Podcast appearances and mentions of bill boyce

Bill Boyce spoke at our Reunions FNF meeting on what it means that Jesus promises us abundant life. "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." - John 10:10

Bill Boyce spoke on Zoom at PCF's Virtual Reunions FNF meeting. He talked about the need to hit the "recenter button" on our lives and to remember centrality of the Great Commission:"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20.

After practicing law for 18 years, Bill Boyce served as a justice on the 14th Court of Appeals in Houston for 11 years. Bill has argued more than 60 cases in appellate courts throughout Texas and across the country, including the United States Supreme Court. Bill knows the law. When his wife Maria was diagnosed with Triple Negative breast cancer, he soon had a crash course in medicine and what treatment means when dealing with cancer. Once through that initial time of Maria's diagnosis, Bill knew that she was in the hands of the best of the best—that he says, was one reason he felt so confident about her beating this disease. He had also seen her feistiness and determination. As they waded into a different type of battle, their mutual support and their individual times of refocusing gave them a new appreciation of what good health means in life. Please share this episode with family and friends, and consider making a donation at therose.org. It could save the life of an uninsured woman. Key Questions Answered 1.) When did Bill know something was amiss with his wife Maria? 2.) Did Bill comfort Maria or did she comfort him? 3.) How did Bill Boyce inform his work colleagues about Maria's diagnosis? 4.) How did friends support Bill and Maria during this time? 5.) What future plans do Bill and Maria have following her treatment? Timestamped Overview 00:00 Routine mammogram found unexpected and concerning results. 06:48 Informed colleagues about absence for medical reasons. 07:38 Lawyers face problems straightforwardly and decisively. 13:11 Maria's cancer treatment journey and surgery. 15:14 Creating a comforting home for those in need. 17:39 Challenging treatment, but gradually regained strength.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a message for our virtual Reunions meeting on Zoom, Bill Boyce shared a reflection on Matthew 11:28-30, where Jesus says, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Bill Boyce continues our series on Philippians by asking the question: what are you waiting for? What are you longing for? His text is Philippians 3:17-21:Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Bill Boyce continues our FNF series on Philippians by talking about our longing for purpose and how Paul speaks to a life filled with purpose in Christ.Philippians 1:12-26I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.

Bill Boyce preaches from Ecclesiastes 2:1-11"I said in my heart, 'Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.' But behold, this also was vanity. 2 I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” 3 I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. 4 I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. 5 I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. 8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.9 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. 10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. 11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

Bill Boyce talks about how Jesus presents himself as a Servant, teaching from John 13:1-17: "Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.  Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.  He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?”  Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”  Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”  Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”  Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you?  You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.  If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.  For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.  Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.  If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them."

Bill Boyce taught on Jesus as the long expected Christ and Messiah. "And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him." - Mark 8:27-30

Bill Boyce shared a short reflection at our Virtual FNF meeting centered around John 14:6 where Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," and also on Ephesians 2: 19-22 "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit."

Bill Boyce continues our series on practical theology by addressing the topic of doubt. His text was Matthew 11:2-6"2 Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 4 And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Bill Boyce teaches on Contentment in our series on Practical Theology. His text is Philippians 4:10-13"I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me."Some say Philippians 4:13 is now the most well-known verse in the Bible, but Bill explains that this is "not a promise that whatever I set out to accomplish God will help me to achieve." Rather in this verse Paul is saying that "...knowing Christ gives me the strength to face anything." Throughout the rest of the message Bill unpacks this as the true secret to Christian contentment.  

Bill Boyce continues our Winter Retreat series by discussing fear in relation to Psalm 27.The Lord is my light and my salvation;    whom shall I fear?The Lord is the stronghold of my life;    of whom shall I be afraid?

Bill Boyce continues our Advent series, reflecting how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Good Shepherd described in Ezekiel 34:11-16:“For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.

