Don’t want to read? Skip to our Cheat Sheet! It’s that time of year again, time for a cabal of vulgar Marxists in a hot conference room on Capitol Hill to handpick the government. Just kidding. We fixed the AC in the conference room. Why go through the trouble of voting? A city council s eat in District 5 could undermine the moderate majority in what we predict will be their last year on the dais, the State Supreme Court is up for grabs, and the futures of tax reform and trans kids are on the ballot. Washington has the second most unequal tax structure of any state due to an insane State Supreme Court ruling from the Great Depression that makes taxing rich people’s income more than poor people’s illegal. Progressive legislators got organized enough to pass the Millionaires Tax as a test case to hopefully overturn that ruling, which is why the right has backed conservative candidates in the five races for State Supreme Court, and dumped millions into a ballot initiative to repeal this potentially transformative legislation. The other two initiatives are anti-trans and antigay nonsense, so you should vote against all three.  There’s also a possibility of flipping a few Republican state legislative seats this year, though not so much in deep-blue Greater Seattle, where it’s more important to replace moderate Democrats with progressives who aren’t afraid to tax the rich. (Read our full endorsements at TheStranger.com.) Based on our desire to support candidates who are actually capable of delivering progressive policy wins, the SECB took some flak in the primary for not endorsing two candidates Seattle’s mayor did, because apparently some people think we work for her (she would return our calls if we did). Upper management also coincidentally decided to let our editor-in-chief go right before we published primary endorsements, fanning the flames spread by rumormongers and spurned candidates that the paper’s owners interfered with endorsements. We heard many fanciful rumors about our bosses stopping the presses to replace our opinions with theirs. But that didn’t happen. We’ve also heard that the board has been stuffed with allegiants at the beck and call of our investors. As if. Our staff has a clause in our union contract to prevent interference in endorsements, and allowing the business side of the paper to interfere with editorial direction is a big ethical no-no in our profession that would’ve led several of us to resign in protest. As we’ve explained ad nauseam by now, the SECB endorsed incumbent Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen over first-time candidate Hannah Sabio-Howell because he’s quarterbacking the once-in-a-generation income tax reform fight and replacing him would also mean a more conservative Senate caucus. Washington’s conservatives think so, too, which is why they’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars opposing Pedersen’s reelection, and the whole race has become a referendum on progressive tax reform, whether you like it or not. Regardless of our actual logic, the SECB got tarred as compromised by corporate interests for this (no, we don’t get the logic either) as well as for not endorsing YIMBY tech bro Ron Davis, who didn’t have a backup plan for fumbling his interview with us. A tip for candidates seeking political office: If you’re going to spend thousands of dollars on yard signs, make sure they say “vote for me” instead of advertising that you lost The Stranger’s endorsement. Your donors will thank you. Though the SECB is leftist, progressive, and kind of annoying, we are not yes-men for any candidate who occupies the leftmost lane. Our political class knows they have to appeal to the community’s progressive majority whether they share their beliefs or not, and you would not believe the number of moderates who walk through our doors hoping we will launder their reactionary politics to our readers. Think of us as six overworked food safety inspectors at a slaughterhouse trying to let as little contaminated meat out the door as possible. And folks, there is poop on a lot of this meat. Our health code is journalistic scrutiny: We scour their voting records and financial reports. We call their current and former associates. We compile hefty research documents for our colleagues. We conduct panel interviews so they can tell us exactly how they plan to execute progressive policy, and then we discuss at length whom each of us would endorse. We frequently disagree, delay votes to hunt down key facts, and take vote after vote until we reach a simple majority. Then we write an endorsement and bicker some more. The only people who see it before it’s published are the SECB, a copy editor, and a fact-checker. Our bosses and colleagues often find out who we endorse the day we go to press. We joke that we handpick candidates, but The Stranger is not a political machine. We are not interested in performing politics or propaganda. We are an independent newspaper that informs our progressive readers which candidates most align with their political goals. You’ll find explanations behind each endorsement in this paper and online. You can see similar decisions spanning decades on our website. Sometimes people are happy with us, sometimes they are very angry. That’s politics.  If this doesn’t sit right with you, and you think we should be using our influence to be a rubber stamp, to be good soldiers for the progressive movement, then congratulations, you don’t want fucking journalism. You want friends and associates of politicians to tell you how to vote. Don’t like how much power we exert in primary elections? Then you’d better get organized! The business community sure is. The SECB does not endorse in uncontested races, races we forgot, or races in Spokane. Its members include, for a second time, Vivian McCall, Megan Seling, Charles Mudede, Nathalie Graham, Hunter Pauli, Cedar Attanasio, and Gracie, the privately owned Texas giraffe.  FOUR VERY IMPORTANT BALLOT INITIATIVES Credit: Mark Kaufman Vote (Fuck) No on I-001, I-638, and I-645 Brian Heywood and his outfit, Let’s Go Washington, are the stupidest, most destructive motherfuckers in the state of Washington. These know-nothings push culturally conservative ballot initiatives as a front for their real aim: convincing people much poorer than them to defend their wealth and prevent their millionaire money from being used for the benefit of society. Vote no on all three of these Let’s Go Washington initiatives, all of which are so silly and counterproductive that even the conservative bozos on the Seattle Times Editorial Board saw them as low-effort, self-serving trash.  I-001 is an attempt to resurrect the Parents’ Bill of Rights (PBOR), which is not about parents or rights. It is about control and keeping students from seeking the support of trusted adults. It gave parents essentially no new rights. But inside this harmless, sensible exterior was a bomb. Ripped directly from a 2014 Louisiana law, the PBOR could’ve handed private counseling records, detailing the private feelings, sexualities, and struggles of children, to their overbearing or unsupportive parents. It also could’ve buried school districts in onerous exemption paperwork. After the PBOR earned enough signatures to end up on the ballot in 2024, it was proactively adopted by the Legislature so it could be dismantled. If it passed, they wouldn’t have been able to touch it. Slapping a law made for one state onto the established legal code of another is fucking stupid and created numerous conflicts the Legislature later resolved and amended. The folks at Let’s Go Washington couldn’t handle that, so they’ve made it our problem again. Vote No. If passed, I-638 would be the most extreme trans sports ban in the country, mandating genital exams, genetic testing, and hormonal testing for girls playing sports in high school, middle school, and in some cases, elementary school. Trans people have never dominated sports and there is zero evidence they ever will dominate sports. But requiring this shit is a great way to get a child molested, exclude a girl with high testosterone from competing, and create a higher barrier to entry for every girl who wants to play a school sport, all to keep somewhere between 10 and 20 trans people off the fields and courts. No, no, no. The big kahuna, the real reason for the season, is I-645, an initiative to repeal the Millionaires Tax. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard that the Millionaires Tax, a 9.9 percent tax on all income above $1 million, is the first chess move toward a checkmate, graduated income tax in Washington State. It’s also sorely needed revenue for essential government services, public school, statewide universal free school lunches, health care and behavioral health care services, and human services. Contrary to popular speculation, it’s not going to chase every rich person out of the state. To make this real simple: If you’re not a millionaire, vote no on I-645. If you’re a millionaire, be a pal and vote no on I-645. We thank you for your service and for your continued residency in this state. We know a fair tax is not enough to drive you from our moderate climate and rugged, emerald vistas.  We all have a civic duty to stop taking this charlatan Brian Heywood seriously, or at least stop casting him as a political maverick unafraid of speaking hard truths. He is a dragon nestled on his golden horde, a rich and powerful man with the cash to amplify his voice over the thousands he seeks to politically and monetarily disempower. Vote no on these initiatives and pierce Heywood’s dragon heart.  Vote Yes on Prop 1 to Approve the Seattle Transit Measure Hey, do you like the bus? Do you like when your bus is on time? What about when your bus still runs on the weekends or—gasp—after 10 p.m.? Well, then you’re really going to like the Seattle Transit Measure. We’ve had this citywide levy since 2014. We typically renew it every six years. This year’s renewal is the biggest ever. Proposed by Mayor Katie Wilson and passed by the Seattle City Council, it adds a sales tax increase of 0.15 percent, bringing the total sales tax to fund transit service to 0.3 percent, and it’ll last for 10 years this time. That’s huge, but voters need to approve it. Not only will it sustain current bus service, but it will add 100,000 extra service hours in the city. Plus, it includes maintenance dollars for transportation improvements. If we’re lucky, some of that money will add late-night buses, so you’re not stranded in the dark after a long night of grinding on your leather daddy at Massive. Everybody wins! And if this doesn’t pass, bus service is fucked. So there’s no alternative. Vote Yes. FEDERAL United States RepresentativeCongressional District 1Suzan DelBene Like many right-leaning corporate Democrats, Suzan DelBene lives in a castle made of money. Its walls, ramparts, drawbridges, and boiling pots of oil protect her from barbarian challengers on the left and the right, while she tosses enough cake from the portcullis to stave off the seizure of her ho-hum dominion by a people-powered political uprising. What truly distinguishes DelBene is independent wealth. Far from a pedestrian millionaire, she jumped into tech early, and is sitting on upwards of $120 million. She is the richest congressperson in Washington State. Any person living a life like hers exists in a reality-distorting, super-dense black hole of privilege. So excuse us for disbelieving her promise to fix an unequal tax system she benefits from. Hating RFK Jr., loving abortion, and fighting a cartoonishly evil AI that denies care to seniors is not enough. In an interview with the SECB this summer, DelBene was allergic to specifics such as: name one tax loophole closed by you and your colleagues.  