.
Nah. They’d rather lock more kids up and, in the process, needlessly ruin some of them for life. It’s easier and, for some people, more profitable.
Most of the public opposition to this levy has been the predictable any-tax-is-a-bad-tax crowd, but what we really ought to focus on here is promoting efforts to fix our broken juvenile justice system — not simply shovel more money into the same, old paradigms.
The county, to its credit, has some good and innovative programs for troubled kids, but not nearly enough. The same, old paradigms aren’t working.
My vote: No.
GEOV PARRISH is cofounder of Eat the State! He also reviews news of the week on “Mind Over Matters” on KEXP 90.3 FM.
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