On this Friday show, we present Part 2 of the Hacks & Wonks 2022 Post-Election Roundtable which was live-streamed on November 15, 2022 with special guests political consultants Dujie Tahat and Kelsey Hamlin. In Part 2, the panel breaks down election results for State Legislature seats in the battleground districts of the 26th, 30th, 44th, and 47th LDs, where Democrats prevailed despite fears of backlash from passage of police accountability bills in 2021. They then dive into how the King County Prosecuting Attorney's race embodied many of the election cycle's themes - how fearmongering and punitive approaches to public safety lost to positive messaging about addressing root causes, and how the media and editorial boards attempted to drive narratives out of touch with the nuanced conversation voters are ready to have. Finally, the roundtable wraps up with a look at how established organizations and their history of relational organizing won successful initiatives to bring ranked choice voting to Seattle and a higher minimum wage to Tukwila. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-hosts, Dujie Tahat at @DujieTahat and Kelsey Hamlin at @ItsKelseyHamlin. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources Hacks & Wonks 2022 Post-Election Roundtable Livestream | November 15th, 2022   Transcript [00:00:00] Bryce Cannatelli: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Bryce Cannatelli – I'm the Post Coordinator for the show. You're listening to Part 2 of our 2022 Post-Election Roundtable, with guests Dujie Tahat and Kelsey Hamlin, that was originally aired live on Tuesday, November 15th. Part 1 was our last episode – you can find it in your podcast feed or on our website officialhacksandwonks.com. You can also go to the site for full video from the event and a full text transcript of the show. Thanks for tuning in! [00:00:43] Crystal Fincher: Okay, okay, okay. Did you do work in any legislative races? I know you did a lot of work, but I don't know if you did any legislative work. [00:00:52] Dujie Tahat: We didn't do legislative work this year. [00:00:53] Crystal Fincher: Okay. [00:00:54] Dujie Tahat: Yeah. We weren't even planning on doing really a bunch of any electoral work and then, you know, suddenly we got a phone call. Yeah, exactly - it was like August and then we got six phone calls and I was like, oh, yeah, all right - sure. [00:01:10] Crystal Fincher: Nice. In these races, there were some interesting ones. One, legislatively, the 10th Legislative District, which is still too close to call - the lead flipped yesterday, it flipped again today. That one of the legislative districts there got a little dramatic in one of those races. Dave Paul actually looks safe in that race - I think it's safe to say that he is going to win. But whether Democrat Clyde Shavers or Republican Greg Gilday carries the day is still to be determined. Another huge district, battleground district, and one that people were not at all clear on how that was going to end up was the 26th Legislative District - out in Pierce and Kitsap County, with Emily Randall in a race defending her Senate seat against Jesse Young, who was a Representative. And it looks like Emily Randall has won that race. I would definitely put Emily in the category of people who are in community, connect with community, and leading boldly - not afraid to say where she stands, not afraid to make the case, and take the case to people in her district - and talk with people who agree with her, talk with people who may not agree with her. But I think what we saw there, and what she found, was that she was able to find places of agreement. And people understanding that she's operating in good faith, and even if they don't agree with everything that they heard from her - on the Republican side, that they know that she listens and is willing to act and is willing to fight for a lot of things that just benefit everybody, that don't really have a Democrat or progressive label on it, but just wanting to get people cared for and healthy in the district is a big deal. That certainly was one, but a lot of people were not sure how that was going to end up, but ended up turning out well. The 30th legislative district and the 44th - two interesting races - full disclosure, did work in those legislative districts, but saw - I think what I noticed in the 30th District especially - this is in South King County, this is mainly Federal Way, some of Auburn in the 30th Legislative District. But you had Jamila Taylor there and you had Kristine Reeves running for the seat that Jesse Johnson ended up leaving. Both were successful, but Jamila actually had a Federal Way police officer running against her in that office - and Federal Way is the city where Jim Ferrell is the mayor. He was certainly - him running for King County Prosecutor - unsuccessfully - but really talking about that punitive - as they call it, law and order - but really punitive punishment-focused rhetoric and rallying against some of the accountability measures that the Legislature took, trying to really blame that on Jamila and others there. And that really just seemed to fall flat - and pretty solid, comfortable victories there for all three candidates in that district - Senator Claire Wilson, Kristine Reeves, and Jamila Taylor. So that was an interesting one where people were wondering - okay, is there going to be a backlash? I saw an article today, I think from Scott Greenstone, where he wrote about - hey, that backlash that people were wondering if it was going to appear, just related to public safety, very much did not appear. And the 30th Legislative District was one of those districts where they really tried to hammer the Democratic candidates with that and make a case on the Republican side, and it just didn't seem to come through. Similarly in the 44th Legislative District, but had an interesting result there - John Lovick, previous representative, now won his race to be the senator there, along with Brandy Donaghy, who was appointed to the seat, was running for this new term, as well as April Berg, who is a continuing representative there. But again, in that district that used to be a swing district - that used to be the district of former moderate Senator Steve Hobbs, as well as John Lovick, and for years they insisted that - hey, it takes a moderate to win this seat, this is a purple district, they won't elect a progressive Democrat. And then April Berg came along and said, Really? Watch this. And then it seemed to have continued, and what was once a purple district now seems to, as you both talked about before, now seems to be pretty safely blue for the time being. And just an interesting development there, because there was so much in flux at the beginning of the cycle, and now it just seems to be so definitive that they're there. [00:06:57] Kelsey Hamlin: Can I - oh, okay. Go ahead. I was going to say, because you touched on it a couple of times - around leading boldly with Emily Randall. And for that matter, like Jamila - and the races really that you just went through - these candidates who lead boldly actually are the ones that get the turnout, that get the motivation from voters that we were talking about earlier. And at the end of the day, they're also being a person, they go and talk to people, they're not just relying on ads that show up on people's TVs to just get people to feel one way or another. But you had mentioned this backlash narrative around, ultimately, police accountability measures that were passed two legislative sessions ago, and a lot of the narrative was - ooh, is there going to be backlash during this midterm? Is this going to impact electability of sitting legislators? And as a result, because that question was even posed, because we're operating from a place of fear, because we're not willing to lead boldly, except for the few great folks of, some of which you just named - that actually really, really impacted the immediately next legislative session, this early 2022 one that just finished. And so those bills were rolled back - all in the name of electability politics - but at the end of the day, when you look at the races of the people who are not involved in that rollback, who in fact opposed it, those are the folks that really pulled the ticket, brought it home. So I'm just really curious around your take of just even the framing of backlash in general, about who we're giving power to for actually taking bold action. Is it backlash, if we're actually doing what is clearly voters' will? So I'm just curious around that conversation in general, because it's played over the course of the past two to three years. [00:09:11] Dujie Tahat: Can I also add a follow-up question, because I think I was going to ask a similar question - in terms of backlash - because I think there's also the relationship, I think, between sort of local politics, local elections, and then the nationalization. So I think we can definitively say last election cycle last year, when it was all city and county races, was a kind of backlash to - elected a bunch of conservative city council members and city attorneys. And at least in Seattle, in the Seattle area. I'm curious if there's a difference, if there's a meaningful difference between how voters behave in an off-year versus a not-off-year, and then particularly, like the voting for a state legislator versus voting for your mayor in the context of public safety and crime and police, in particular. [00:10:08] Crystal Fincher: Okay, a few things. One, so even on just last year - and certainly for people in Seattle, they felt that there was a backlash because of the mayoral race and the city attorney race - I think that there were some other fundamentals and pretty clear fundamentals at play. And the other issue is that when you look in the suburbs, we had a number of suburbs elect some of the most progressive city council people that they ever have before. And so I think really what we had was a story of candidates. And I think that especially in the City of Seattle, where the media plays a role in elections in a different way than they do in some of the suburban and rural areas, that that also impacted some races. I think that fundamentals pretty well favored Bruce Harrell, right? I think just looking at voter communications, spending on direct voter communication - the Nicole Thomas-Kennedy race and some of the other races - they were just massively outspent and outdone with direct voter communication. So anytime that there's that much of a lopsided communication delta, it is hard to prevail in that situation. And then when you have unknown people who - it's up to you to define yourself or the opponent to define you - and in those situations, the opponent had a lot more resources to try and define those, that that impacted those races in a different way in Seattle than we saw in some of the suburbs. But I do think that when it comes to the backlash narrative - our public conversation, the media conversation about public safety is in a very different place than people on the ground. In 2020, with the King County Charter Amendments that brought forth more accountability measures and offices, in addition to appointing instead of electing the sheriff - that wasn't just the only thing that brought forth accountability measures. And despite those charter amendments being dramatically outspent and there being opposition against them, they were passed. And they were passed in just about every council district in the county, right? So this was not - this never has been, as sometimes it is characterized, as well - just those super lefties in Seattle care about like comprehensive public safety and addressing root causes of crime and issues like that. Over and over again, we have seen at the ballot box and in polling - that voters across the county do care about accountability, that whether or not they want more police or not, they all - and I'm using the term all in a near literal sense - 80+ percent when folks at the ballot box are saying, but we also want alternate responses. We understand that - hey, even if I have no issue with an officer, and I think that it's appropriate to call an officer at some period and at some point in time - that when it comes to an issue of someone having a behavioral health crisis, or if someone is unhoused, or if someone is dealing with complex family issues - that sometimes an armed police response is - they're just not equipped to do that, right? And I think that the public conversation in the media has been - well, is it defund or not? Do you back the blue or not? - and it's very binary, shallow conversation. But most voters recognize that it's not an either or most of the time it's an and situation. And what we have done is invested a lot in some portions of the necessary public safety puzzle and have starved other areas. And so we better get to taking action on addressing some of these root causes, on enabling appropriate response. Just yesterday, there was someone near where I lived, clearly having a behavioral health crisis, right? And there's this helpless feeling that calling the police on this is not - it won't help anyone. It won't help anyone in this situation. But there isn't anyone to call, there is not a resource available to appropriately handle this - and it's frustrating. And it makes you feel helpless. But that's what's missing. And I think lots of people see and feel that and understand that we need to buffet our infrastructure. I think being very defensive and playing into that shallow conversation - is it defund or is it not - that is such an elementary point to start the conversation. Because there's such broad acknowledgement that we do need other things, that we better pay attention to that. So painting that as some controversial lever of what side are you on, does not represent where most people in the public are at. And over and over again, they keep saying - we want you to deal with this more comprehensively. We want to do the things that evidence shows will make these issues better and not keep trying the same failed solutions. We seem to have a few leaders who are dead set on just doing the same old things regardless of the failed continued results. And some media who seem to be very interested in pushing that narrative. I think it is really hard to do that credibly right now, given - once again - the results that we saw so conclusively in the King County Prosecutor's race, the judicial races, some of these county races, these legislative races. And I do think that people understand that - really - public safety is a local issue. And Tiffany Smiley trying to blame Patty Murray just clearly fell flat. But people understand that Patty Murray isn't deciding whether or not to deploy your local policeman, right? That's a local decision. But I also think that the part that's missing is that people have to be held accountable for results there too. And then as we look at the effectiveness of some of these alternate response projects and pilots, and we're looking at metrics, and whether there's a dashboard available and what are they doing - we better be doing that with all of our emergency response, police response and making sure that we're getting out of it a justification for the money that we're putting into it. And if we're not, let's do something that's actually more effective. People's safety is at stake. And I just feel that this political conversation that has enabled a perpetuation of these failed policies that have not stopped people from being victimized are just hurting us all. That was a very long-winded answer, but I have feelings about that. What are your feelings about that? [00:18:06] Kelsey Hamlin: I also do think there's a level of accountability that needs to happen, even on the consultant side. Who told our legislators that enacted police accountability that was complex, that was like - hey, let's not do vehicle chases anymore at really high speeds because people pretty much always die and you almost never catch anyone. Who decided that that's the thing we want to roll back? These aren't these binary conversations that led to these laws happening in 2020, 2021 and then getting rolled back in the very next year. And getting rolled back in the name of electability, right? Who is using their power to tell our legislators that they should actually in fact hold back on their boldness, that they should not enact these rather complex and very clearly data-driven laws behind not just police accountability, but public safety in general. At the end of the day, it comes down to - hey, let's maybe kill less people this year. [00:19:06] Crystal Fincher: That was always bad advice. I don't - clearly there was some advice given with that, but - look, Democrats, Republicans are going to call you lawless, criminal-loving, all of that - regardless of what you do. And as - we talked about it on the show before, I think lots of us have talked about this - it was absolutely predictable that even though they did roll those back, Republicans attacked Democrats as if there was no rollbacks and as if nothing had happened. So instead of acting defensive and scared of what you are doing, do the right thing. Make the case for doing the right thing. Take the case to the voters. If you are actually connected to community, you can do that with credibility, right? And with success. But just looking at a poll and going - uh oh, this looks scary, we better backpedal and - yeah, that was a frustrating thing to watch happen. [00:20:17] Dujie Tahat: And now to take it back to the start of this conversation, it's like - you didn't need to do it. We didn't need to do it because we increased majorities, despite all of the contextual historical indicators pointing to us losing majorities. We actually gained them - so we didn't need to do it. [00:20:37] Crystal Fincher: Didn't need to do it. And yeah, that was very unnecessary. I hope there are lessons learned from that. There need to be lessons learned from that. Just wrapping up some of these legislative races, we talked about the 44th. The 47th, which we actually did quite a bit of work in, was an interesting race. And I think the 47th Legislative District holds a lot of lessons for a lot of people there. This was a district - and it's part of Kent, Covington, part of Auburn, Maple Valley - that area in South King County. But there was - starting off - two Black Republicans - one - and then a third running in that district who was a Ukrainian refugee. There were two open seats, an open Senate seat, an open House seat, and then one incumbent running - Debra Entenman on the Democratic side. On, for the Democratic challengers, we had a primary with Carmen Goers that - it was a Black woman who was a Republican active in the Chamber of Commerce against Shukri Olow and Chris Stearns on the Democratic side in the primary. And in the Senate seat, you had Bill Boyce a Black Republican, who's currently a Kent City Councilmember, running against - in the primary - Claudia Kauffman and Satwinder Kaur. Claudia Kauffman had formerly been a Senator and then Satwinder Kaur was a sitting Kent City Councilmember. And so just - this was interesting - it's in South King County, one of the most diverse areas in the country, an area where the school district has more languages spoken than almost any other district in the country. But what we saw here was the Republican Party making some inroads with non-white candidates, at least. And the Republican Party being active on the ground and active in school board races and active in faith communities, whether it's mosques or gurdwaras or churches, and activating on the ground in a way that I don't think a lot of people have been paying a lot of attention to. But we need to, and we need to be showing up in those areas as progressives if we want to continue - to engage and continue to win and continue to advance policy in these areas. This manifested in - during, in the school district races, we have had votes in the Kent School District from people who called themselves Democrats to ban books with queer content, right? This is a weird time and a weird kind of mishmash of people and issues and interests. Fortunately in this race, Claudia Kauffman wound up prevailing on