Expect the bare minimum from DelBene and accept there isn’t anyone else to put our faith in at the moment. The platform of her Republican opponent, Mary Silva, has more dog whistles than Westminster. Medical “freedom,” “secure” elections, parental “rights” in health care, it’s all there. However, we agree with Silva on at least two points: that dismantling mass surveillance is of critical concern for democracy, and that Henry Kissinger was a real bastard. Until our country limits money in politics, we’ll be voting for its living, breathing consequences. Vote DelBene. United States RepresentativeCongressional District 7Pramila Jayapal Pramila Jayapal is one of the least compromising people in the miserable, undrained mire that is the US Congress. Jayapal, who led the Congressional Progressive Caucus for six years, can say what other Democrats will not: that Israel is committing a genocide, a stance she has backed up by pushing to end arms exports to the country and signing onto a congressional letter asking the State Department to investigate Israel’s illegal nuclear weapons arsenal. That not a cent of our tax dollars should go to ICE, and that DHS, a post-9/11 chimera from the War on Terror, should not even exist. That Democrats need to gerrymander congressional districts until we pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. That former Seattle Mayors Jenny Durkan and Ed Murray totally suck. (Mayor Katie Wilson? Well, she’s “getting her footing.”) And the Iran war? She says fuck the Iran war—in spirit, if not in those exact words—because it has “no clear mission, no strategy, no end goal.”  Jayapal sponsored “Housing Not Handcuffs,” a bill to limit the euphemistic “camping bans” that criminalize homeless people for sleeping outside, and the Trans Bill of Rights to protect gender-nonconforming people from discrimination in health care, housing, education, and public accommodations. Every time you drive over the West Seattle Bridge, remember that Jayapal helped secure the funds for its repair. Jayapal wouldn’t bite when we asked if her coworker Congressman Hakeem Jeffries should lead the party. But as Hakeem Jeffries reminds us every day, nobody is perfect.  Even Nirav Sheth, the retired Lakewood policeman and former intelligence liaison for Customs and Border Patrol who insisted he was not a Republican even though he is running as one, said at our endorsement meeting this summer that meeting her was an honor. He wore an almost reverent expression at times. Vote Jayapal. United States RepresentativeCongressional District 8Kim Schrier Say you’re stranded on a desert island. Do you drink hot piss, or drink seawater and die? If you want to survive, it is bottoms up for piss, and for voting Kim Schrier.  With Republicans taking advantage of the gutted Voting Rights Act by redistricting their states David Duke–edly, Democrats will need every vote they can get to #resist this administration until 2028, when they (maybe) take over and resume fumbling the bag. Not that we can count on Schrier to vote with most Democrats, or even vote against evil things. She voted for the Laken Riley Act, which allows ICE to detain undocumented immigrants accused of theft indefinitely, and other dumb shit, like a bill to sanction the International Criminal Court for going after Israel for its war crimes, a bill allowing the US Attorney General to publish a list of local and state entities that offer cashless bail, a resolution condemning the “horrors” of socialism in “all its forms,” and taking seemingly every opportunity to strip DC’s control of its criminal justice system. She was also one of 21 Democrats who voted to end the government shutdown on February 3, just 10 days after Alex Pretti was shot dead in Minneapolis, when the party had a modicum of leverage. Hnnnnnggggg. Her opponent, Republican Trinh Ha, is somehow worse. Her solidly conservative platform includes “strong schools,” “smart immigration,” a “people-first economy,” and “learn more.” No thank you. At least Schrier is for universal pre-K, and for codifying DACA and the DREAM Act, and she definitely believes in human-caused climate change. Our hands are tied, but our mouths are wide open. Drink the piss. Vote Schrier. United States RepresentativeCongressional District 9Adam Smith The only reason we can present as to why you should vote for Adam Smith is that a Democratic majority in Congress could gum up some of the works of Trump 2. That’s it. We have zero other reasons. Given Smith’s imperialistic foreign policy record, he can only really be relied on to fight against bad domestic policy—he’s been all aboard for military adventurism overseas for decades now. There’s a reason we called him an “unapologetic AIPAC darling” in our endorsement against him in the primary. If he wins and Democrats gain a House majority, he’s in line to chair the House Armed Services Committee. The weapons companies know this, and it’s why they spend big to keep him in power.  But there’s nothing you, the voter, can really do about that now. The district’s progressive forces continued their tradition of failure in the primary and Smith is once again going up against a doomed Republican he’s defeated before. If you can’t overcome your revulsion to Smith enough to tactically vote for him, know that odds are good that your abstention won’t accidentally beknight a Republican majority in Congress. We’re personally covering our collective ass so we don’t get blamed for a possible Republican House majority after all the racist gerrymandering in Southern districts. The odds aren’t zero, hence our reluctant endorsement, but don’t bet money on his opponent. Washington banned Kalshi this August, but not before thousands of dollars were lost by gamblers who didn’t read The Stranger’s pre-primary election coverage in the 9th Congressional District warning of the split progressive opposition that could produce this exact depressing retread of a general election. Until the left can get their shit together in the 9th, the community is chained to a man who has taken more than $325,000 from AIPAC in this year’s primary election cycle alone. He’s taken more money from Palantir in recent years than any other Democrat, $124,051, placing him fifth nationally among both parties (Trump is first). This pattern repeats with numerous tech companies and weapons manufacturers like Microsoft and Boeing that run this town, on and on, for the nearly 30 years Smith has held the seat. STATE Legislative District No. 1State Representative Position No. 1Davina Duerr Rep. Davina Duerr has been in this Bothell-serving seat since 2019, and oh boy, does she love to get shit done. One of her earlier bills, HB 1099, which added climate change mitigation into the Growth Management Act, died in the Senate in 2022. At the time, The Stranger mourned the loss, calling it “the last decent piece of housing legislation on offer this year.” But Duerr held strong. She reintroduced the bill as HB 1181, which The Stranger described as a “top-ticket item for urbanists” that “would force cities and counties to use their growth plans to reduce climate change by figuring out ways to reduce greenhouse gases and vehicle miles traveled,” and it was signed into law in 2023. Her environmental policy work earned her endorsements from the Sierra Club and the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, and she’s continued to use her background as an architect to focus on both increasing housing and mitigating how development impacts the environment, with recent successful bills that streamline the permit process so homes can get built faster (HB 2502), improve housing material affordability (HB 1183), and cut down on industrial refrigerants (HB 1462). Her opponent, Maggie Wang, thinks the American Dream is under attack. It’s not. Vote Duerr.  Legislative District No. 1State Representative Position No. 2Shelley Kloba You may recognize Cliff Moon’s name. He’s the Republican candidate who ran for Jayapal’s 7th District seat in 2022 and 2024 and lost… by a lot. In 2022, he told KOMO News he supported the 15-week abortion ban floated by Sen. Lindsey Graham. His website got a makeover since last time he ran, but not much else has changed. Moon hasn’t raised any money, he didn’t respond to our request for an interview, and in his voter pamphlet statement he supports three things: “law enforcement, public safety, and legal immigration.” What’s more, on his website, he claims to be endorsed by “Jane Doe,” the mayor of Kenmore, with a quote about what a good guy he is, but the mayor of Kenmore is Democrat Nigel Herbig, who endorsed Moon’s Democratic opponent Shelley Kloba. Kloba, who has held the seat since 2016, is all for the Millionaires Tax, and this year she sponsored a bill to require AI chatbot safeguards starting in 2027 and a bill that allows terminally ill patients to use medical cannabis as part of their end-of-life care in health care facilities. Tax the rich and give people weed if they want it? Hell, yeah. Vote Kloba. Legislative District No. 11State Representative Position No. 1Ashley Fedan We’ve endorsed Rep. David Hackney twice and will not be endorsing him again. As he put it, he hasn’t changed, but his views have “become more clear,” a classic thing to say when you have changed or are breaking up with someone. It’s not you, Hackney. Wait, it is you, and we should see other people. Cops love Hackney. Law enforcement PACs donated to his campaign this cycle. He’s a mixed bag on law and justice. He sponsored bills to eliminate juvenile points and expand second chance options for people sentenced to life or long sentences before their 21st birthday. He’s all for reform, unless those kids are packing heat, in which case he’s down to throw the book at them, including sponsoring a failed bill to increase the penalties. He told the Seattle Times in 2024 that the problem with policing in Black and brown communities wasn’t over-policing, but under-policing. With rhetorical judo skills like that, how could anyone pull the wool over his eyes? Lately he’s been trying to take advantage of the Bite of Seattle killings to push legislation to put more kids in jail, a crime-fighting strategy America has tried long enough to know it doesn’t work. Hackney (a former war crimes prosecutor for the United Nations) and 240 other American lawmakers traveled to Israel last September on the invitation of the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Israeli government took them on a curated tour of Israel, and he’s telling us it’s “nuanced” over there, with “good and bad on both sides.” Israel’s targeting of Palestinian civilians was “disproportionate” and a “tragedy,” and he knew they were trying to convince him to think a certain way. But “like most tours, they can’t control everyone you talk to.” The tour did not include Gaza. We figure the Israelis invited Hackney in the first place because he cosponsored bills with Republicans in 2024 and 2025 criminalizing street protests in direct response to a Gaza ceasefire protest blocking I-5 in Seattle. First-time candidate and nurse practitioner Ashley Fedan did not wow us, but we’re endorsing her anyway. She isn’t Hackney. She is a landlord, but claims to support rent control, and wants to invest in diversion programs that keep people out of a courtroom instead of punishing them even more. Her union credentials are good, and never in her travel nurse career did she scab. Her family in West Virginia would have thrown her down a mine shaft for that. Although Hackney first won his seat in 2020 by running to the left of the incumbent, Fedan made it through the primary 10 points behind Hackney. The popular rage surrounding the US-backed genocide in Gaza and its malignant growth into a region-wide, economically deleterious war could be a good thing to zero in on. Yet Fedan’s not taking full advantage of Hackney’s anti-protester, pro-Israel stance. The retired Nurse Corps naval officer has yet to hit him on his hypocritical human rights record.  