The great majority of races on the ballot in Washington and King County are cut-and-dried. I mean, who here in King County isn’t going to vote for Joe and Kamala, Jay, Bob, and (Suzan or Pramila or Kim or Adam)?
But there are two other races that I want to present to you, races that — unlike all of the above — won’t be easy victories for the candidates whose ballot ovals I believe you should fill:
Below the story break (I still want to call it squiggle, but that just demonstrates how long I’ve been at the dKos game) are explanations for why I am urging King County voters to vote for Hillary in that Superior Court race, and all Washingtonians to cast their ballots in favor of Gael for SoS.
I’ve known Hillary Madsen, pictured above with her husband Rob Dolin (Secretary of the Washington State Democrats) and their kids, for over 10 years. Come to think of it, I knew Hillary and Rob before they were “an item”, before she was the chair of the 43rd District Democrats, before she went to law school. She is a committed Democrat, as well as a committed advocate for youth in detention, homeless students, foster care, and many other nitty-gritty issues. On her website, you can view Hillary’s video campaign statement.
Hillary has the judicial mindset in her genes. Washingtonians may have noticed that her last name seems familiar; that’s because her mother has been an Associate Justice of the Washington Supreme Court since 1992. Not that she crows about that fact — her About Hillary page notes only that “her mother serves as a judge and her father was a public defender”, and the caption of the mother-daughter photo bears only “Hillary with her mom Barbara” as a caption.
Innumerable organizations, officials, individuals, and unions have endorsed Hillary’s candidacy. She has the backing of 16 of King County’s 17 Legislative District Democratic organizations (and is supported by the Senator and both House members from the other LD), seven active and five retired WA Supremes, numerous state legislators (even a moderate Republican), King County Councilmembers, seven important unions, and so on and so forth. Seattle’s influential weekly The Stranger has given Hillary their endorsement as well.
Perhaps most significant, in a personal sense, are the words of the retiring incumbent in position 13. Says Judge Theresa Doyle:
"When I decided to retire from the court this year, I was hoping there would be a candidate for my seat, position 13, who would carry on my work in criminal justice, racial justice, and juvenile decarceration. And there was! Hillary and I met years ago when I was working on legal financial obligations (LFO) reform for Minority Justice Commission and Hillary was doing the same for juveniles. Hillary was enormously successful in LFO reform legislation for juveniles. Now serving in juvenile court, I think of her whenever I am able to waive onerous LFOs for our young people."
Please join Judge Doyle, yours truly, and a host of others in voting for (and maybe even contributing to) Hillary Madsen for King County Superior Court position 13.
Washington has elected Democratic governors since the election of 1984. In Booth Gardner (elected in 1984 and 1988), Mike Lowry (1992), Gary Locke (1996 and 2000), Christine Gregoire (2004 and 2008), and Jay Inslee (2012, 2016, and soon 2020), we have enjoyed wise Democratic leadership longer than any other state in the union. When Jay is reelected, the streak will reach 10 consecutive elections.
At the same time, the state has consistently elected Republican Secretaries of State. In fact, it’s an even longer streak … a much longer streak. The last time Washington elected a Democratic SoS was the only time (until November 3, 2020) that the United States elected a Catholic president … 1960. Parenthetically, Washington’s nine Electoral Votes went to Richard Nixon in that election; even King County gave Nixon 51% of its votes. The Republican Secretary of State streak stands at 14 elections in a row.
Which is not to say that WA’s GOP Secretaries of State have been the ilk of Katherine Harris, Ken Blackwell, Kris Kobach, or Brian Kemp. Far from it — Washington's progress toward all-mail voting, universal since 2011, has occurred entirely under Republican Secretaries of State. Furthermore, I could not have written my extensive series of DailyKos diaries during the protracted count, recount, and second recount of the 2004 gubernatorial election without the invaluable data reports and the fair-minded lawsuits and amici curiae submitted by SoS Sam Reed over those weeks of cliffhangers.
The current SoS, Kim Wyman, was Reed’s chosen successor when he decided not to run for reelection in 2012. She squeaked past Democrat Kathleen Drew (50.4% — 49.6%) that year, almost entirely because she had previously been the Auditor of usually-Democratic Thurston County and won there by 20,000 votes. For comparison, in the next-tightest statewide race, Jay Inslee won Thurston County by nearly 10,000 … and Wyman’s statewide margin was less than 24,000.
In this year’s election, the Democratic candidate is Representative Gael Tarleton, from Seattle’s 36th Legislative District. Gael’s prior political career was as an elected King County Port Commissioner (2008-2013), where she was part of a group of progressive candidates (and Commissioners) who transformed the Port into a positive force for the people rather than the entrenched business/industrial insiders who had been pocketing plenty from the Port for years. While Gael doesn’t have a background specifically in running elections, her expertise in international cybersecurity, intelligence analysis, and disaster preparedness — along with her experience representing US companies in post-perestroika Russia — would be invaluable in a Secretary of State in these times of Russian cyber-interference and dirty tricks. it’s a portfolio of skills far more advanced, really on an entirely different dimension, than those of the incumbent.
Because I was highly involved in vetting and endorsing candidates in my LD Democratic organization, I got to know Gael fairly well. Not only was I a regular donor to her Port Commission and House campaigns (even though I didn’t live in her LD), I was able to discuss issues large and small with her over beers and at events.
Secretary of State isn’t one of those “sexy” offices that attract huge donations. Gael is on TV here in Washington, but it remains a bare-bones campaign that could use more cash in order to say more to the citizens of our state. Gael has an ActBlue donation link … which I just used myself! More to the point, of course, if you’re a Washingtonian you can help her to finally break the Republican stranglehold on the Secretary of State position by voting for her.
Kim Wyman depends on our inertia, inattention, and laziness to hold onto her position, so let’s show her what we can do when we put our minds to it. Let’s put a Democrat — specifically, Gael Tarleton — in the Secretary of State office, and end 60 years of Republican control of Washington’s elections.