that side in the primary. In the one House seat, that open seat, a Republican actually didn't even make it through - there were three Republicans who did not make it to the general election, the two Democrats did. Chris Stearns ended up winning that race. So this was a district where candidates ran hard. There was a lot of money spent in this district, a lot of electioneering going on. But - and it wound up still fairly close in that Senate race. And so the help and the village was needed, as it is in so many areas, to get this race across. But this is - this turned out well, but we cannot take our foot off of the gas. We can't take our eye off of the ball - because the Republican Party is organizing in ways that we're used to seeing the Democratic Party doing. And we can't take that for granted and need to be in all the spaces - and not cede faith spaces to Republicans and not cede rural communities to Republicans. And to make sure that what we're talking about helps and brings value to those people in those places, as well as everywhere else. And so just an area where good things happen - I think this is another district that moving forward is going to be more reliably blue. But it's not going to be - I think in most of these - they're going to continue to need work. These aren't places where we can be - ah, we won, we're safe. We don't have to do anything else. This is when the work begins and when action is needed - I think that is the case. Any other thoughts on the legislative races from either one of you? With that, I just want to talk about the King County Prosecutor race for a moment. What did you see here, Kelsey, in terms of this race and why it turned out, how it turned out? [00:26:05] Kelsey Hamlin: Oh my goodness. I think everything we've talked about tonight is - was culminated, more or less, in that race, right? Whether you want to go look at the media and the narrative going on there - and this just false take that Ferrell was going to be as high and mighty as he was prophesized to be. And whether you're looking at polling, or whether you're looking at media and some articles that came out on him, or whether the framing is the backlash that's going to happen - is literally Jim Ferrell culminated in real-time with the person. And at the end of the day, I just - I didn't see his work as fruitful. I didn't see it based in community. I know Leesa Manion's been showing up in spaces continuously - she's not a new face to me. And it just didn't - the narrative writ large didn't really track with what I felt in my gut. And it's always interesting to see it play out, given the context of NTK as a prior race - it happened locally and how big of a deal that was. And so it's really satisfying to see it turn out the way that I had felt it in my gut. And it - yeah, I just think the boldness is where it's at. And as long as you make your values clear, as long as you're clear about it and you're a real human being to fellow people - the job is not as hard as we make it out to be - if you just try and get those things there. Dujie, what was your take? [00:27:52] Dujie Tahat: Yeah, I think for me - I'm really struck by King County voters just generally being happy with King County, like the government of King County. Leesa Manion represents an extension of the current prosecuting attorney and people seem really happy with Satterberg. And I think to our point of having, being able to hold two competing thoughts at once and not giving into the binary, I think Satterberg is actually a pretty good exemplar of somebody who's started off as a Republican during the era of punitive - just punitive - policy, to someone who is advocating very much for diversion programs. And you're seeing this also coming off of a King County electorate that just passed a bunch of charter amendments to improve policing in 2020. So you're seeing, I think, an electorate that is primed to have these nuanced conversations in a way that is totally divorced, I think, from the coverage. Like you pointed out, the narratives are what they are, but the electorate is continuing to have a more nuanced take and make it really, really abundantly clear that it actually - it's not even either-or, and it's not even really all that close, right? I don't, I can't think of - this is the closest race that I can think of at a county level that has to do with the criminal justice reform, or the executive, or the prosecuting attorney. People, I think, are just like generally pretty happy. [00:29:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah - it's really - this is interesting. This is also a race that we did work in with our firm. And I don't know that the - that voters were really happy with the way that things are, but they're definitely unhappy and do not like the punitive approach. And are really saying - okay, I hear from, I'm hearing one thing from Jim Ferrell - very punitive, very punishment-based, but punishment does not equate to safety. And really, it seems like voters do want action that equates to safety and have come to the conclusion that just punitive punishment does not, as the evidence shows. And I think what helped Leesa was an articulation of an expansion of some stuff, an expansion of some strategies from where they were - with the city attorney, with the prosecuting attorney's office for quite some time - but really an articulation of - okay, we are moving forward there, we do want to keep people more safe. But we're going to have to address some root causes of these issues and just throwing people in jail is not, as we have seen, is not going to get the job done. So we better have some other strategies to address gun violence, to address intimate partner violence, to address just the range of things that we're seeing and dealing with - from property crime to violent crime. And I think that she just articulated a vision that was closer to what King County voters feel is the solution. So I think - I think there were just two different visions and voters made a clear choice of where they want to be and what they want to see. And I think - also in this one - now it's time for action. And I know that she's planning on hitting the ground running, has - is very familiar with the office and this role. I also think that people valued just the familiarity and experience there. And understanding what it's going to take to make some of these changes and shifts within that office and managing people and going through that was helpful. But I think that - I really do hope that just in the media ecosystem overall, that there is an acknowledgement that clearly we have some media entities that were really hoping for the punishment narrative to take hold, but it just hasn't, it's not a thing. Can we please move on and talk about all of the different issues, all of the different possibilities and solutions now - because there's a ton to talk about, there's a ton to explore. And if we start covering that, exploring it - we're all going to be better off and help everyone understand where we're moving, and where we can move to, and how to make people more safe. [00:33:00] Kelsey Hamlin: Yeah. And let's name too, that it's not even just media at large, but specifically editorial boards and these columnists - that are sticking with that status quo punitive narrative that doesn't actually resonate with people, and still trying to drive that home where it's not there. I'll also name too, 'cause editorial boards have a lot of power, but I'll also name too that Leesa's message was just positive - more positive about change - and Ferrell's was the exact opposite. But that's a messaging statistic and stat and tactic that we know very well - that if you just have a more positive message, it will resonate more with people. [00:33:42] Dujie Tahat: And I think that you are also touching on - you've made more clear what I meant, which is - it is not that maybe people are happy with the conditions as they are right now, as much as I think the county is more primed to have the conversation of where we go from here, as opposed to some of the narrative setters - I think that people generally - people have voted, specifically voters in King County, because of what has been on the ballot lately - understand that there is a more nuanced set of choices and that there's actually an alternative to the sort of binary punitive or abolish everything. [00:34:19] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. I think you are exactly right. And so now I want to talk about a big City of Seattle election that you two had a little bit to do with there - the choice before Seattle voters to change the way that they voted. And if they did want to change the way that they voted, was it going to be approval voting or ranked choice voting? How did this play out and how did ranked choice voting prevail? [00:34:57] Dujie Tahat: I think people wanted it - I think that's ultimately at the end of the day what happened, right? I think people understand that our democracy is not working as well as it could be. I think people in Seattle have a history of willing to make improvements that strengthen our democracy, like Democracy Vouchers and stronger campaign finance laws. And despite everything editorial boards can do to throw barriers at not changing the way we do things, people still saw through that and voted for it - not for nothing. Editorial boards were wrong on democracy - The Seattle Times editorial board was wrong on Democracy Vouchers too, they were wrong on ranked choice voting. The position that our democracy is just fine - we shouldn't do anything to tinker with it - is at best intellectually dishonest. And I think a lot of people understand what ranked choice voting is - over 50 jurisdictions across the country already use it - Alaska just elected a Democrat because of it. New York City elected a mayor and the most diverse city council it's ever had. It's pretty obvious and intuitive. The process was maybe a little complicated, and it was - it was frankly, complicated - but that shouldn't be a reason to not do the right thing, which was so often the sort of biggest argument against the campaign. [00:36:32] Crystal Fincher: Now in this, you talk about editorial boards - you had both The Seattle Times and The Stranger editorial boards recommending a No on the first question - saying don't change the way things are voting. I think The Urbanist recommended Yes and for voting for ranked choice voting, but The Seattle times recommended a No vote and just leave the second choice about which one blank. The Stranger said a No vote, but choose ranked choice voting. Urbanist had a Yes vote and ranked choice voting. So in that kind of a situation where you have, especially entities like The Times and The Stranger that have been so consequential in elections with how they've made their choices, how did you fight against that and prevail? [00:37:30] Kelsey Hamlin: Yeah. I think a component of it is RCV as a kind of movement and a - RCV being ranked choice voting - as a kind of movement and thing that's come up from the ground across the country, it's not just in Washington, has had the benefit of having just an organic group of people already there waiting. This isn't as if it popped up out of nowhere, at least on the ranked choice voting end. There's the same people that have advanced mail-in ballots, that have fought for same-day voter registration, that fought for Democracy Vouchers - are the same exact people that are behind the campaign asking for ranked choice voting to be on the ballot for voters to choose. A lot of that groundwork was already there and that helped us out at the end of the day. The margin isn't the biggest margin in the world for that first question about change. It's funny to me the way the endorsements landed because, just on the common sense front, it - the question is, yes, do you want change or no, we don't want change - everything's fine, democracy is fine - not crumbling at all. Like writ large it's silly on its face, but at the end of the day, the process question - the one and two - we haven't seen since - someone had pointed out today - since 2014. It's that preschool question of you have to vote Yes, and then you have to vote which thing you want. And that's really the only kind of comparable instance that we have to compare how we did to another instance that had the same setup. It was a confusing layout, but RCV itself is not confusing - Dujie has movie nights with his kids all the time, and it's always - hey, let's pick our first, second and third choice for which movie we want to watch tonight. And then you phase them out and have another go around - it's not hard. You can do it with kids. We do it intuitively when we go to any ice cream shop, or restaurant, or go to the grocery store. At the end of the day, there was a lot of organic movement in the first place that helped us out. And there was a lot of field efforts across the board, thanks to that organic volunteer presence and people that were ready, where we did a lot of field effort across Seattle and not just centric to one area that we thought was strong or not. As far as patterns go for the results, I find it painfully accurate that a lot of the pro-ranked choice voting crowd, pro-let's-improve-our-democracy folks and votes tend to be with renters - it's with younger folks and with renters - that's the strongest demographic that had voted for ranked choice voting. And it also matches the core arterials that you see on land use, the multifamily zoning that you see in land use. And we see this pattern over and over again in a place like Seattle, where the more progressive voters are with renters, are in those districts that are more dense and not exclusive and more affordable. So you see this really multifaceted thing coming out in the voter results if you try to take a closer look at it. [00:40:46] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. [00:40:49] Dujie Tahat: And to get at what you're saying, Crystal, in terms of what do we do once we have these endorsements that are - malpractice, to put it nicely, I think for us it became about - okay, we have more voices than the editorial board has to make a better case for the editorial boards. And we basically wanted to overdrive, to flood the ecosystem with really good op-eds basically and LTEs to sort of supplement the paid voter contact we were already doing, to supplement the organizing that was happening. And I think - we placed a lot of them in the last in the last 10 days of GOTV, and I think that those are really meaningful and really important - because in terms of - we've been having a conversation all night about narrative setting and who gets to set narrative. And I don't, personally and just as a firm, I don't think that shouldn't be left to editorial boards, right? Especially if what we have and the issues that we're representing and the communities that are going to benefit from the solutions we're proposing has a greater set of people, then what we're going to do is flood the ecosystem with those voices. And we'll do everything we can to shift that narrative. We're not maybe going to have the same symmetrical set of powers, but it's certainly - it's certainly important - we don't show up, we should. Or we don't - we don't not show up. [00:42:17] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. There is one last initiative, as our time is coming to a close, that I did want to talk about, that was very exciting, and I thought was very well executed. And that was the Raise the Wage Tukwila initiative to raise Tukwila's minimum wage. As you watch this play out, what were your thoughts about it? [00:42:42] Dujie Tahat: I think that this is another sort of example of where fundamentals really bore out, right? I think that - and it's a continuation of - the Fight for $15 happened in South King County, it's only natural that South King County pushed that even further. You had the Transit Riders Union, Washington CAN - organizations who had been organizing, just doing relational organizing for years, not just showing up for this single campaign - turn on their networks for this one campaign that is a part of this broader set of things that they're advocating for. And I think, again, related to the conversation we've been having, it's like how much - people, I think what I love about our conversation, is that we all recognize that voters are pretty smart and they all actually know that if you're just showing up this one time because of a moment of self-interest, or if you're here every single day to talk to me about what my life is like, and that you're offering a solution that will actually meaningfully impact that. And that's where, how that campaign ran. I'm really interested in, and this was also a little bit modeled in the RCV campaign, but there's a distributed organized canvassing model. And trying to see how that model might apply in different parts of the state and how that might scale - I haven't had a chance to look at the numbers yet. I think there's a really interesting promise there too, and implications for other races. But all of that too is only made possible by the years of relational organizing and showing up every single day too - that's not a thing you can just build in August for your GOTV operation in six to eight weeks. [00:44:24] Crystal Fincher: Completely agree. What'd you think, Kelsey? [00:44:28] Kelsey Hamlin: Yeah. I mean, this - just like Dujie said, had come up after the Fight for $15. I also believe there was a SeaTac fight for wages as well, right before that. And so I think this is just a culmination of a lot of work on the ground that had already been there in the first place. So again, just like we've been talking about when you're in community, when you're showing up, when you're present and you're listening to people and not just telling them - that is when people will show up for you in return - because it matches, because it lines up, because you're on the same page. And at the end of the day, like the fight for wages and the discussion on inflation, the discussion on abortion rights, and this discussion on unaffordability and housing - these things are all connected at the end of the day. And people, voters realize that - and a lot of campaigns that oppose changes like this and even opposed ranked choice voting and don't want a minimum wage - I remember Seattle Times way back, when it first started, was very skeptical even after a study came out on it. A lot of the people that pose these types of things - one, pop up out of nowhere and then two, aren't connecting the dots between just these issues that in our real lives we experience every single day. And that's just the connection that we have to be making when we're talking to people on their doorstep. So yeah, I think it's a really great celebration and a fight that deserves a lot of applause on behalf of the organizations that are involved in them, especially Seattle Transit Riders Union and Washington CAN - they've been around for a very long time and I'm very proud of them. [00:46:15] Crystal Fincher: I agree and well said. And with that, the roundtable comes to a close. I want to thank our panelists, Dujie Tahat and Kelsey Hamlin, for their insight in making this an engaging and informative night. To those watching online, thanks so much for tuning in. If you missed any of the discussion tonight, you can catch up on the Hacks & Wonks Facebook page, YouTube channel, or Twitter where we're @HacksWonks. Special thanks to essential members of the Hacks & Wonks team and coordinators for this evening, Dr. Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. If you missed voting in the election, or if you know someone who did, make sure to register to vote, update your registration, or find information for the next election at myvote.wa.gov. And as a reminder, even if you have been previously incarcerated, your right to vote is restored and you can re-register to vote immediately upon your release, even if you are still under community supervision. Be sure to tune in to Hacks & Wonks on your favorite podcast app for our midweek interviews and our Friday week-in-review shows or at officialhacksandwonks.com. I've been your host, Crystal Fincher - see you next time.