She needs to hit him where it hurts; he deserves it after abdicating the values we endorsed him for in the past. Vote Fedan. Legislative District No. 30State SenatorClaire Wilson Sen. Claire Wilson is a moderate Democratic leader and incumbent in the 30th district, which covers Federal Way and surrounding areas like Auburn, Algona, Pacific, and parts of Milton and Des Moines. Wilson whips votes for Democrats, but wouldn’t tell us which Dems are responsible for abandoning a bill that would allow farmworkers, most of whom are immigrants, to unionize.  We wish Wilson would use her power more radically. But you should still vote for her, because she has proven to be a staunch advocate for vulnerable populations. She’s pragmatic and often scores wins, like that one time she made childcare more available for more ultra-low-income families. She is a fixture in every policy conversation affecting kids, from K-12 funding to juvenile justice to various health and human services policies. A former teacher, she seems to have succumbed to something of a summer slide—dodging many of our questions by saying she didn’t remember issues from the last session or hadn’t learned about them yet. We hope she studies up on how artificial intelligence is affecting electricity prices, and why New York City put a moratorium on AI learning tools for K-8 this year. While Wilson spent her career helping nurture young minds, her opponent Michael P. Rutland was helping terrorize them from above. Rutland worked in the private sector at Boeing on the always- over-budget F-22 fighter plane program, so that he could one day run for State Senate to warn about the perils of government spending and the sanctity of “local control.” We thank him for his service (he’s a veteran), appreciate his extensive volunteer work, and apologize that we won’t be joining the Knights of Columbus (where he works) until they end the anti-abortion crusade. Legislative District No. 30State Representative, Position No. 1 Jamila E. Taylor Progressives are lucky that they can vote for Taylor, who bounced back from personal health issues and the loss of both parents in the last year. She could have taken a break. Instead, she’s heading back to Olympia, where she is a reliable vote for progressive taxation and a thought-leading wonk on the justice system. This year she’s tackling tort reform, a thankless political minefield. The reward would be transferring wealth from lawyers to social programs. The risk is short-changing victims of ne’er-do-wells and civil rights abuse. But Taylor has a record of defending the vulnerable and has a good chance of getting this right. Do not expect her to get high with you, though—she’s not eager for backyard pot cultivation or recreational psychedelics.  Taylor is GGG and agreed to play Fuck, Mary, Kill with us on funding priorities. But she is also a classy lady, saying “I would cuff the child care,” and reminded us that it is cuffing season. Don’t get cozy with Taylor’s opponent, Tiffany Bowyer, a first-time Republican candidate with zero policy chops and muted MAGA keyboard warrior vibes. She didn’t have the courtesy to tell us to go cuff ourselves. Her social media persona is Ardent Anti-Trans Clown, and her website is thin on ideas, ignoring the causes (tariffs, Iran war) of affordability issues like inflation and high gas prices, while offering zero solutions. Vote Taylor.  Legislative District No. 30State Representative, Position No. 2Kristine Reeves Sure, go ahead and vote for Kristine Reeves, who flipped this Federal Way–area seat blue in 2016. Reeves says she supports progressive taxation, but voted against the Millionaires Tax last year. Gymnasts and the double-jointed may enjoy her explanation. “I personally agree that an income tax is the right way to do it, but [the Millionaires Tax] did not go far enough, in my opinion, to remove regressive taxes on working families. So I voted against it,” she told The Stranger, adding that it takes all types of Democrats to flip Republican seats. We are interested in which types of Democrats could flip her seat. She has some cool ideas on how to slow AI data centers (regulate their water use) and how to protect against Trump funding cuts (she helped codify rights of homeless students at the state level). Don’t be confused by the “Independent” label of challenger Paul McDaniel, whose platform and social media rhetoric are solidly MAGA. He promoted election conspiracy theories, says life starts at conception, suggests more guns make people more safe, and wants to defund public schools with vouchers. Vote Reeves. Legislative District No. 31State SenatorTamara Stramel The 31st LD stretches the credulity of requiring districts to represent natural communities—it cuts in and out of quite a few towns and cities, is bisected by the King-Pierce county line, has no clear center, and stretches from Puget Sound exurban sprawl deep into the Cascades. Even with the district’s strange borders, Democratic challenger Tamara Stramel knows it and its needs well. She’s spent years as a local Democratic Party leader and knows the area needs better everything, from public buses that connect to the light rail to improved evacuation plans, should Mt. Rainier splooge a lahar. “It’s a lot of work to get people in the state to care about a district that many have written off,” she says. The party has been slowly gaining ground in the district over the past few cycles, but they’re still too far behind Republicans to have good odds this November. Stramel sees a bright side, however: “We’re losing by less without much financial help.” If trends continue, this longtime red district might eventually follow other commuter communities and turn purple enough for state Democratic Party leaders to pay attention. She described an ouroboros of failure: local Republicans do not deliver, the community loses faith in government, and that same community becomes susceptible to arguments for small government from Republicans. Because Stramel didn’t come up in Washington politics, she’s not party to the “animosity” over the idea of a graduated state income tax (how most civilized societies pay for things) and walks the fine line of progressive politics in a conservative area better than most. Like many remaining Republican incumbents in Western Washington, incumbent and Catholic paladin Republican Rep. Phil Fortunato’s campaign is not grassroots, but funded by industry lobbies, with tobacco industry donations sitting right at the top of the list to set the tone. Vote Stramel. Legislative District No. 31State Representative, Position No. 1Stephen Szczurko-Walton Stephen Szczurko-Walton is another perfectly normal Democrat cursed by fortune to live in a community the redistricting commission drew in a way that stymies challenges to Republican dominance. He’s challenging Republican incumbent Rep. Drew Stokesbary, the minority leader in the Washington House of Representatives. Taking down a whale like that would be a notable victory for Democrats, but they’re not going hard. Stokesbary is taking it easy this election. Szczurko-Walton says he’s not going negative, because it’s not a community that would respond well to negativity. He may be right, but that’s a shame, because Stokesbary shilling for the Israeli government in the state legislature opens him up to anti-war attacks most opponents can only dream of. Szczurko-Walton, a retired US Navy aircraft carrier nuclear reactor operator, isn’t likely to go there, as much as the current crew of the USS Lincoln might want him to. If gas prices hit $10 a gallon, maybe he goes there! He is, however, libbed out enough to reluctantly support redistricting Washington’s congressional districts to retake US House seats lost to racist Republican gerrymandering in the South. Like other Democrats who didn’t make their stripes in Washington politics, Szczurko-Walton also doesn’t get what all the hubbub is about with longtime party opposition to graduated state income tax. It shouldn’t take a master’s degree in public administration to figure that out, but he has one for good measure. His willingness to be real with voters about raising revenue is a breath of fresh air compared to many of the 4D chessmasters the SECB deals with. Vote Szczurko-Walton. Legislative District No. 31State Representative, Position No. 2John Bielka Unlike the other Democrats in the 31st, John Bielka couldn’t be arsed to return our endorsement interview requests, but voters have few better options by default.  Bielka got second in the primary by 13 points and will need more than his desperate cowboy hat and “I’m a Democrat, but,” platitudes to rugged individualism if he wants to win in the red 31st. He’s one of those politicians who inappropriately compares the state budget to family finances, and the rest of his policy proposals aren’t any more progressive.  Running to the right to pick up moderate Republican voters alienated by the dominance of the party’s far-right wing is usually a losing strategy, but Bielka seems happy enough to ride the bull anyway. We hate to encourage such a doomed strategy, but no one more progressive made it through the primary, so he’s the tactical choice, and the only choice.  His opponent, Republican incumbent Rep. Josh Penner, runs an AI startup, and is therefore a dream opponent this cycle for any challenger smart enough to peer beyond his own brim. Vote Bielka.  Legislative District No. 32State Representative Position No. 1Keith Scully Keith Scully, who claimed 26 percent of the primary vote, has considerable political experience and is solid on transportation, taxes, and affordability. Scully also can dream a little. He wants to get rid of zoning altogether. Dream, dream, dream.  Of course, a suburban councilman has his hang-ups. He’s concerned that shrooms could become the next fentanyl. Clearly, he is not in conversation with the district’s senator, shroom lord Jesse Salomon. He’s also clueless about sex work. Perhaps he’s not in conversation with his local girls.   Danica Noble, a former consumer protection and antitrust attorney for the state’s Federal Trade Commission office, came into the primary race late, but she raised the most money and claimed second in the primary with 24 percent of the vote. Yes, money played a big role in her impressive performance in the primaries, but her position on the growing intellectual and environmental nightmare posed by AI likely appealed to a lot of voters. Indeed, concern about data centers and the perceived negative impact of AI chatbots on society in general, and education in particular, has continued to grow since the primaries. In short, this will be a close race.  But, at the end of the day, Noble doesn’t have Scully’s practical political experience. She has big ideas and she’s pro-union—on August 31, she joined state employees in Lynnwood who walked out during lunch break to demand living wages. Still, she’s a novice when it comes to the basic machinery of Washington politics. We love Scully, his piercing Frodo eyes, and his command of concrete solutions. Rep. Cindy Ryu, who is leaving this seat to steal Sen. Salomon’s, has endorsed him. Vote Scully. Legislative District No. 32State SenatorCindy Ryu Rep. Cindy Ryu owned incumbent Sen. Jesse Salomon in the primary, winning 46 percent of the vote. While both are career Shoreline politicians, and moderates, only one is a goofball with libertarian tendencies and a habit of sticking his foot ankle-deep into his mouth. The voters seemed to have clocked this, too. Salomon, the Legislature’s leading advocate for psilocybin mushrooms, may be willing to plumb the depths of the human mind on the psychedelic frontier, but somehow a Republican-sponsored bill to force cities to permit corner stores in residential zones was too out there for him. Shoreline is heavily dependent on corporate supermarkets and deserves a state senator who can tolerate a sprinkle of urbanism. Ryu didn’t hesitate on this question. She dreams of a moderately dense Washington.  