Bill Boyce continued our FNF series on identity, preaching from 1 Peter 2:"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."

With Election Day looming and ballots due in a few days, this week's show is a Ballot-In-Review! Crystal is joined by perennial favorite Mike McGinn along with the rest of the Hacks & Wonks team - Bryce Cannatelli and Shannon Cheng - to discuss the recent political climate, break down the context of down-ballot races and why your vote matters. Listen in as the crew opens their ballots and thinks their way through the important choices in front of them. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's ballot party attendees: Mike McGinn at @mayormcginn, Bryce Cannatelli at @inascenttweets, and Shannon Cheng at @drbestturtle. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Time Stamps Washington State Advisory Votes - 05:57 King County Charter Amendment 1 and Proposition 1 -  08:25 Federal Races - 16:54 Washington Congressional Races - 18:00 Secretary of State - 32:00 Washington State Legislature Races - 33:13 LD26 - 33:27 LD47 - 35:30 LD42 - 36:57 LD30 - 38:09 LD44 - 38:22 LD46 - 38:55 LD36 - 39:45 LD37 - 39:56 LD34 - 41:05 King County Prosecuting Attorney - 41:32 City of Seattle Municipal Court - 52:40  City of Seattle Proposition Nos. 1A and 1B - 1:01:48   Reminders Don't forget to vote! Visit votewa.gov for voting resources.   Institute for a Democratic Future 2023 applications are live! The initial deadline is November 2nd, and the final deadline is November 13th.   Learn more about how to get involved in Seattle's budget season at this link and about King County's budget timeline here.   Student debt relief sign-ups are live! Visit this link to enroll.   Resources  Washington State Advisory Votes:  “Tim Eyman's legacy of advisory votes on taxes hits WA ballots again” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times King County Charter Amendment 1 and Proposition 1: “King County considers moving most elections to even years” by Joseph O'Sullivan from Crosscut   King County Proposition No. 1 - Conservation Futures Levy Washington Congressional Races: “Congressional candidate Joe Kent wants to rewrite history of Jan. 6 attack” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times   Straight Talk bonus round: Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Joe Kent from KGW News   “Rep. Schrier, challenger Matt Larkin clash in debate over who's extreme” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times Secretary of State: Hacks & Wonks Interview - Julie Anderson, Candidate for Washington Secretary of State   Hacks & Wonks Interview - Steve Hobbs, Candidate for Washington Secretary of State   Hacks & Wonks - Secretary of State audiograms - Addressing Democratic criticism of Julie Anderson   Hacks & Wonks - Secretary of State audiograms - Thoughts on Ranked Choice Voting   Hacks & Wonks - Secretary of State audiograms - Experience to manage the broad portfolio of the SoS office Washington State Legislature Races: LD26 - “New ad highlights Washington candidate's past behavior against staffers” by Shauna Sowersby from The News Tribune   Sign up to volunteer for Emily Randall's campaign here on her website.   LD47 - Hacks & Wonks Interview - Claudia Kauffman, Candidate for 47th LD State Senator   “Boyce, Kauffman vie for WA senate in swing district with Kent, Auburn” by Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times   LD42 - “Sefzik-Shewmake forum highlights abortion, health care” by Ralph Schwartz from Cascadia Daily News   LD44 - Hacks & Wonks Interview - April Berg, Candidate for 44th LD State Representative   LD46 - Hacks & Wonks Interview - Darya Farivar, Candidate for 46th LD State Representative   LD36 - Hacks & Wonks Interview - Jeff Manson, Candidate for 36th LD State Representative   Hacks & Wonks Interview - Julia Reed, Candidate for 36th LD State Representative   LD37 - Hacks & Wonks Interview - Emijah Smith, Candidate for 37th LD State Representative   Hacks & Wonks Interview - Chipalo Street, Candidate for 37th LD State Representative   South Seattle Emerald 37th LD Candidate Forum   LD34 - Hacks & Wonks Interview - Emily Alvarado, Candidate for 34th LD State Representative   Hacks & Wonks Interview - Leah Griffin, Candidate for 34th LD State Representative   Hacks & Wonks Elections 2022 Resource Page King County Prosecuting Attorney: "PubliCola Questions: King County Prosecuting Attorney Candidate Leesa Manion" by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   "PubiCola Questions: King County Prosecuting Attorney Candidate Jim Ferrell" by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   "Leesa Manion, Jim Ferrell tied in the 2022 contest for King County Prosecuting Attorney" by Andrew Villeneuve from The Cascadia Advocate   "Leesa Manion Holds Razor-Thin Lead in King County Prosecutor Race, NPI Poll Finds" by Douglas Trumm from The Urbanist Washington Supreme Court: Hacks & Wonks Interview - Washington Supreme Court Justice Mary Yu   Hacks & Wonks Interview - Washington Supreme Court Justice G. Helen Whitener City of Seattle Municipal Court: Hacks & Wonks City of Seattle Municipal Court Judge Candidate Forum   "Defense Attorneys Say Harsh Sentencing Decision Reveals Judge's Bias" by Will Casey from The Stranger City of Seattle Proposition Nos. 1A and 1B: City of Seattle - Proposition Nos. 1A and 1B   Ranked Choice Voting vs. Approval Voting from FairVote   The Stranger - City of Seattle Propositions Nos. 1A and 1B   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I am Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant - a busy one - and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full text transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we are continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host - and we're adding a little twist. So first, we want to welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: activist, community leader, former mayor of Seattle, and Executive Director of America Walks, the popular Mike McGinn. Welcome back. [00:01:03] Mike McGinn: Not quite popular enough - Crystal - you have to acknowledge that, but I think we need to go to the other guests on the show today. [00:01:12] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, so we're coming with you with a full Hacks & Wonks crew today. We have the incredible Bryce Cannatelli, who coordinates everything with the show and holds it down. Pleased to have her with us today. Hey, Bryce. [00:01:29] Bryce Cannatelli: Hey, Crystal. [00:01:30] Crystal Fincher: And we have Dr. Shannon Cheng, who is here to enlighten us also with her wisdom and insight, along with Bryce. Hey, Shannon. [00:01:39] Shannon Cheng: Hey, Crystal - super excited to be here. [00:01:42] Crystal Fincher: You could probably hear the sarcasm in that - but this is going to be fun. We are having a Hacks & Wonks little ballot party - we thought it may be helpful - because we talk about several things on the ballot, we talk about several races. But a lot of times we open up the ballot and there are things on there that we haven't seen, haven't heard of, and are trying to figure out. So we thought we would all just open up the ballots, go through them together - some of us in this call are later-voting people because we like receiving all of the voter communication until the last minute, so we haven't turned them in - but we encourage everyone to turn in their ballots as soon as possible. As we go through this ballot, we will add timestamps and let you know when we discuss the different areas of the ballot. So if you have a particular question about a particular area, you can just go to that portion in the show and figure out that, because we actually have taken some time to discuss what is in this ballot and on this ballot. So good luck. Make sure you get your ballot in. If you can't find it, if something happens to it, if you have questions, votewa.gov, V-O-T-E-W-A.gov is a resource. Or hey, just @ the show @HacksWonks to reply to us and we will try and chase down any answers to questions that you have. So vote, make sure everyone you know votes. This is really important and a lot is at stake locally and nationally. And what we do locally is going to dictate what happens nationally. And with that, I will give a few reminders today. And yeah, number one is vote. Don't forget to vote. The election - Election Day is Tuesday, November 8th. You can go to votewa.gov, that's V-O-T-E-W-A.gov to get all of the information about voting. If something has gone haywire, if you can't find your ballot, if you're not sure what you need to do, if you need information about accessible voting, or if you need to figure out about how to register to vote - which you still can do in person if you haven't registered to vote or changed your address or anything like that - go to votewa.gov and you can get all that figured out. Also, the Institute for a Democratic Future is accepting applications for this coming year's new class. The deadline is November 13th and so make sure to get those in there. I've talked about this before on the show, the Institute for a Democratic Future is great for people who lean left and who want to learn about making a difference in their community, who want to learn about politics and policy, or potentially even having a career - it's responsible for my career in politics. So if you want to learn more about that, feel free to hit me up or visit the website, which we'll link in the show notes. Also, it is budget season around the state - and including in Seattle - and so we're going to include resources for the Seattle budget process as well as King County in our show notes, so stay tuned with that and make sure that you get involved in making your priorities and needs known to your elected officials who are allocating money for the next year or two there. Student debt relief - signing up is happening now. Don't forget to do that. Don't wait to do that. We'll put a link to that in the show notes. And Daylight Savings Time ends this Sunday at 2 a.m. We're falling an hour back. We're moving into darkness in dismay and it's a very sad time for some of us here at Hacks & Wonks who like the extra sunshine in the evening. So here we go into the dark months of winter. [00:05:31] Mike McGinn: But Hacks & Wonks will be on every week to bring some sunshine into your life. [00:05:37] Crystal Fincher: We will try. We will try. [00:05:40] Mike McGinn: Stay tuned in on a regular basis. Yeah. [00:05:43] Crystal Fincher: So let's open up our ballots, crew. Let's see what we have here and start to talk through - for those of you who still have to vote - some things that may be useful, helpful. So the first things we see on this ballot that we've opened up are Advisory Votes. Man, these Advisory Votes on every freaking ballot. We have two Advisory Votes here. How did we get into this Advisory Vote situation, Mike? What is this going on? [00:06:15] Mike McGinn: This was part of the Tim Eyman Full Employment Act where he was trying to find yet another ballot measure to put in front of the people. So what this one does - it is passed by the people - and basically they have the opportunity to have a second opinion on every tax that's passed by the Legislature. So that's why you always have all these Advisory Votes at the top. But everybody approves to-date, the public approves the votes that are passed by the Legislature. It's why we elect people, send them to the Legislature. It's really just turned into extra space on the ballot, which costs money and makes the ballot a little longer. And so we could all save a little space on the ballot if the Legislature changed this. In the meantime, don't upset that budget that your Legislature worked to craft - just vote to approve. [00:07:08] Crystal Fincher: I completely agree with that. I cannot wait until we get to the time where we get the opportunity to repeal this. It makes our ballot longer. It confuses people. This is just anytime there is basically revenue passed, it has to appear as an Advisory Vote, which does not have any force of law. It doesn't actually do anything. It is basically a poll about something that has already happened. So yes, vote to approve. But also I would really like a movement to vote to eliminate these Advisory Votes. One thing it does is it makes the ballot longer, which is not pleasant for a lot of people. What do you think, Bryce? [00:07:49] Bryce Cannatelli: Yeah, I wanted to hop in just to say that the choices are Repealed and Maintained. And so the suggestions to vote to approve them are to Maintain them as the maintain option. But yeah, no, I definitely agree. We've talked about it in past shows. We talk about it off the air. Getting people to vote down-ballot is always a challenge. And these Advisory Votes just get in the way of that. I think we'll have more to talk about when we get to the Proposition Nos. 1A and 1B question on the back of the ballot about what length might do to people answering those questions. [00:08:25] Crystal Fincher: All right. So we are here in King County. We all have King County ballots. The next thing I see on my ballot - I think you probably see the next thing on yours - as we travel down from the Advisory Votes, is actually King County, a County Charter Amendment. Charter Amendment No. 1 - even-numbered election years for certain county offices. Question: Shall the King County Charter be amended to move elections for the county offices of Executive, Assessor, Director of Elections, and Councilmembers from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years? Why is it important to move from odd-numbered to even-numbered years according to the advocates for this charter amendment, Mike? [00:09:10] Mike McGinn: The single most important thing you can do to improve voter turnout. When you look at election results in the state of Washington, Oregon, anywhere else around the country, so many more people turn out in an even year because you also have congressional elections or presidential elections. It's just a more momentous ballot than the odd year elections. And so if you think people should vote more, if you think democracy is a good thing, moving it to an even year is great. The county has the option to do that. Cities can't just do it on their own - they need a change in state law. Representative Mia Gregerson has been pushing for that and others have pushed for it. In addition to getting more people to vote, it also really improves the demographics of the ballot. We're getting more young people, more people of color, more immigrant refugees - who are here and can legally vote. We're just getting so many more people voting that we're getting a more representative ballot. So I've been a big proponent of this. You just get a different electorate. You get a better, more representative electorate. And if what you care about, and I do, is more affordable housing - if you get an older, more conservative electorate, they're going to oppose new housing and they're going to oppose new taxes for affordable housing. They're going to be more likely to say, keep the car lane and don't make it easier to walk or bike or use transit. So we need to get an electorate and get elections in even years where we have an electorate that more reflects where we need to go. And hearing from more people, if you believe in democracy, it's great. So big kudos to King County Council for - and Girmay Zahilay, in particular - for championing this. And hopefully we can move all the elections to even years. By the way, we'll save some money too. We'll have fewer elections that the elections offices have to step up for. [00:11:15] Crystal Fincher: I'd love to see it. What do you think about it, Dr. Cheng? [00:11:18] Shannon Cheng: I'm really excited. We talk a lot about - on this show - about how local elections really matter and that local government is really where you feel the actual changes and impacts in people's day-to-day lives. And so having some of more of our local elections in a year where more people are going to be paying attention to it, I think it will be super helpful. I know I talked to somebody recently who felt like they were in Washington state and so their vote didn't matter. And, we're going to get to these other races. And I was trying to tell them, no, we have things on our ballot that really do matter, like the King County Prosecutor and judges and all that. And I think just combining it in a way where people are going to be paying more attention to these things that really matter in their lives will be super helpful. [00:12:03] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well said - I agree. Next up on the ballot for King County is Proposition No. 1, the Conservation Futures Levy. So the King County Council passed Ordinance 19-458 concerning funding to protect open space lands in King County. The proposition would provide funding to pay, finance, or refinance acquisition and preservation of urban green spaces, natural areas, wildlife, and some salmon habitat, trails, river corridors, farmlands, and forests. And would reauthorize restoration of the county's Conservation Futures property tax to levy a rate that will be assessed for collection in 2023 and use the dollar amount from 2023 for the purpose of computing subsequent levy collections. So should this be approved or rejected? There are some really compelling statements about this, but this is really important for protecting open space lands in King County. There have been lots of conversations just about the preservation of land, the preservation of open and undeveloped land, and how important that is. These are conversations related to sprawl, related to just air quality, related to just people having the opportunity to recreate near where they live and not selling or developing all available land and the consequences that potentially come from that. So it is important, I think, widely acknowledged as important from people all across the aisle. It's important to maintain all of this. I see a statement submitted by Sally Jewell, who I believe is a former CEO of REI and served in a presidential administration, and De'Sean Quinn, who is a Tukwila City Council member, as well as Dow Constantine. And really, we have to take this action to protect climate change, to protect these last best places throughout King County. So far, this program has safeguarded over 100,000 acres of land, including Cougar Mountain, the Duwamish Waterway Park, and Sammamish River Trail. And they can accelerate that with this proposition. Statement in opposition to it really basically says that, hey, parks are having challenges being maintained, and we've already done enough. I don't know that there's a lot of people here in King County feeling that we've done enough to address climate change or that we've done enough to protect local land. Protecting farms and fresh water, and open space seems like a priority to so many people in this area - and what makes this area so desirable to the people living here and those who visit and eventually come here. What do you think about this, Mike? [00:15:08] Mike McGinn: It's a parks levy. I'm for parks levies, generally. I actually got to run one once, and it was just great. And there's so much more in it than you might think. And if we talk about community - that to me is ultimately what this is about. There's clearly the environmental protection, but that's the quality of life and the community gathering places as well. So yeah, and it's a renewal. It's an expansion and a renewal of an existing levy. And I think every time you get to go to a great county facility, you just have to remember that the money came from somewhere, and this is where it comes from. They really have to pass these levies to make it work, given the way finances work for county and municipal governments. [00:15:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And so this will cost the average homeowner about $2 more per month. There is relief available to qualified low-income seniors and other households. And the funding recommendations are made by an independent advisory committee and subject to external audit. So it's not just, hey, willy-nilly stuff happening here. There is accountability and oversight - looks like it is endorsed by the Nature Conservancy, Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust for Public Land, the Wilderness Society, Seattle Parks Foundation, REI, Dow Constantine and council members - just a lot of support there. I find those arguments to be particularly convincing. But this is an important one that's flown under the radar for a number of people, I think. I've gotten a lot of questions from people saying, whoa, what should I do with these county amendments and this proposition? And so just wanted to make sure that we went through that. Next on my ballot are the federal races, which have gotten a ton of coverage. I think if you listen to the show, odds are you probably know if you're going to be voting for Senator Patty Murray or her challenger, Tiffany Smiley, but that is at the top of the ballot right now. Do any of you have anything to chime in with about this race? [00:17:22] Mike McGinn: It's really fascinating to watch how this race is starting to become part of a national narrative about whether or not there's a red wave - going to hit the federal elections. And then there's some counterarguments. And we could pundit all afternoon on this one. And I'm sure a lot of you, if you're politically oriented, have really been watching the national news about what will happen in Congress. Will the Senate remain Democratic or will it turn Republican? Is the House going to flip? Most pundits say it will flip to Republican control, but there are still some folks out there holding hope that it might not. So I think the real message just is - if you cared about the national scene, you have an opportunity to play locally too. There's a Senate election in the state of Washington as well. [00:18:15] Crystal Fincher: All right. And next up on people's ballots - is going to vary based on where we live. It's going to be the congressional races. So I actually live in the Ninth Congressional District. We have a very competitive Eighth Congressional District race between Kim Schrier and Matt Larkin. Kim Schrier, the Democrat, Matt Larkin, the Republican. We have other races. Who's on your ballots? What congressional districts are you in? [00:18:43] Mike McGinn: I've got Seven, which is Pramila Jayapal and Cliff Moon. [00:18:46] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think all three of you are in Seven there. Those races are a bit less competitive. I think two of the most competitive races here are going to be Kim Schrier versus Matt Larkin. And then down in southwest Washington, actually - in the Third Congressional District - between Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and extremist Republican, MAGA Republican Joe Kent, who is just... It's hard to do justice to him by describing him because I've tried to do it and then I've been like, okay, I can't do this. Here, watch this clip of him and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in this sit-down with a reporter, just answering questions. And it is wild. He does not think January 6th happened in the way we all saw it happened with our eyes. He thinks that it was a CIA false flag operation. He doesn't think that police officers were killed as a result of that. He's deep into conspiracy theories, deep into the election denial of the 2020 election. Just deep into so many things - eager to cut social security, eager to cut so many things, eager to defund Ukraine between Ukraine and Russia, eager to do all sorts of things at the border. This is someone who eagerly and has multiple times appeared on Tucker Carlson. This is not Jaime Herrera Beutler. This is not the type of Republican that people are used to seeing in this district, or even as people think about Republicans in this country now - even the more extreme version that people are getting familiar with. This is the tip of the spear of the most extreme. He models himself after Marjorie Taylor Greene, says he looks up to her and wants to do that, does not want to work across the aisle, doesn't see a point to it. Rarely does media outside of the conservative bubble, does not want to debate Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. This is a race where a lot is at stake. Jim Brunner just wrote an article about it this morning in The Seattle Times. Actually, he shared it - I'm not sure if he wrote it. But this is an important one for people to get engaged in. We've talked about the importance of - even if you don't live in a district, hey, why don't you adopt a district, make some phone calls, do some phone banking, get down there and canvass - do what you can. Don't let this slip away without doing everything possible. The Third Congressional District is traditionally a Republican district, but it's traditionally a Republican district that has elected Republicans like Jaime Herrera Beutler, who were nowhere near as extreme as Joe Kent. This is a closer race than we've seen there in quite some time. If enough people get involved and if enough people get engaged, who knows what could happen? Democrats seem energized down there. This is one where - don't let it go by without everyone pitching in and doing what they can to engage in that race. Any thoughts that you have on that one? [00:22:10] Mike McGinn: This race, yeah, it does highlight just where the Republican Party has been going. I think you see some of this in the Murray-Smiley race as well. I've been really impressed by the campaigning of the Democrat in the race and the way in which she's approaching the race. This is a district that is - it's a swing district, but it's a lean-R swing district, if that makes sense. It has the Portland suburbs, but it also has more rural areas as well. Yeah, maybe this - if this were on the East Coast, people would be looking at this as a bellwether of which way the trend is going in national politics. Who knows? Maybe we'll be able to tell a little bit from the East Coast about how this race might work out by the time they start announcing results from this coast. But really, I think the D in this race - she's run a really solid race, speaking directly to people's economic concerns as a small business owner as well. And there's this thing where reporters want to talk about partisanship or polarized politics or divisiveness. And yeah, I would say the electorate is polarized - there are a hell of a lot of folks nationwide who are going to pull the lever for candidates because they want to see Republicans have charge of the chamber, regardless of the shortcomings of the local candidate. It's a really fascinating phenomenon that's going on. But I'm going to make an argument that it's - the Democrats look a lot like candidates I've seen in the past running. And the Republicans don't, in my mind, in terms of the extremism that we start to see on whether or not the election was stolen. The number of election deniers that are out there for the last election - there's just no credible evidence that there was any voter fraud. It went in front of numerous, numerous courts. It went in front of judges appointed by Republicans and Democrats. There's just no evidence for this. And I don't know that the media knows how to handle this - that when you have one side that just denies reality and the other side is still operating mostly within the frame of U.S. politics, as I've seen it in the years I've been involved in U.S. politics, but they both-sides it so much. And I think this raises a great illustration of that. The Democrat is really a right down the middle-of-the-road type of politician, and the Republican here is espousing things that just aren't so, and it's one hell of a tight race down there, according to all the polls. And portraying this as Americans are divided or the politicians are polarizing doesn't capture what's going on. [00:25:19] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that is a good point. What do you think, Bryce? [00:25:23] Bryce Cannatelli: Yeah, I just wanted to weave back in something that Shannon mentioned earlier, which is that there are still people who live here and who vote here, who think that they live in Washington - they live in Western Washington - they're pretty safe from things. And I think this race is an important reminder that there are people running with these extreme views. There are these people running here in the state with really far-right priorities and goals. And this is a federal race, so it's gotten a lot of media attention, but it just highlights how important it is to pay attention to local races as well - races that for the State House and for State Senate and other positions - and just pay attention to what people are running on and making sure when we see people coming with extreme and dangerous views, that that's called out, that we let people know. Election Day is still in a few days. There's still opportunities to inform voters in this district about the candidates. There are still opportunities for voters who are really worried about rhetoric like this and candidates like this to get out there and talk to voters and inform them about this race. [00:26:32] Crystal Fincher: This conversation reminds me of one other thing, and actually was having a conversation about this as we were punditing on Kiro the other day. And there are some Republicans who are going - well, they're calling everybody extreme. Yeah, they're calling Joe Kent extreme, but they're also calling Tiffany Smiley extreme. And they're not the same extreme, but they're painting them with the same brush - you're hearing that for everybody, all the Republicans. If you say it about everybody, it's meaningless. And the challenge is, and the thing that the Republican Party has set up, is that they do have these extremists who are out further than a lot of the other Republicans that are elected, at least outwardly, right? And saying things that have been openly covered as white nationalism, Christian nationalism, that have been anti-Semitic, that have been racist, that have been homophobic, anti-trans, anti-gay - just very openly blatant right? And that is absolutely extreme. And no, not every Republican is outwardly openly saying that. They leave that to the Joe Kents and the Marjorie Taylor Greenes. But what is striking to me is how they have not been reined in by the people who have previously been considered as moderate and have previously been considered as the adults in the room. Those adults in the room are doing nothing to contain that extremist element in the party, and in fact, have given them more power, more visibility. The Republican Party, all of their caucuses have pumped money into these campaigns. Their allied PACs and supporters have pumped money into these campaigns and have been apologists for them. So if you will not rebuke when you hear those things said, if you will not stand up and say, you know what, I'm standing for these principles, and that person is not doing that, and we're both carrying the same label - I don't want to carry the same label as a person who is saying that - that is not what I stand for. We're not standing shoulder to shoulder. We're hearing none of that. We're hearing silence. And there are some people who want to interpret that silence as, well, clearly they don't agree. And when I talk to them, they sound perfectly reasonable, and they've been moderate in the past. We're hearing some of the most troubling things that we have in a while. Just the open anti-Semitism, the open racism, the open homophobia and transphobia that we're seeing is alarming. They're passing laws against it. This is not theoretical language. And we're seeing political violence as a direct result. That, of course, was predicted, right? When we hear speech like that, it incites violence. We have talked about it inciting violence, and it incited violence in multiple places, in multiple ways. And we've seen that just in the past couple of weeks - from January 6th to Nancy Pelosi to the Michigan governor - we're seeing this all over the place, right? And so silence is enabling violence. Silence is not moderation. It's enabling this extremism and violence. So yes, when you hear them all being painted with the same broad brush, it's because they're doing nothing to stop this rapid descent into this cesspool that we're on the precipice of, and