We’ve had our problems with Ryu. She’s a commercial landlord who’s been lukewarm about tenant protections and rent stabilization in the past, but has since voted in favor of those bills in the Legislature. Ryu wouldn’t go so far as to say she’d vote for rent control, but she said she’d consider it. She’d also vote for a bill granting farmworkers collective bargaining rights, a bill Salomon admitted to the SECB he opposed last session after previously ignoring The Stranger’s requests for comment. Neither was informed about sex work, which is crazy if Aurora Avenue runs through your district. Those are your constituents! But only one of them sent us a picture of themselves trophy fishing when we asked for a headshot. Guess who? Though we are sad to send one of the last true weirdos in state politics packing, vote Ryu.  Legislative District No. 32State Representative Position No. 2Imraan Siddiqi As we said during the primaries, when it comes to policy, Rep. Lauren Davis runs circles around her opponent, Imraan Siddiqi. But here is the problem: Though we endorsed Davis multiple times for her platform centering mental health and addiction, she’s changed. She apologized for her votes concerning youth incarceration, and wrote in a Seattle Times op-ed that her “missteps” fueled juvenile violence. She appeared on far-right radio host Ari Hoffman’s program to talk about her conversion experience. “We used to use juvenile detention as a sanction, which wasn’t ideal,” Davis said. “But we never built an alternative, and then we took away the stick.” When the SECB asked her to explain this, she said she wouldn’t have said that. Then we read the quote and she looked like she was going to cry. Boo hoo. On the subject of wasted water, she had a bad opinion on data centers. She voted against a bill that did nothing more than make sure the social costs of this AI infrastructure are privatized. Her response? She went to Quincy, Washington, and saw the rural people experiencing something of a boom from AI investments. And we, as city people, owe it to the sticks to give them the opportunity to repair their economic woes with a bad fix that has no future. Data centers create construction jobs when they’re built, but leave few in their destructive wake.  So, we are stuck with Siddiqi, who performed poorly during the primaries (he got 22 percent of the vote, and Davis 75). We have to stick with him because, obviously, the executive director of Washington’s chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations chapter is great on immigration. For example, over the past two years, his organization has filed lawsuits on behalf of Afghan refugees. One, concerning stalled cases, was successful.   But he’s untested and unspecific. He needs to improve his command of health care, taxes, and affordability. There’s no royal road to becoming a master of public policy. It takes work.  A lot of work. Despite these setbacks, he is still better than his opponent. Vote Siddiqi. Legislative District No. 33State Representative, Position No. 1Edwin Obras Edwin Obras is growing his portfolio, and we love it. Obras’s district covers the area around SeaTac and much of Kent. He’s deputy whip for Dems in the House. We’ve endorsed him before for delivering on sexual assault protections for isolated workers and intensely pro-labor views.  This year, he sponsored bills related to policing and justice, taking on vigilante sheriffs and expanding the state prosecutors’ investigative power. He pissed off cops. He pissed off business groups worried about investigations. We couldn’t be happier.  His opponent Chris Martinez wants to keep sheriffs safe from state scrutiny, lower taxes on business, and abolish the Climate Commitment Act (instead of just ignoring it, like Gov. Bob Ferguson). Unless you agree with Martinez about “the bold truth of leaders like Charlie Kirk” mentioned on his website, vote for Obras. Legislative District No. 33State Representative, Position No. 2Mia Su-Ling Gregerson Gregerson called us from the car, on the way back from a rural rally for immigrant workers. Talk about pandering! And unnecessary, since we’ve endorsed her before and not even in a mean way. Voters in her district, which stretches from Burien to Kent, should return her to Olympia to do the truly dull work of budget writing. She supports a progressive state income tax to replace our insane regressive tax scheme. She wants immigrant workers to be able to unionize (you know, like in radical New York State!). We asked a lot of candidates about their last grocery bill, and Gregerson was one of the few who was ready with precise stats. She’s feeling the pain of her $10 Dave’s Killer Bread, subbing in a cheaper loaf. She’s aghast that three Cosmic Crisp apples set her back $8. Gregerson’s opponent is Yuri Marinchik, a Belarusian immigrant who became a US citizen in 2024. We called him to ask who he voted for that year, but he didn’t pick up.  Years ago, Marinchik’s social media pages included a lot of support for activism against Belarusian dictator and Putin pal Alexander Lukashenko, who has been getting a lot of sanctions relief from the Trump administration this go-around. It’s unclear why Marinchik is running as a Republican, as he lacks much of the MAGA posturing in his campaign website and social media feeds that many in this cycle are leaning on. On his website, Marinchik says he’s against new taxes (we know what that means!), he’s been robbed twice (sorry, dude!), and he’s noticed trees hanging over powerlines! Call 311, no need to run for office. Legislative District No. 34State Representative Position No. 2Joe Fitzgibbon House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon is good at his job, and the alternative is someone with no ideas. Mary Anito, a small business owner, engineer, and mom, seems to be running because she believes Fitzgibbon ignored her concerns about education funding when she visited his office. To paraphrase Radiohead, what the hell are you doing here? Fitzgibbon’s been in the State House for 16 years. As the chair of the Environment Energy Committee, Fitzgibbon sponsored the Clean Energy Transformation Act that decarbonized our electrical grid, championed our cap-and-trade system with the Climate Commitment Act, and got the low carbon fuel standard through. He helped pass our long-term care insurance program and the payroll tax that pays for it. He backed the capital gains tax. And as the House Majority Leader, he wrote the House’s version of the Millionaires Tax, though his version would’ve ended a BO tax surcharge on high-earning businesses a year early. It didn’t make the cut. With deficits on the horizon, we’ll need Fitzgibbon to stave off austerity cuts. He plans to use funds from the Millionaires Tax and from the $3.3 billion surplus from the firefighter and law enforcement pension funds (if the retired first responders don’t win a lawsuit blocking their use). With an imperial hunger, Fitzgibbon also floated a congressional redistricting bill to see if his fellows have the political appetite to fight gerrymandering with gerrymandering. It’s unhealthy for democracy, but conceding to opportunistic fascists on principle won’t save your dignity, your constituents, or the union from peril. And yes, we asked Fitzgibbon about his drunken appearance at a House committee hearing this February. He said it was “a very stupid mistake” on his “worst ever day at work” and that he hoped it wouldn’t overshadow his accomplishments. It does not. Vote Fitzgibbon. Legislative District No. 36State SenatorNoel Frame Noel Frame has represented the 36th District for 10 years, first as a representative and then, as of 2023, as senator. With her winning record and over $100,000 in the bank, her victory is almost guaranteed. This is good news. Frame is a tax dork in an age where we must revere them. The number one progressive priority for Washington is to balance our regressive tax code in spite of every Chicken Little screaming that the rich will abandon us. Forging ahead takes guts, which Frame has heaps of. To finally pass a bill making clergy mandatory reporters, Frame told her own story of childhood abuse. As this state dealt with restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone, Frame shared that lack of access made her miscarriage an ordeal. Frame’s opponent, software engineer Jillian Astra England, is the vice chair of the small 36th Legislative District Republican Party. She believes energy is the “lifeblood” of the economy, Jamie Pedersen’s Millionaires Tax is the greatest threat to our future, and trans people arriving threadbare and poor to Seattle shouldn’t receive assistance. A coward’s opinion. Showing an impressive commitment to saving the rich money, she has raised only barely $5,000.  We need Frame in the room when it comes time to (hopefully) implement the Millionaires Tax. In fact, she’s already there. Vote Frame. Legislative District No. 37State SenatorChipalo Street With State Senator Rebecca Saldaña ditching this seat to run for King County Council, the district’s Rep. Chipalo Street is a predictable progressive vote who is safe to move over to the Senate. Despite his afflictions (tech worker, landlord), we like the guy and have endorsed him multiple times.  Street is plain good. He’s used his knowledge of tech and landlordoms to fight against their lobbies in Olympia. What most impressed the SECB was his comprehensive understanding of the political terrain: Street intimately understands the financial predicament the state finds itself in, and we trust his commitment to chart the way through with progressive taxation rather than austerity or slopulist tax cuts.  Then there’s political newcomer and community organizer Tatiana Brown, whom Street crushed in the primary 74 to 25. We don’t dislike Brown, she just doesn’t know enough yet. She should stay in politics and polish her perspectives on affordability and environmental justice into policy positions before she considers running again, hopefully for a seat she can win. We don’t expect the Instagram videos she’s posted since, where she walks toward the camera holding a lavalier mic, will close that gap this time. Vote Street. Legislative District No. 37State Representative Position No. 1Kelabe Tewolde When we said back in August that Kelabe Tewolde picked the right incumbent to challenge (unlike some progressive newcomers), even we didn’t think he’d beat the state’s longest-serving House member in her own primary. The race has seen a lot more attention since, though coverage has not been kind to Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos. We dinged her campaign for losing $20,000 to a bizarre fraud scheme involving fake FBI officials and convincing her campaign that its account had been used to purchase child sexual exploitation material. In a shocking twist, the Seattle Times editorial board, our favorite Blethenian centrists, endorsed Tewolde over her. You’ve got to fuck up pretty bad for the Times to endorse a guy who was going to hitch his wagon to our local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. In many ways, the race has become a referendum on Santos’s ignominious tenure as chair of the House Education Committee, which the recent near-strike by Seattle teachers should show you has not been an era of adequately funded schools. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal recently demanded billions more in state funding, claiming Washington isn’t meeting the landmark McCleary court decision’s requirement to adequately pay for schools, so it’s no surprise he endorsed Tewolde, a young educator, over Santos. We concur. Vote Tewolde. Legislative District No. 37State Representative Position No. 2Jaelynn Scott Jaelynn Scott is going to be the 37th District’s next representative in the Washington State House of Representatives whether we like it or not, but luckily we do like it!  Scott has spent the past six years as executive director of the Lavender Rights Project, the Seattle-based Black transfeminist organization that helped craft the federal Trans Bill of Rights that Seattle’s Congressional Rep. Pramila Jayapal has been pushing since 2022. She’s likely to make history as the first openly trans person in the Washington State Legislature. While Scott technically has an opponent in the race, Evon McCorkle, her challenger hasn’t raised a single dollar or responded to The Stranger’s interview requests, and you don’t need a degree in gambling to know how this race is gonna shake out.  The lack of more serious challengers is downstream of the fact that Scott has hoovered up all the endorsements that matter. Everyone from Jayapal and US Sen. Bernie Sanders to the seat’s outgoing representative, Chipalo Street, is backing her.  The 37th is a district reliable for delivering candidates with the political acumen to back up their progressive bona fides and pass policies good for working people, and it’s what we expect Scott to do. She says her first priority in the Legislature is housing affordability, and she passed our smell tests on congressional redistricting, a data center moratorium, and rent control. Scott is a little cagey on supporting a graduated income tax, but as Democrats tailor their messaging on progressive taxation by defending the Millionaires Tax, we expect the doubters to fall in line by the time it really matters. Vote Scott. Legislative District No. 41State Representative, Position No. 1Janice Zahn We must endorse Janice Zahn in this race. She is a moderate Dem, a two-time incumbent of the House, a former Bellevue City Council member, and the only engineer in the Legislature. Zahn claimed an impressive 71 percent of the vote in the primary. Her opponent, Elle Nguyen, a Republican, got 27 percent. The specifics of Nguyen’s platform, including her subtextual support for Let’s Go Washington’s Parents’ Bill of Rights and her super-textual disgust with abortions and all who support them, tell us everything we need to know. Her opinions on immigration (LEGAL, STRONG BORDER) tell us more than we would ever want to know.  Zahn, however, is a bit of a budget hawk. Indeed, the Seattle Times endorsed her during the primary because she is “clear-eyed about the budget difficulties.”  Zahn wants to “make government work more efficiently.” Zahn did, however, support the Millionaires Tax, and added an entirely reasonable amendment: no sales tax on essential consumer items like diapers. She believes the basics of everyday life should be as cheap as possible. Zahn also cosponsored a bill that would tax capital gains made from a start-up. Budget hawk or not, she’s not anti-tax and she’s not Nguyen. Where Zahn sponsored a bill that requires employers to alert immigrant workers of ICE “inspections,” Nguyen took issue with the bill Zahn cosponsored to regulate what data from automated license plate readers can be sent to the feds. Wait. One last thing concerning Nguyen. She described on X her undying admiration for the late Lindsey Graham and hoped she would one day have the same tenacious spirit for the Republican Party. Enough said. Legislative District No. 41State Representative, Position No. 2My-Linh Thai My-Linh Thai, a four-term incumbent, claimed 66 percent of the vote during the primaries. Her opponent, independent Michael Rosen, won 33 percent of the vote. He was creamed, but if he were a Republican, he would’ve been creampied (take that as you will). Rosen is the sort of independent who would’ve had a home in the Republican Party a decade ago. His key positions: Washington doesn’t have an income problem, it has a spending problem; budget discipline is a must; greater fiscal control is the solution to all of our problems. We tried to contact him to bring more clarity on the nature of his independence from Dems and the GOP, but he did not respond.  Thai champions reproductive rights for low-wage earners, improved community services, and increasing investments in education. She’s particularly stellar on health issues, which we can attribute to her profession: pharmacist. Along with Sen. Noel Frame, Thai introduced in 2023 the Washington capital gains tax, which focuses on large gains made from market speculation. So she was on the right side of history. There can be no doubt who should win the race for this position. Vote Thai. Legislative District No. 43State SenatorJamie Pedersen The SECB does not apologize for its decisions or its meanness, but we could’ve been clearer about this one. Endorsing Jamie Pedersen is not about Jamie Pedersen, or a reward for being just progressive enough to pass the Millionaires Tax last session. Pedersen is a bloodless incrementalist, and a bit of a snake, but this is not a personality contest. It is a contest for who is going to do the most for Washington and its poorest people; in this case, that person is actually Pedersen. As Pedersen has been open about, the Millionaires Tax is not about the Millionaires Tax, either. It’s a legal Trojan Horse to kill a nearly 100-year-old State Supreme Court precedent that makes it illegal for the Legislature to pass a graduated income tax, except if that Trojan Horse advertised, in big letters, “Big Strong Guys from Ithaca and Sparta Inside, Covered in Shit.” Point being, we know what he’s doing here, and so do people like Brian Heywood and his friends at Let’s Go Washington, who’ve raised a cool $1.3 million to kill the Millionaires Tax at the ballot box with I-645. A coalition of brave plantation owners, real-estate developers, and Koch network tentacles also filed a lawsuit, which Pedersen and co. foresaw. If the Millionaires Tax survives judicial scrutiny, it could actually undo the precedent that has fiscally kneecapped us and made us a tax haven for assholes. Ending our overreliance on tax levies, the dependence on sales and sin taxes that rob our poorest people blind, the habitual turning out of empty pockets come budget time, and our inability to fully fund public education all depends on progressive taxation and the realization of a dream in the form of graduated income tax, which half the country already has.  Hannah Sabio-Howell is a fine candidate running a race that many of her friends, mentors, and contemporaries advised her against. Howell will not beat Pedersen, who earned 66.6 percent of the vote in the primary to her 23.5 percent, but if she did beat him, it’d be a devil’s deal. The 43rd would gain a young progressive but lose a more valuable asset: the most progressive party leader in recent history.  She would not take the mantle. The majority floor leader, Sen. Marcus Riccelli of Spokane, would likely take Pedersen’s place. A representative from Spokane? That’s a bad outcome for progressives, and one that would not be offset by a more progressive junior member of the Senate singing the virtues we share in Olympia. Vote Pedersen. Legislative District No. 43State Representative Position No. 1Nicole Macri It’s refreshing to talk to an intelligent, competent legislator with a proven track record of progressive policymaking.  Macri has a talent for crafting tight, effective legislation. Last year, she passed a bill to standardize training and certification requirements for long-term care workers who provide in-home care for family, created a state Medicaid access program, and enacted a policy allowing trans people to stock up on months of hormones at a time.  Macri is vice chair of the House Appropriations Committee, and party to last session’s funding cuts, but she is no fan of austerity. She’s for progressive taxation and pushed for a county payroll tax before Seattle passed JumpStart. She manages to do all this with a leadership role at Seattle’s Downtown Emergency Services Center (DESC). Her hobby is work, she says. Sad, but we won’t complain. Her challenger, University of Washington resident director Alby Clendennin (the IV), touted his activism (he hasn’t done any in two years). He did not know the basics of state government. If you’re serious about challenging corporate interests, choose a better mark. Vote Macri. Legislative District No. 45State Representative, Position No. 1Roger Goodman We feel good about sending Roger Goodman and his silky voice back to Olympia, where he runs the Washington House Community Safety Committee “like a smooth jazz show.” A champion of early drug decriminalization in his suburban district that covers Kirkland, Duvall, Bothell, and Sammamish, Goodman knows that he used to be really cool. “But that was 20 years ago, so … I’ve got to keep up my cred here.” He is keeping up his cred, despite a few buzzkill votes last session. Goodman backed the Millionaires Tax, and he would roll out a normal progressive income tax if we culled existing regressive taxes. He supports regulating psychedelic drugs like cannabis, allowing farmworkers to unionize, and using climate funding for actual climate projects. As Democrats ignore the public defender crisis unfolding across the state, Goodman is vocal about funding indigent defense and ensuring the right to a fair trial. We’re also hopeful that Goodman is studying how to get young men who carry illegal guns to give them up—without sending them to jail.  Goodman knows he’s been a very bad boy for voting to increase police chases by loosening the rules for cops. He justified the vote as legislative “harm reduction”—watering down a bad law to make it less bad. He says he still thinks the bill sucks and, after a study of its impacts, says the Legislature went too far and now people are dying again. His MAGA opponent, JoAnn Tolentino, is a total shitshow. She ran for school board last year, telling everyone she homeschooled her four children, a fact she repeated at a speech she gave while hosting a rally supporting Jan. 6 insurrectionists this year. Vote Goodman. Legislative District No. 45State Representative, Position No. 2Vanessa Kritzer Vote for Vanessa Kritzer. She is ready to balance the budget by raising taxes instead of cutting services or raiding the climate fund like Gov. Bob Ferguson did last year. She’s a first-time candidate for the Legislature, but knows the 45th Legislative District around Redmond well. She has significant public experience as a Redmond City Councilmember. Here’s where it gets awkward. As city council member in Redmond, Kritzer helped install Flock license plate reader cameras. In retrospect, looking at all the immigration arrests: boo! But Joe Biden was president when she voted for that, and the city proactively put in a lot of data safeguards that other cities didn’t. When Trump’s immigration agents started elbowing their way into Flock databases last year, Kritzer supported getting rid of the runaway surveillance tool. The Flock cameras were being taken down in September, police and activists confirmed. Perpetual GOP scarecrow candidate John P. Gibbons doesn’t appear to be campaigning. Often called “paper candidates” because they just file to run, Gibbons has managed to fail his obligations as a paper candidate, too. The state Public Disclosure Commission has chastised or fined him multiple times for failing to file campaign disclosure paperwork, including this year. Is this what GOP #quietquitting looks like? 46th Legislative District No. 46State SenatorJavier Valdez Incumbent Seattle State Senator Javier Valdez destroyed his Republican opponent, Sandra Stephens, in the primary, claiming nearly 90 percent of the vote. Valdez has been in this position since 2023; before that, he was appointed to Jessyn Farrell’s seat in 2018, when Farrell, if you remember, hoped to become the mayor of Seattle. It didn’t work out.  