that some states have already fallen to, right? It's important to vocally stand up against this, against hate, whenever we see it. And that's not a partisan statement. And if a party is trying to say that when you say that you need to call out violence, that you need to call out political violence, that you need to stand up and talk against anti-Semitism and call it what it is, and somehow they're putting a partisan label on that, be very wary of a party that says that speaking against those things is speaking against their party. They're telling you what the party is about if those things they're labeling as a partisan attack. I think that's very important to be said. This is so far beyond a Democratic and Republican issue, and we have to be aware that these Republicans are caucusing together, right? They're voting together for a national agenda, and we've heard this national agenda articulated. We've heard the things that they're queuing up. We've seen the types of policies that they're passing in places like Florida and Texas. We have the preview of what's coming there, and it is ugly, right? And ugly to people who used to consider themselves Republican. So to me, this is beyond the conversation of just Democrat and Republican. This is a conversation that we have to have before we even get to issues, because if we're leading with that hateful rhetoric and we're leading with that extremism, it really doesn't matter what someone is saying about issues, because the things that they are saying about people in their community is already excluding people and already doing that. I think that's extremely important to say, that we can't say that enough, and that trying to dismiss this extremism, and dismiss criticisms of it, and dismiss the refusal to call it out for what it is - is extremism itself. All right. So next on our ballot, we have the state races, starting with Secretary of State, which is a lively race. Now, we have talked a bunch about the Secretary of State race, and have also been posting a lot about it on the Hacks & Wonks Twitter account this week. So for that, between Democrat Steve Hobbs and Non-partisan Julie Anderson, we're going to refer you to those other shows. We'll put links in the show notes. We'll put links to the little audiograms and snippets that we have of the candidates' takes on different things. Steve Hobbs was a longtime Democratic senator known as a moderate for quite some time - and Julie Anderson actually just released a new ad that talks about that and him as a moderate. And then Julie Anderson has been the Pierce County auditor in Pierce County for 12 years, I believe now, and has built relationships around that area. So that's an interesting race to follow. We'll put those links in there, but that's the next one on the ballot. And then we get into the legislative races, which are going to be different depending on which legislative district that you're in. I just wanted to mention a few of the battleground districts here in the state. So one of them is in the 26th Legislative District Senate race - very important - between Emily Randall, Senator Emily Randall, and current Representative Jesse Young, who's running for that Senate seat. Emily's a Democrat with a strong record and has been representing that community and been in the community for quite some time. Jesse Young is one of the more extreme Republicans in our legislature, has - in the mold of the Matt Sheas, who made a lot of news for his activity in domestic terrorism. And if you think that sounds like a euphemism or like a stretch of the truth, I mean literal domestic terrorism like running a camp training people for war and putting tracking devices on law enforcement vehicles, and making threats to political opponents - extremism - and advancing bills to outlaw abortion in Washington state under threat of putting doctors in prison - that kind of extremism. And Jesse Young, as we talked about last week with Pierce County Council Chair Derek Young, has actually been suspended from working with legislative staff because of his past behavior and harassment or abuse. He is no longer permitted to have legislative staff, which is certainly hobbling in one's ability to get their job done. They lean very heavily on those staff. And so not being allowed to have one and having to do or not get done all of the administrative work, preparation work, ability to meet with constituents, ability to review and prepare legislation and represent the community is absolutely hobbled by that. But that is actually a really close race. Another one where it makes sense if you can adopt a race, that 26th Legislative District is a really important one where people can get involved with and make their voices heard. Also, the 47th Legislative District is a hotbed of activity - a competitive Senate race there - open seat left by the exiting Senator Mona Das and is being competed for by former State Senator, Democrat Claudia Kauffman and Republican Bill Boyce. This has been a purple district, a swing district, has elected both Democrats and Republicans. This district has a history of extremely close races. And so we have a race here where we're seeing some of the dynamics that we see in Democrat versus Republican races. Choice is a huge issue here. Bill Boyce - being bankrolled by far-right Republicans - has been giving really mushy responses about what he thinks about a woman's right to choose. And so that is certainly on the ballot, as well as just the history of corporate giveaways, tax - as was quoted in the paper - tax breaks and sweetheart deals given to rich developers and donors. And so certainly looking at the donor rolls there, you get a different story of who those legislators would be based on the activity there. So another very important partisan race. 42nd Legislative District, a very competitive race between Sharon Shewmake and Simon Sefzik - another Democrat versus Republican race - very important here for the Senate and just a variety of things. And again, we're seeing just greater space between the two parties. Here in the state, we, I think, have seen Republicans who have considered themselves moderate and who have been less eager to engage in some of the social wedge issue rhetoric that sometimes we see on a national basis. There have been Republicans who wore it as a badge of honor previously to say, no, that's not me. I'm focused on these other issues, but stand up. And whether it's being pro-choice, whether it is standing up for marriage equality. There have been some before here who have done that, some who haven't, but some who have. We are not seeing that now. Things are following the direction of some of the national races. And so we have that there. 30th Legislative District with Claire Wilson and Linda Kochmar, as well as the race between Jamila Taylor and Casey Jones are close - and so engaging in those is important. And then the 44th Legislative District with John Lovick, the Democrat who was previously a representative, currently a representative, now running to be a Senator, against Republican Jeb Brewer. Republican Mark Hamsworth for the House seat versus Brandy Donaghy, who was appointed to that seat and is running to fill the term, this new term. And then April Berg versus her Republican opponent. So pay attention to those races. Please make sure that you're engaging in these battlegrounds. And then we also have just Seattle races and - that we've covered. So in the 46th Legislative District, we have a classic Seattle moderate versus progressive race. Even though those, when you get into it, the labels might be a little bit simplistic, but certainly someone who seems more resistant to taxation, more resistant to change in Lelach Rave versus Darya Faravar, who wants to take more of an active approach in addressing issues like homelessness, housing affordability, and public safety - and move more in the direction of things that we've seen with the history of working versus those that have not. So that's a choice that we have there. We also have previously interviewed Darya, and so we'll link that in the show notes for your information. The 36th Legislative District features a race between Democrats Julia Reed and Jeff Manson. We've also interviewed both in that race. And we'll link that in the show notes. The 37th Legislative District is one where we did a primary candidate forum, have interviewed both of those candidates there - Democrat Chipalo Street and Democrat Emijah Smith. And we also did a debate in partnership with the South Seattle Emerald and others - hosted by the South Seattle Emerald - an in-person debate, actually. And we will link those there. I think that there are some interesting issues in that race, notable differences. We will also share kind of the lightning round stuff. But also, hey let's make sure that we're recognizing the full humanity of people and that we are not treating people who are in the LGBTQ community any differently than others. And that is an issue of difference in that race. So I encourage you all to do your homework about that and make sure that any candidate that you're voting for fully stands up for the rights of all people in our community. And that you communicate with the candidates about that and make sure all of your candidates know how important that is to you. And then we have the 34th Legislative District with Democrats Leah Griffin and Emily Alvarado. We've interviewed both of them. We'll link both of those shows in the show notes. So there are contested races throughout Seattle. Encourage you to vote in those races and make your choice. If you need help, refer to our show notes or to officialhacksandwonks.com. We have an Election 2022 page there and we'll put all of the resources on there. Next, we go to the County Prosecuting Attorney's race here in King County, that is between Jim Ferrell, who is the mayor of Federal Way, and Leesa Manion, who's the current Chief of Staff in the Prosecuting Attorney's Office. Jim Ferrell has been endorsed by folks like the King County Republican Party, some mayors, King County Council member Pete von Reichbauer, like the Covington and Algona mayor. Leesa Manion has been endorsed by the King County Democratic party, former governor Gary Locke, local labor unions. So there's a little bit of a difference in the profile of their supporters that kind of indicates the approach that they're looking to take. One, being more in line with some of the data that we're seeing in the most effective approaches to addressing crime and accountability - that has yielded some results in what we've seen, especially with youth crime and youth intervention, which seems to be particularly effective with Leesa Manion and her managing this office and hundreds of staff and attorney, which is certainly in line with what the County Prosecuting Attorney needs to do. Jim Ferrell, coming from the mayor of Federal Way, has talked about more of a punitive approach to this and is talking about cracking down on some of the things that we have been seeing as successful. It's interesting in how this race is shaping up and what the candidates are talking about and what they aren't talking about with them. Certainly Leesa has been leaning into her experience, the type of coalition that she's building, whether it's people who are in support of more common sense gun reform and making sure guns don't proliferate on the streets, to those who are looking to maintain accountability but make sure that we're doing the things that give folks the best chance of reducing recidivism, or people returning, or revictimizing people who are committing further crimes. Jim Ferrell seems very focused on trying to apply longer sentences, lengthier sentences, talking about a more, again, punitive approach, prosecuting more, longer sentences - that type of stuff. So with that, what do you think? What is your take on this race, Shannon? [00:44:01] Shannon Cheng: So this race is between Leesa Manion, who's the current Chief of Staff for the outgoing King County Prosecutor, Dan Satterberg - she's been in that position for quite a time. And her opponent is Jim Ferrell, who is the current mayor of Federal Way. So when I look at this race, I see - with Leesa Manion who - it's a continuation of what King County has been doing, which I would characterize as incremental reform of the criminal legal system to be more fair and equitable. I think this can be embodied in initiatives they aspire to, such as declaring racism as a public health crisis or the goal of Zero Youth Detention. So I think with Manion, you will get a continuation of the slow work that the county is doing to try to make our criminal legal system more equitable and fair. Whereas with Ferrell, I see this as a candidate who's trying to throw us back to punitive tactics that have been proven to be ineffective. He wants to be more tough-on-crime and is riding this wave of Republicans pointing to crime as being the reason not to support the Democratic candidate. I think that Ferrell has specifically spoken about being against and wanting to roll back some of the diversion programs that King County has started to try to use, especially for youth. And I also - even if you don't - if you agree on this punitive approach, I think it's also worth considering that right now the legal system is kind of at capacity. So what Ferrell is suggesting is going to put even more strain on it. The courts are already - have backlogs coming from the pandemic and the jails are full and not functioning well and not providing people humane conditions to be in there. So I just fear that that will lead to a lot more suffering for many people across our county. And I think this is a really important race to look at and think about. [00:46:12] Crystal Fincher: So Mike, what's your take on this? [00:46:14] Mike McGinn: It's interesting to see the contrast here. It's a local version of this national debate that we have now seen - that the proper response to crime is to crack down harder. And we're seeing this here as well. I worked with Dan Satterberg and he was a really interesting elected official. And honestly, to me, I may not have agreed with him on every decision - I know I didn't agree with him on every decision he made. But he was a civil servant first and foremost. He was trying to figure out what was the right path forward. He was engaged in the discussion. He led on things like Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, people returning to the community from jail - getting their records cleared and restoration of rights. So he was really, and it's interesting, he was elected as a Republican, moved the race to a nonpartisan race and then was elected as a Democrat. So he clearly was somebody who was willing to go where the evidence led and not go based on ideology. So that's the experience we've had from that office, which is, I think, what you want in a prosecutor's office. It's a pretty important position. The effect it has on people's lives is immense. I think that really says something that we see someone looking to continue that tradition. And then we see someone coming in with - if only we punished people more. How's that been working? Really? We have some information on that, which is it doesn't really work. It takes a combination of the judicial system and community systems to really try to deal with root causes of crime, to deal with recidivism, to deal with the issues here. And I think that this is a little bit of a bellwether here. Are we going to try to be a progressive place, a progressive county that adopts and looks at new approaches? Or are we going to go to a more regressive approach to this? Because, yeah, that's worked so well in solving crime over the decades. [00:48:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think so. What's your take, Bryce? [00:48:37] Bryce Cannatelli: Yeah, I don't know how much more I have to add to this other than just the importance of this race and the importance of making sure we have somebody who's really thinking about the - not just people's emotional concerns about crime, but the actions and the strategies and the programs that have been proven to address the things that actually lower crime. We've talked on a number of different episodes