Valdez, who was born and raised in Moses Lake, is pro–gun control and anti-ICE, and led an unsuccessful but commendable effort against a voter-approved measure that banned affirmative action. He did, however, cosponsor a bill that successfully banned deceptive advisory votes, the moss that feeds tax goblins like Tim Eyman. Valdez’s big effort to impose regulations on initiative signature gathering, SB 5973 faced strong resistance from conservatives, who call the bill the “initiative killer.” Oh no! They feel strongly about this because the only way they can pass legislation is by duping the public. Valdez has been on the right side of key issues, and, in a climate that’s openly hostile to immigrants and cosmopolitan values, he’s a much-needed voice in Washington politics. Vote for him. Legislative District No. 46State Representative Position No. 1Will Dreher It’s rare to see a serious political candidate actually pledge to challenge the tech industry in Washington’s corrupt, industry-captured political climate, and rarer still for a candidate to have the professional experience to turn such a pledge into policy. There’s a bipartisan coalition of normal voters absolutely furious about data centers and AI, and while plenty of candidates have read the polling and promised to do something about it, the only one leading a class-action lawsuit against Apple for AI copyright infringement is Will Dreher. Rather than the grassroots progressive organizers the SECB habitually prefers, Dreher is from a blue-blooded DC legal family and has spent his career litigating cases at the elite level. One of only three former Brett Kavanaugh clerks to request the FBI investigate the Supreme Court justice when sexual assault allegations became public, Dreher has showed a willingness to throw his career down the drain rather than compromise his ethics multiple times. At the US Attorney’s Office, he gleefully volunteered to prosecute January 6 insurrectionists until Trump’s reelection sent every prosecutor involved running for the hills. All of this means we trust him when he says he wants to rein in the tech industry. And given the impressive war chest he’s raised from tech sector skeptics, aristocratic attorneys in his Rolodex, and even a few commoners, he’s well positioned among progressive challengers to take down an established moderate incumbent. His opponent, Rep. Gerry Pollet, has been in the Legislature long enough for the progressive demands of Seattle voters to surpass what a moderate can deliver, and his loss will be the public’s gain. Dreher weathered one of the more intense smear campaigns we’ve seen in local politics during the three-way primary and still managed to lock down the progressive lane going into the general election. Given Pollet’s 52- point victory in the primary, Dreher needs every vote he can find. Vote Dreher. Legislative District No. 46State Representative, Position No. 2Darya Farivar The 46th District covers deep-blue neighborhoods (Green Lake, Lake City, Maple Leaf, Ravenna, the University District, and so on). Republicans do not grow here, the soil is too woke. So it’s either a progressive or standard-issue Dem. Darya Farivar, the incumbent running for her third term, is a progressive, supported by urbanists, and has an excellent voting record. Also, as an Iranian American, she has provided a strong Washington voice against the illegal war Trump started with Iran for no good reason at all. Lastly, the people love her. She won nearly 90 percent of the vote during the primary; her opponent, a character named Rodney “Star” Thornley, was left with 10 percent.  Though Thornley ran as an independent, it’s clear he is a Republican. “I’m running as an independent,” he states on his website, “because too many elected officials fall in line with party leadership instead of focusing on the people they serve.”  And how do they (Dems and Republicans) not serve the people? Again, from his website: “Washington needs practical housing policies that encourage private participation without creating more unnecessary government administration” (put directly: I’m a NIMBY). And: “Washington should create graffiti removal grants for cities and counties, especially along state and interstate roads” (put directly: I’m a conservative crank). Thornley did, however, use “self propelled human transportation” (otherwise known as a bike) during his campaign. Legislative District No. 47State SenatorClaudia Kauffman Sen. Claudia Kauffman can keep doing what she’s doing in the 47th Legislative District, the pastoral regions of Covington, Auburn, and Kent. She is a perfectly fine Democrat, who is supportive of the Millionaires Tax and cautious about, but not unwilling to pass, more progressive taxation. Or is she??? Last session, she proposed a bill that would lower the state’s estate tax (taxes paid on the estates of the dead worth over $9 million). Kauffman wanted to “provide some relief for families” and allow them to give their children more generational wealth. Finally, someone is thinking of the trust fund babies.  As the chair of the Senate Business, Trade Economic Development Committee, Kauffman is very business minded. Do not even get her started on a statewide payroll tax on big businesses. She does not like it. She says that would be bad for the state’s economy. She isn’t pro-car-crash, per se, but says lowering the legal blood alcohol content limit would also be bad for businesses, which is why she voted against it. In 2027, Kauffman says she’s focused on bringing the space industry to Washington. Yay? She also wants to regulate cryptocurrency to reduce the number of crypto scams people are falling for. So it’s complicated for Elon Musk. Kauffman is duking it out with Kristina Soltys, a Republican Covington City Council member running on “affordability” and opposing the Millionaires Tax. Steve Gordon, one of the cofounders of the dark conservative money machine funding anti-trans and anti–Millionaires Tax initiatives, Project 42, gave Soltys $2,400. Vote Kauffman.  Legislative District No. 47State Representative, Position No. 1Debra Jean Entenman We see no reason to kick South King County Rep. Debra Jean Entenman out of the legislature. Entenman has been a solid voice for the 47th Legislative District, especially on workforce development, housing, and making the police suck somewhat less. Entenman’s been a longtime advocate for police accountability measures, especially since George Floyd’s murder. However, she sponsored the 2025 bill to fund the police. Entenman was doing what politicians love to do: compromising. Way back then, Gov. Bob Ferguson was talking a big game about beefing up police staffing on the campaign trail and he said he would veto any budget that didn’t include more money for cops. Big dickin’ ’em, eh Bob?  Entenman is also a fierce supporter of education, especially when it comes to education equity. She’s passionate about funding the schools. All schools. Even, sigh, charter schools. We all have our flaws. Some of us have more than others. Libertarian Cobi Clark wants to cut taxes and has listed the right to bear arms as his first priority under his “civil rights” tab on his website. Congratulations, you have that right. Vote Entenman.  Legislative District No. 47State Representative, Position No. 2Chris Stearns Rep. Chris Stearns’s progressive id is dampened by his ego. We can accept the multifaceted nature of the human mind and of the Covington Democrat if we must. And we must, because Stearns is running against Republican Ted Cooke, who wants to “Fix the Economy, Restore Education, Reduce Homelessness, Ensure Election Integrity, and Fund the Police.” Cooke has lost to Stearns before, and dare we say, he’s going to lose again.  Stearns has had an impressive 2026. He sponsored bills to reduce sentencing requirements on juvenile convictions, an evolution of his 2024 bill of the same ilk. Neither passed, but Stearns is still striving. Criminal justice reform is important to Stearns in part because Indigenous people are incarcerated at a much higher rate than the general population. Stearns is Indigenous himself and, as speaker pro tempore, is one of the highest-ranking Native politicians in the country.  Stearns also cosponsored a bill to allow agricultural workers in the cannabis industry the right to organize, supported rent stabilization legislation, and cosponsored a bill to protect athletes and players from the ire of online sports gamblers (though it made gambling on Washington collegiate sports at tribal casinos legal). Stearns also sponsored some whack legislation to raise the penalty of paying for sex from a misdemeanor to a Class C felony. That one luckily did not pass, and he should stop striving. Vote Stearns. Legislative District No. 48State Representative, Position No. 1Osman Salahuddin Osman Salahuddin has accomplished a lot in the two years he’s represented the 48th district’s Eastside ’burbs. That first year, he sponsored a bill to give paid sick leave to workers attending immigration hearings for themselves or family members. He expanded that bill last session to allow workers to donate their time off to a coworker who missed work for immigration proceedings. Salahuddin also sponsored a bill that regulated automatic license-plate-reading Flock cameras by preventing any of that data from going to ICE, federal enforcement agencies, or out-of-state agencies. Salahuddin supported the Millionaires Tax; he wants to fix our shit-for-brains tax code with progressive policy and eventually bid the BO tax goodbye. He’s impressive, but has suburbitis.  He’s not a fan of a head tax on businesses. Ever heard of his constituent, Microsoft? Ever heard of it? Salahuddin is interested in proposing a corporate income tax on annual profits. We didn’t totally love Salahuddin’s idea to replace the state’s low carbon fuel standard, otherwise known as a gas tax, with a “road usage charge.” But that’s the suburbs for you.  Salahuddin’s Republican opponent, Jeffery Poppe, is a retired CPA ready to go to war to defend our billionaire tax haven. Vote Salahuddin. Legislative District 48thState Representative, Position No. 2Jessica Forsythe Any Democrat who didn’t vote for the Millionaires Tax set themselves up to a progressive challenger from the left, which explains the glowing red dot in the middle of Eastside Rep. Amy Walen’s forehead. Her challenger, seasoned Redmond City Councilmember Jessica Forsythe, is fine with the Millionaires Tax, and isn’t afraid of a graduated state income tax either, so long as it comes with a reduction in our regressive sales tax (astute readers may recognize this is the standard form of taxation that nearly everyone else in the country uses except for Washington). Forsythe beat car dealership baroness Walen in the primary by 17 votes, which is about as small a margin a victor can claim this cycle. But it does suggest that even the Eastside commuter cities Seattleites have long derided as suburban hellscapes are trending left, particularly on progressive tax reform, whether Microsoft and its deep pockets wants them to or not. Forsythe criticized Walen’s opposition to Washington’s rent stabilization bill and touted that she herself spearheaded Redmond’s rent stabilization law. Forsythe is incredibly knowledgeable about policy, and there wasn’t a single question we hit her with that threw her for a loop. Finally, a smart progressive! Forsythe has the experience, the knowledge, and, crucially, the support from Washington’s progressive Democrat PACs to overcome the fortune amassed by independent fiscally conservative PACs supporting Walen, and all she needs is a safer voter margin. Vote Forsythe. COUNTY AssessorRob Foxcurran Perhaps you only heard about the illustrious job of King County Assessor, the person who assesses property values in King County, after John Arthur Wilson (JAW) broke a no-contact order with his ex, persuaded a judge to remove his ankle monitor, and then posted gloating, shirtless photos while soaking in his hot tub. Stalking charges were dropped in mid-June. He isn’t running again, leaving the seat open for the first time in a decade. Heartbreaking. It’s an important job. The assessment of property value influences how much property tax someone pays, and because Washington doesn’t have an income tax, we use those property taxes to fund everything from libraries to EMTs. We don’t want the poor paying too much, or the rich paying too little, or an assessment to push someone on fixed income from their home. Rob Foxcurran is the consummate property assessment nerd, and grew up here—he’s a fifth-generation Seattleite. He’s also the shop steward for the city workers’ union, PROTEC17. He plans to advocate for programs that keep people from being taxed out of their neighborhoods, like tying property tax to income. And he’s committed to using this office to help the region expand affordable housing. He also promised to never post a shirtless selfie from a hot tub—he doesn’t have one. We liked him enough to overlook his Monopoly Man mustache.  Foxcurran ran away with the election in the primary, winning 47 percent of the vote. He’ll face Dominique Scarimbolo in the general. Scarimbolo is running because she has personally experienced how frustrating and confusing the property tax assessment system is. We will have to take her word for it, as she is the only candidate who declined our meeting invitation for this race. To “maintain complete independence,” she is not seeking any endorsements this election. She does not have any. Vote Foxcurran.  Metropolitan King CountyCouncil District No. 2Rebecca Saldaña Rebecca Saldaña beat Port Commissioner Toshiko Hasegawa handily in the primary, winning 56 percent of the vote to Hasegawa’s 35 percent. Voters likely recognize Saldaña since she’s been one of the strongest progressive voices in Washington State politics for a decade, and her political record is simply unparalleled. She championed the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, stronger wage theft enforcement, unemployment insurance for striking workers, and one of the best paid family and medical leave programs in the country. And if a few of her dirtbag colleagues had supported it, farmworkers may have gained collective bargaining rights in this state, a default in a sane society. We’d clone Rebecca Saldaña if we could, but we’ll have to settle for electing her to Executive Girmay Zahilay’s old King County Council seat. She wants to improve jail conditions and diversion programs (which is great, because jails are three-quarters of the County’s general fund). She wants to expand legal defense for immigrants in the county. And she gives a damn about getting more women of color into local government (she was the state senate’s only one when she got there).  Hasegawa and Saldaña share many of the same values, and both of them really want this job, as evidenced by the boatloads of money they’ve raised ($260,625 for Saldaña, more than $237,000 for Hasegawa at print time, holy shit). That’s more than half a million dollars. But it would take a lot for us to turn our back on Saldaña. To be clear, Hasegawa wouldn’t be a bad pick for this seat. As a port commissioner, typically a sleepy role, she barred any expansion of immigration police activity on Portland, and introduced an order that provides civil rights education to anyone working on Port property. It’s easy, really. If you’re comparing two people of similar values, and one has done the work and the other has just begun, you pick the former. Toshiko, please run for city council next year. You could slay, diva. Vote Saldaña.  Metropolitan King CountyCouncil District No. 8Teresa Mosqueda We love Teresa Mosqueda and her long list of priorities: housing, workers’ rights, creating a safety net for the more than 200,000 people who are about to lose access to Medicaid, and protecting the region from the Trump administration. Though dozens of progressives marched into our office this year with the same goals, Mosqueda has been in local government long enough to know which levers to pull.   The county’s highest priority next year will be to “step into the housing arena with both feet,” she said. She supports a slow transition away from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority once we’ve shored up federal funding and built the infrastructure to support county and city programs. She also supports a county-level housing levy to push affordable housing with adequate administrative funding so it functions. Mosqueda’s opponent is former Seattle City Council legislative aide to Councilmember Maritza Rivera and self-described “small-L liberal” Nick Duda, who didn’t show up to our meeting. He is a “practical Democrat.” Vote Mosqueda.  SUPREME COURT Supreme CourtJustice Position No. 1Colleen Melody Justice Colleen Melody led the Washington State Attorney General’s Civil Rights Division when it was first formed. She fought and won cases against Trump’s Muslim travel ban, an abortion pill ban, the trans military ban, and the attempts to kill birthright citizenship and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), as well as a suit against the Northwest Detention Center for paying inmates $1 an hour for their labor. Melody’s knowledge impressed us: statewide court access issues, the public defense funding crisis and ways the Court can ameliorate it, racial bias in jury selection, the need for therapeutic courts, and the best places to sit at Mariners games.  Running against this judicial genius is Scott Edwards, a man at war with the idea of taxation. Edwards has the financial support of Full Court Press, former attorney general Rob McKenna’s passion project to turn the court conservative. Full Court Press is in bed with the conservative dark money machine Project 42, also responsible for funding the anti-trans initiatives on the ballot this year. Vote Melody.  Supreme CourtJustice Position No. 3Jaime Michelle Hawk We had the hardest time choosing between Jaime Hawk and Mike Diaz, the other lefty (for a judge) candidate in the August primary. Ultimately, we went with Diaz because of his wide breadth of experience as a Washington Court of Appeals judge and as the prosecutor who put the Seattle Police Department under the consent decree for murdering Indigenous Nuu-chah-nulth woodcarver John T. Williams. Diaz did not make the cut, so now we get to endorse Hawk. And it is so easy to sing her praises.  Hawk has spent her career as a state public defender and as an assistant federal public defender in Eastern Washington and Idaho. She also served as the legal strategy advisor for the ACLU’s Washington Campaign for Smart Justice (real title), where, as a civil rights attorney, she defended voting rights, argued against cash bail and jail overcrowding, and worked to reduce bias in the justice system. Three years ago, Hawk became the first ACLU attorney in Washington State to become a judge. In King County Superior Court, she’s judged criminal, civil, and appellate trials. Hawk will be a worthy addition to the Washington State Supreme Court.  Especially when you consider whom she’s running against. Former Spokane prosecutor and current Mason County Superior Court Judge David Stevens is very unhappy with the State Supreme Court and believes it is overstepping in its decision-making; he is particularly displeased with the lengths the Court has gone to make juries more representative, saying that jurors should not be selected based on race. Stevens also believes the Court shouldn’t be allowed to reinterpret the state constitution, which is their fucking job sometimes, and a big sign he thinks the Millionaires Tax is a big no-no. Oh, and would you look at that, one of the guys behind the anti–Millionaires Tax ballot initiative, Steve Gordon, gave Stevens $1,200. On the topic of red flag donors, the Council of Police Political Support gave him $4,800. If this is not enough, we will leave you with one more factoid: His favorite US Supreme Court justices are Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, three men who are in Hell or will be soon. Vote Hawk. (Sorry, Mike.) Supreme CourtJustice Position No. 4Ian Birk The SECB asked the Supreme Court candidates to define “property,” to see if they’ll hang themselves with an answer that would reveal their opinion about a possible case regarding the state’s Millionaires Tax, as “property” is the central question of the case. Typically, the candidates talk around it. State Court of Appeals Judge Ian Birk looked at us across the table in his stiff, dry Scandinavian way and said, “I don’t think so.”  He is not one to be fooled. He spent 20 years as a lawyer mostly suing insurance companies on behalf of individuals and small businesses. Four years ago, Governor Jay Inslee appointed him to the Washington State Court of Appeals. And with good reason. He is precise and analytical. When Birk speaks, you can see the depth of his thinking. Especially around fairness, access to the courts, and the Court’s role in addressing racial inequities and mass incarceration. When he picked us and our questions apart, we thought, “This is exactly the person you’d want sitting on our State Supreme Court.” He’s no-nonsense, with zero interest in political games or in flattering the SECB. There is only the law, and its fair application for all people. He lives for this and treats it as a sacred responsibility. It was inspiring. His opponent, Judge Sean O’Donnell, also gave strong answers on racial justice, regulating the use of artificial intelligence in the courts, and improving access to public defense in civil cases, but they were not as robust as Birk’s answers. There were also two problems. Former state Attorney General Rob McKenna, who is trying to flip the court for conservatives, donated to his campaign, and cops have donated to him for years. This is not surprising. O’Donnell was a prosecutor. Cops like cops. And O’Donnell helped put away Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, a guy we don’t agree with. We don’t get the sense he’s a conservative psy-op, but we don’t have to wring our hands over it because Birk was better anyway. Vote Birk. Supreme CourtJustice Position No. 5Theo Angelis Shady Democratic Governor Bob Ferguson handpicked attorney Theo Angelis for the Court this spring. This appointee has a broad, 25-year legal career spanning civil law, family law, and technology. He has advocated for immigrants and won (like in the class action lawsuit he brought against the federal government for failing to provide legal representation in deportation proceedings against immigrant children). Angelis lacks judicial experience aside from his few months on the Court, but he demonstrated an exhaustive knowledge of the state constitution and Court precedent that did not set off our highly sensitive bullshit detectors.  We could not say the same for retired judge Dave Larson. While we appreciated his self-deprecating sense of humor, Larson is one of those walking Elks Lodges who call their conservatism “common sense.” He denounced the lower, Court-enacted caseload standards for public defenders and said the Blake decision, which invalidated the state’s simple drug possession charges and has vacated over 150,000 cases so far, “really set us back.”  