throughout this year about programs that have successfully reduced recidivism. And those are programs that often get criticized by people who claim to be tough on crime. And I just think that's something to interrogate our candidates about for this position, because the county prosecutor has a lot of influence in terms of how the county addresses crime in a way that's going to impact real people in big ways. [00:49:29] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I agree. I will chime in and say that we just got a new public poll here that was just reported on, I think yesterday, showing that this race is basically statistically tied. So turnout is going to be really important. Lots of people talk about - they look at the federal races - they wonder if their vote matters. They're going, okay millions of people are voting. Why does mine make a difference? Really what makes a difference are these down-ballot races, are these local races. If you care about the issues of homelessness, justice, equity, affordability, what our community looks like, who it serves - our criminal legal system is an essential part of that equation. And we're talking about, in so many of these conversations, how we intervene and address victims. And most people who have perpetrated crimes have been victims of them. And how we intervene when people are victims, especially early, and especially when they're young, dictates how their future goes and whether they end up on the path to criminalization and poverty or a better path. So the way we intervene in that makes a difference. The way we treat and handle these cases that come through and how we address accountability depends on whether our streets are made safer, whether our tax dollars are used in a way that makes it less likely that people are going to commit crime and less likely that people are victimized or more, right? And we're seeing the impacts of the status quo of a more punitive approach. And either we choose to keep doing the same thing, and polls keep showing that no one is satisfied with the condition of things today. And so we do need to consider that when we are making these choices. And I hope you take a long, hard look at that. And most of all, get engaged and vote, make sure other people vote. And talk about these races, talk about the county attorney races, talk about the judicial races that we're going to talk about in just a moment, right? These are very important. Turnout is not where we would love it to be. It's lagging behind some previous years here locally, especially among younger people. And I know that is concerning to some. So the more that people can do to make sure that everyone can - and the most impactful thing you can do is just text those close to you, call those close to you, talk to them. Hey, coworker - hey, did you get that ballot in? What are you doing for this race? Remember, this is important. Hey, cousin, hey, brother, sister, mom - it's those connections close to you and those personal contacts that actually make it more likely for those people to vote. External organizations can try and do all the voter mobilization that they can and that work is valuable and good and should happen. But hearing from someone who you care about and who cares about you saying, hey, make sure you do this, you have any questions, you need help - is one of the best things you can do to make sure that people actually turn out to vote. So with that, we can talk about a couple of these judicial races, which are next on the ballot. Now we see the state Supreme Court races and we see Justice Mary Yu, who - you probably hear affection and admiration in my voice because I have affection and admiration for Justice Mary Yu. We also have a great interview with her from a few months back that we will post in the episode notes. Justice Barbara Madsen, also wonderful. Justice Helen Whitener, who is just - look, I'm going to just go ahead and get personal. Justice Helen Whitener is everything. I just need everyone to know that Justice Whitener is everything from - just everything. Her experience - vast, broad experience - in so many elements and areas of the law. The thoughtfulness, the lived experience, the outreach into the community - just a beautiful human being and an effective and intelligent justice. I am a fan of Justice Helen Whitener and we've done a couple interviews with Justice Whitener. And fortunately this time she isn't being challenged by anyone mediocre like she was last time, so this is an uncontested race. And when I say mediocre - I mean just got his license to practice law in order to run against someone with a resume as vast and deep as Justice Whitener's. And so now we'll talk about the contested municipal judge races in the City of Seattle between Damon Shadid, who is the incumbent in that one seat - has been endorsed by a number of Democratic organizations, received Exceptionally Well Qualified by a number of organizations, and is standing on his record. And a new challenger from the City Attorney's Office, Nyjat Rose-Akins, who is endorsed by the King County Republican Party and Jenny Durkan, and is wanting to make changes to some things and talking about the record of Community Court and changes that she wants to make there. In the other race, we have judge Adam Eisenberg, who has been rated Exceptionally Well Qualified by a number of the local and ethnic bar associations, but also has received a high number of negative feedback and surveys from the King County Bar Association and concerns about management and whether women are treated fairly under his management. And then Pooja Vaddadi, who is a newcomer and a new challenger, who has been - received a number of Democratic endorsements, but also has not received any ratings from local judicial bar associations because she has chosen not to stand in front of them for ratings. Bryce, how would you characterize those races? [00:55:42] Bryce Cannatelli: Like Crystal said, we got to hear from all of these candidates in a forum. I'll start with the Damon Shadid and Nyjat Rose-Akins portion of it - they're running for Position 7. Damon Shadid has been a judge in this position for quite a while. And the main point of difference between the two is Nyjat Rose-Akins often talked about during the forum criticisms of Community Court and her interest in making a lot of changes to the Community Court system, whereas Judge Shadid has defended what that court has been able to do and hopes to see it continue in its current direction. As far as Pooja Vaddadi and Judge Eisenberg, that's another kind of longtime incumbent in the position - I can't remember how long he's been in that role - and a newcomer. And Pooja Vaddadi brought up concerns about the way that Judge Eisenberg has handled himself in the courtroom. You can hear her talk about that in our forum specifically at the end - is something that her campaign has been highlighting as of late, but also just the need that she claims there is in the municipal court for some changes. [00:56:52] Crystal Fincher: What's your take on those races, Shannon? [00:56:55] Shannon Cheng: So I think - so for the Judge Eisenberg and Pooja Vaddadi race - Pooja Vaddadi is a practicing public defender. And I think her experience in being in the court with somebody such as Judge Eisenberg presiding - it was a maybe not great experience for her. And so she saw a lot of injustice there and felt called to try to step up and bear witness and call out what was happening and how she has a different vision for how that court could be run. I personally appreciate that because I think judicial races are just very low information. It's really hard - as Crystal just went through, there was a long list of uncontested judges on the ballot - and I often look at those names and I have no idea who those people are. And so it has been interesting in this race to get a window into how courts work. And I know for me, it's been very educational. And I continue to aspire to learn more about how courts are run and what matters. And yeah, so for the Damon Shadid and Nyjat Rose-Akins - as Bryce said, I think it comes down to the vision of how Community Court will be run in the future in Seattle. Whether you want somebody from the City Attorney's Office driving the vision of how to handle low-level offenses in the city versus the path that we had been on to to try to support people in need and not further entangle them in a system that kind of - a system that can snowball on people's lives. [00:58:41] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's right on. And I think in these races, we are seeing a little bit of a difference. There has been a lot called out by Pooja Vaddadi's campaign. But in fairness, I think you referred to Pooja talking about how she was partly moved to run for this position based on some of the injustices she saw. But one of the issues in this race that has been brought up is that Judge Eisenberg was the recipient of the highest number of - basically highest amount of negative feedback. King County Bar Association does an anonymous poll of its member attorneys for judges and the highest percentage of attorneys returned negative responses for Judge Eisenberg - higher than all of the other judges and gave that feedback. Judge Eisenberg didn't seem to feel that that had any validity. And he talked about how he had been rated Exceptionally Well Qualified, which is the highest rating given by a number of different bar associations. And it being pretty standard that judges go before different bar associations and get interviewed and they evaluate their fitness for judicial office and provide a rating from Exceptionally Well Qualified, I think Very Well Qualified, just on there. And so he had a number of highest ratings. And Pooja Vaddadi decided not to sit in front of those. And she said it was because she felt that it was biased or tilted or they would automatically give high ratings to incumbents, but not give high ratings to people who weren't incumbents. So she didn't feel the need to sit before them, which is a bit different. A lot of first-time candidates do go before those bodies and are evaluated and come out with decent ratings. I'm trying to think if I recall first-time candidates getting Exceptionally Well Qualified - I think I recall a couple, but also some who haven't. So I don't know, there very well may be a role that incumbency plays in that, but that was an element in that race that came through. As well as prior coverage about whether Judge Eisenberg potentially gave someone a harsher sentence for exercising their right to a jury trial instead of accepting a plea deal. And that being a wrong thing - that is a right that people have to exercise. And whether someone pleads guilty to a charge on a deal or is found guilty on that charge, penalizing someone simply for choosing to go to trial is not something that should happen and is certainly frowned upon. And so there was some coverage in question about that. We can also link that in the show notes. So those are certainly interesting races. And I think Shannon summed up really well just what's at stake moving forward in the Damon Shadid and Nyjat Rose-Akins race. So now let's get into the meat of a Seattle big-time initiative - Propositions 1A and 1B, which are on the City of Seattle ballot. They are not on my ballot, but we've got ballots waving with Shannon and Bryce and Mike over here talking about this question. [01:02:10] Mike McGinn: Do you want me to take a shot at it? [01:02:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, go ahead. Take a shot at it, Mike McGinn. [01:02:16] Mike McGinn: Okay. We all know how ballots work - you get a choice between - in the primary, you normally get a whole lot of candidates to vote for and you pick one. And what this is proposing is that in the City of Seattle, whether you want a different way to vote that will give you more choices. So the first question is, and let me tell you what the two choices are. One is called approval voting. So you'd look at your ballot and you'd have multiple people on the ballot and anyone that you approved of, you'd vote for. So you could vote for one, two, three, four, to approve as many as you want. And the idea there is that you don't want to have to restrict your vote to one candidate. And I have to say there have been times when I've had multiple friends on the ballot - I just want to be able to say I voted for all of them. But there are other good reasons to want to maybe approve multiple candidates. The other style is something called ranked choice voting. So in that case, you'd rank the candidates - one, two, three, four, five. And they'd add up the votes, and whoever the lowest vote getter was would get dropped off. And so let's say - I'm standing here with Bryce and Shannon and Crystal - let's say I had ranked them Crystal first, and then Bryce, and then Shannon. If Crystal was the lowest vote getter, she'd be off the list. And my vote would now go to Bryce - my second vote would be counted. And you do this by a process of eliminating the lowest-ranked candidate until you get to a winner. And we'll probably get more into why - what are the differences between the two systems and why they're better. And there's a whole world of election nerddom, which is substantial - what is the best way to represent what the voters really want, but you're going to get to choose here. So the real question is, do you want to keep the existing system - and that's the first question on the ballot - or do you want a new system? And if you vote Yes, I want a new system, you'll also be asked - well, actually, no matter how you vote on whether you want a new system - you're then asked, which one do you like more, approval voting or ranked choice voting? So yeah, it is pretty dense and complicated. You probably want to sit down and look at this. But if I could break it down for you - if you think you want more ways to have your vote count and have more discretion in how to award it to people, you'll want to vote Yes on the initial question. And then you'll get to weigh in and decide which one of those two - approval or ranked choice voting - you like more. And that'll tee it up for people to offer their opinions on what they like more on the rest of the podcast. How was that? Did I do okay, guys, in getting the description out? [01:05:13] Crystal Fincher: You did! You did, in fact, do okay of getting the description out. And I think also just the - functionally on the ballot - what you said was really important and I just want to reiterate. So this - we're talking about - okay, there are two choices there, approval voting and ranked choice voting. But when you get your ballot, you're going to see that it is constructed in a way that's not just that simple choice. There really is an initial question and then a secondary question. The initial question - why don't you just read what's on the ballot? [01:05:47] Bryce Cannatelli: Yeah, I could do that. I can also hold it up to you, so you can see the wall of text that happens beforehand. Shannon is shaking her head on the video feed, because - Seattle voters will know it if they've opened their ballots - there's a lot of text that goes before you can actually answer the question. So please read your ballot from top to bottom to make sure that you vote for everything. But the way that it's formatted is we get an explanation of both of the individual propositions. So it says Proposition 1A, submitted by initiative petition number 134, and Proposition 1B, alternative proposed by the city council and mayor, concern allowing voters to select multiple candidates in city primary elections. Proposition 1A would allow voters in primary elections for mayor, city attorney and city council to select on the ballot as many candidates as they approve of for each office. The two candidates receiving the most votes for each office would advance to the general election consistent with state law. The city would consult with King County to include instructions on the primary ballot, such as vote for as many as you approve of for each office. As an alternative, the city council and mayor have proposed Proposition 1B, which would allow primary election voters for mayor, city attorney and