He insisted he wasn’t a tool for former state Attorney General Rob McKenna or hedge fund millionaire Brian Heywood, even though their ghoulish coalition, Project 42, funneled money into his last campaign through the conservative Citizen Action Defense Fund. What else could be hiding up his robe sleeves, besides a respectable tight five? Meanwhile, Angelis insists that we pay jurors more while also building up childcare centers to make serving on juries easier for the public. He also checked Larson’s bullshit when Larson said the Legislature, not the courts, should decide civil matters like gay marriage. That’s what Washington did, and famously, nobody had any issues with that! “When’s the last time that anybody had a protest about same-sex marriage?” Larson said. Angelis jumped in to say that the Court should protect people’s rights because we can’t always trust legislators to do that. Vote Angelis.  Supreme CourtJustice Position No. 7Debra L. Stephens We would be out of our goddamn minds if we did not keep Chief Justice Debra L. Stephens around for six more years. If reelected, she’d become the Court’s senior member. Stephens loves the wonky, non-flashy work of the Court, like modifying judicial rules to expand court access and steering the Court through its Zoom era during COVID. Speaking of 2020, under her guidance, the Court wrote an open letter about the role the judicial system plays in perpetuating racial justice. When we asked judicial candidates this election cycle for the most impactful recent Washington State Supreme Court decisions, many picked the McCleary decision, which mandated that the state must fully fund public education. Stephens authored it.  Stephens considers cases through the lens that “the law is a collection of rules and values based on our understanding about human behavior, about right and wrong, and culpability, and responsibility.” The only candidate who made it through the rogues’ gallery of unserious Republicans challenging her is Todd Bloom, an accountant, financial planner, Navy veteran, and attorney. Bloom seems highly focused on taxation. Hmm. Interesting. Vote Stephens. DISTRICT COURT King County District Court WestElectoral District Judge Position No. 1Bardi Martin County District Court judges sweat the small stuff, presiding over traffic infractions, criminal misdemeanors, small claims, and many people who have never stepped foot in a courtroom and rarely have legal representation. Bardi Martin and Nyjat Rose-Akins both displayed the qualities we’d like to see on the bench, but we felt Martin had the edge. He was adopted and grew up in King County, where he later worked as a public defender. He was unanimously appointed to the judge position in January after his predecessor retired, and he says he aims to use diversion programs as often as he can, acknowledging that a clean record can be very important in this day and age, as federal officers look for any reason at all to detain someone. Rose-Akins is currently a judge pro tem bopping from courtroom to courtroom like a substitute teacher, and was a prosecutor in the Seattle City Attorney’s office for over a decade. He was a public defender, she was a prosecutor. Can we make it any more obvious?  Did we mention Martin was the bassist for Candlebox in the ’90s? Sadly, he wouldn’t give us any good Eddie Vedder gossip. Vote Martin.  Southeast District CourtJudge, Position No. 5Heather Barker This is a big year for the King County District Court. Due to a spate of retirements, there will be eight new judges on the bench after this year, one third of the judges. Property law attorney and Judge Pro Tem Heather Barker thinks experience is critical in these positions. Barker says her four years Pro-Temming in the therapeutic courts, which is, for the most part, the equivalent to subbing (nonsexually) for a judge who’s absent, makes her the right, sympathetic, patient, and supportive choice. We’re inclined to believe her! And even if we didn’t, we’d have no choice, because Barker’s challenger, Joshua Harris, withdrew from the race. He did so only after it was too late to get his name off the ballot. So Barker is running against a ghost. Harris was a ghost even before he withdrew. He raised $0 for his campaign. What was surprising—since Harris remained a mystery in the three months since he filed to run—was that he told Barker he was going to pursue a career in MMA. Vote Barker.   Northeast District CourtJudge, Position No. 1 Jan Trasen The race for a judgeship in the District Court’s Northeast division, spanning Bellevue, Kirkland, and Issaquah, is a classic showdown between a career prosecutor and a career public defender. Bianca Tse was a King County Deputy Prosecutor for 16 years. Now, Tse is a Pro Tem judge, basically a substitute judge, a bench warmer. Tse says she’s gotten plenty of trial experience and claims to be the only Pro Tem in the race. Except, she isn’t. Jan Trasen is a Pro Tem as well, though only once a week. Pseudo-judge on pseudo-judge violence. You hate to see it.  Trasen, who worked as a public defender for 26 years, is busy. She works full-time as an administrative law judge presiding over disputes between vulnerable people and the government, most having to do with health care. The bulk of that work was in the Washington Appellate Project, where she helped people appeal their convictions. She learned that many judges mistreated people. She wants to “set an example for how to do it better than some of the [judges] I’ve seen.” She sees becoming a judge as “the greatest public service.” Trasen says her career of working with real people rather than people (*cough* prosecutors *cough*) who “worked as government functionaries” informs her approach to things as small as setting bail. “I have a window into what people are experiencing,” she said. Trasen is exactly what this system needs. Vote Trasen.  Southwest Electoral DistrictJudge, Position No. 4Harry Steinmetz Attorney Harry Steinmetz has been a lawyer for 36 years and practiced seemingly every angle of law that will be relevant for a position on the King County District Court. Steinmetz has been a criminal defense lawyer for the bulk of his career, but he’s also served as a deputy prosecuting attorney, and he’s worked as an administrative law judge with the Washington State Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals, where he primarily hears cases from workers injured on the job. Steinmetz also used his honed legal mind while he served the city of Des Moines as a city council person and as deputy mayor. He’s everywhere! Currently, he’s part of a University of Washington task force working to advocate for more (some? Any?) public defense funding in our no-money state. We like all of this about Steinmetz. Something else we like about Steinmetz is that he has never been sanctioned by the Commission of Judicial Conduct. His opponent, Judge Fa’amomoi Masaniai, cannot say the same. This year, Masaniai was disciplined for behaving inappropriately with a female clerk, including offering to massage her, messaging her outside of work hours, and giving her a full-body hug she felt she couldn’t refuse. Masaniai insisted the SECB come watch him in court to judge his judicial work. We might take him up on the offer, and will keep our physical distance for obvious reasons, but we do not think anything can excuse his past behavior. Vote Steinmetz.  Southwest Electoral DistrictJudge, Position No. 5Noel Merfeld Both candidates running to be the judge in Southwest King County (from Burien to Federal Way and everything in between, plus Vashon Island) are good.  In one corner, we have the nerdy defense lawyer, Noel Merfeld, who brought us miracle berries to eat so our tastebuds would be all riled up and enhanced when we feasted on the Tupperware of fruits he also brought. (They make everything miraculously sweeter, but the good shit is not the freeze-dried kind he brought, he told us.) This was one of the best bribes the SECB has ever received. There are no points, but if there were, Merfeld would get them for creativity. On shit that matters to you at all, Merfeld would like to expand therapeutic courts and bring more compassion to the courtroom, which, like miracle berries, would sweeten the experience. He has also served as a prosecutor, but that work didn’t agree with him, and he quit rather quickly. Prosecution has agreed with his challenger, Renee Walls, who has been bringing the hammer down for 26 years. Walls does not seem to enjoy putting people in jail. She is clear-eyed about the system and its inequities, and believes that this perspective brings a certain cleanliness and just perspective to a dirty job. She has lengthy experience as a Pro Tem judge, which could be valuable. However, the city of Burien contracts with Walls’s law firm, Walls Law, for all of its prosecutorial needs. Burien is a punitive city. Just look at its anti-homeless camping ban. The SECB was somewhat split on this one, but ultimately, we do not want to mess around with that. Vote Mr. Miracle, Mr. Merfeld. CITY City of SeattleCouncil District No. 5Nilu Jenks We’re starving for more progressive leadership on Seattle City Council, and we’re finally ready, as a society, to wave a permanent goodbye to Debora Juarez. Hello, Nilu Jenks. Again. We’re unenthused, but she’s better than Julie Kang. Voters clearly agree. Jenks got 54 percent of the vote to Kang’s 33 percent. Jenks has most of the right positions, a solid base of support from Seattle progressives, and hope: even after losing the race for this seat in 2023 and failing to secure the appointment after Cathy Moore’s resignation, Jenks has continued to dream of D5. Two bona fides: Jenks helped organize the nation’s largest gun buyback program in Northern California, and her day job is to advance ranked choice voting in Washington.  She also understands how local government works. Jenks is savvy on zoning and density, which will come in handy when the city council revises the comprehensive plan. She wants a tax on short-term rentals, a nuisance tax on vacant properties, and a token tax on AI. In 2023, she told the SECB she wouldn’t raise the JumpStart payroll tax during a recession, a position she maintains.  When we asked Kang about affordable housing, shelter beds, and police surveillance, she gave mushy answers. We had no idea how she felt, or what she may vote for. Her use of progressive policy lingo is a ruse. She’s a business fetishist. Vote Jenks. Municipal Court JudgePosition No. 5Gabe Rothstein Gabe Rothstein is a career public defender with the friendly, theatrical air of a carnival barker and the big heart of someone who believes in recovery, redemption, and second chances.  In his spare time, Rothstein works at Youth Access to Counsel, a 24/7 legal aid service for minors. He also serves on the board of directors of the Holman Recovery Center and works as a judge pro tem in the King County Municipal Court.  We’re less certain Garmon Newsom, the Burien City Attorney who defended the city’s “camping ban” and fought minimum wage increases, would serve people with dignity and respect. In a January 2025 Burien City Council meeting, Newsom insisted that threatening homeless people with arrest would give them an “incentive to actually accept the offer of shelter, treatment, and housing.” Burien has only two shelters—one for families and one for women—and the city itself recognizes there are “no designated spaces for single men, youth, or couples.” In 2025, Newsom also fought tooth and nail against the voter-approved minimum wage increase, going so far as to sue the organizers behind the ballot measure. Attorneys are supposed to duke it out for their clients, but gross! Vote Rothstein. CHEAT SHEET The post The Stranger’s 2026 General Election Endorsements appeared first on The Stranger. ...read more read less