The Monologue: Auburn is increasing penalties for repeat drug offenders The Interview: Spokane County commissioner Josh Kerns is calling accountable spending from one of his adversaries.The Monologue: Democrats seek to censure Marjorie Taylor Greene over anti-Semitic comments. The Interview: Kent City Council president Bill Boyce talks about a controversial homeless camping ban in his cityLongForm:  Gregg is a former Seattle resident who was forced to sell his business. The Quick Hit: Kanye West appeared on the Tucker Carlson show this week and made some bold assertions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bill Boyce teaches on our Christian identity as Messengers--how we are to relay God's message to the world. Bill drew from several Biblical texts, including multiple passages in 2 Corinthians.

Bill Boyce continues on series on identity by preaching from 1 Peter 1:3-5 "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."

On this Friday show, we present Part 2 of the Hacks & Wonks 2022 Post-Primary Election Recap which was live-streamed on August 9, 2022 with special guests EJ Juárez and Doug Trumm. In Part 2, the panel breaks down primary election results for State Legislature seats in the battleground district of the 47th LD and in Seattle-area Democrat vs Democrat races in the 36th, 37th, and 46th LDs, The historical importance of The Stranger endorsement in the progressive path out of the primary is discussed as well as Doug and EJ's thoughts on other races in the 42nd LD and for Secretary of State. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-hosts, EJ Juárez at @EliseoJJuarez and Doug Trumm at @dmtrumm. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources Hacks & Wonks 2022 Primary Election Recap Livestream | August 9th, 2022: https://www.officialhacksandwonks.com/august-2022-postprimary-recap   Transcript [00:00:00] Bryce Cannatelli: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Bryce from the Hacks & Wonks production team. On this show we talk with Policy Wonks and Political Hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work, with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening and what you can do about it. You're listening to part 2 of our 2022 Post-Primary Election Recap, with special guests EJ Juárez and Doug Trumm, that we live-streamed on August 9th, 2022. If you missed part 1, you can find it as the previous episode of your podcast feed, or you can find the audio and transcript for the full recap on our website, officialhacksandwonks.com. Thank you for listening! [00:00:59] Crystal Fincher: Another very interesting district is the 47th Legislative District, which is half of Kent, Covington, Maple Valley, parts of Auburn - again, a very purple district - one that sees two open seats - an incumbent remaining in Representative Debra Entenman, but an open Senate seat after Mona Das announced that she was leaving and an open House seat after Pat Sullivan retired. And so we had competitive Democratic and Republican primaries going on here with open seats, just a lot of questions about what is going to happen here in the 47th - very hard to predict. But we saw some really interesting results. Again, this is one of the districts that Republicans said was one of their top targets - definitely in the top two or three targets that they felt were there for pickups and turning these seats that were held by Republican [Democratic] incumbents and two of them now open seats into Republican pickups. And what we saw was in the one seat with Debra Entenman, she finished comfortably with 55% against a Republican candidate, Kyle Lyebyedyev. There was another Republican contesting in the race, but Debra made it through fairly comfortably. We had a Senate race with Satwinder Kaur and Claudia Kauffman as Democrats against Bill Boyce, the Republican. Bill Boyce, who is a City Councilmember in the City of Kent, a Republican, also a Black Republican that's running here is - has 45.58%. And then a very, very, very close race between Claudia Kauffman and Satwinder Kaur. Currently, Claudia Kauffman is leading with 27.23% over Satwinder with 27.02%. This is a race that is under a hundred votes separating the two and it looks like Claudia Kauffman is going to squeeze and squeak through here. This is a really interesting race. And again, you look at the combined percentage of the Democratic vote - they're above, they're like 54% there. That's a great result that we see on the Democratic side, but wow, what a really closely contested race. And then in the other seat, we saw two Democrats - Chris Stearns with 33.4% against Shukri Olow, another Democrat, who is making it through - both Democrats making it through the primary - Shukri with 19.6% against three Republicans. One of - again, a party pick for the Republicans - Carmen Goers raised $200,000 in the primary, spent the bulk of it. She actually finished in last place. This was another Black Republican here with two other Republican white male opponents who finished with 15.1% and 17.4%, respectively, with Ted Cooke and Barry Knowles. Very interesting result. I don't know that many people - I certainly did not call that there was gonna be a Democratic shutout in one of these seats in this purple district, or that the other results looked so strong in favor of the other ones. What do you see when you see this 47th Legislative District race, Doug? [00:04:37] Doug Trumm: Yeah. You can't get any bigger with them not even making it to the primary. So having two Democrats in that Position 2 seat - that is going to be an exciting race, but not for the Republicans. But we'll circle back to that, 'cause I do want to talk about that race more, but I suppose we should talk about the other races more a little bit too. Mona Das retiring - I think that certainly led to some nervousness that we're not gonna have the incumbent advantage and that didn't seem to be an issue with the result. And it does look like it'll be Claudia Kauffman, so again - an established name - but someone I think who seemed to do a good job, so someone I'm actually glad to see coming back. I'm not always thrilled when you get people who keep going back for many decades, but I think that one is an exception. But yeah, and going back to the 30th as well - on the Democratic side, I guess over all those years of not having that many Black - and apologies for my cat making all that noise - not having that many Black candidates, I guess assumption was they would do worse than the white candidates that people were putting forward, or just maybe wasn't even a thought. But it's pretty clear that those Black candidates are doing just as good as any of the white candidates, if not better, because we see these results in the 30th and in the 47th and all across really the metro area where we're seeing voters really resonating with these folks. If anything, it appears to be an asset. And yeah, it just clearly is a district that is slipping away from Republicans and they don't seem to be doing very much to fix that. And as you mentioned, Carmen Goers finishing fifth when she had the support of the party at, I think, all levels. And then additionally, she had The Seattle Times endorsement, which didn't appear to be worth the paper it was written on - which I don't know if that's true of every race, but in the 47th that's a really embarrassing finish for the Seattle Times. And as EJ alluded to - a Viking funeral for $200,000 worth of cash - that's gotta be one of the only times that's happened in Washington history - that a candidate has raised $200,000 in a primary and then finished fifth, at least at the state legislator level. [00:07:14] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. What did you see here, EJ? [00:07:19] EJ Juárez: I saw - I think one of the most exciting things for me is that this actually might be the first time where we have two Native people representing the same district in the House in Washington State. And I think that is incredible - the opportunity and the history making moment of those candidates' ascension if they are the victors in November. I really think that is the underreported takeaway of this cycle in that these are two candidates, although one has - both of them are previously elected in other offices - that's a big deal, right? On the other end of that spectrum, it is wildly confusing to me the uneven field game that has occurred in the 47th. We have some candidates who were deeply knocking on doors every weekend, huge volunteer turnout. And then we have some candidates who really focused on media and focused on really traditional electronic - I don't even know if that's the way to put it, "traditional electronic" - they weren't at the doors, they weren't making a ton of phone calls, and they were pretty open about it. So I think there's a lot of questions to be answered in terms of how people got through and the vote share. So when you're looking at Rep Position 2 with Shukri and Chris, Shukri outraised Chris and really produced not very many votes for that. And when you look at the per dollar spend on per vote, it doesn't really - the math doesn't quite work out the way you would expect. Now, a D-on-D race in that is going to be pretty - there will be fireworks, right? Because you have to make up a considerable amount of points and the clock is reset for both of those candidates. So I'm watching them really closely. I'm excited. I think they're both great candidates. I think they're both folks who, as they move towards the general, are going to start to distinguish themselves to voters. I think when you look at that Senate race, I cannot help but think if I was a Republican strategist and fundraiser, I would've wanted to pour a lot more money into that race supporting a Black Republican versus some of the white Republicans, which received much higher proportions of spend from caucus accounts and from PACs associated with Republicans. There's probably some obvious reasons for that on that side that don't need to go too much into depth on, but it is shocking that in a three-way race, the Republican still only musters 45%. [00:10:06] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's all valid. And I even think - actually in this district in the 47th, it has been an interesting one. This is actually - I live near the border of the 47th - the 47th and the 33rd District border. And in the 47th, actually, we've traditionally seen Black candidates, visibly non-Christian candidates - whether it's someone with a hijab or a turban - underperform compared to spend a number of times here. And so it's interesting to see these results come through. I don't know what role that played on the Republican side also, but that's just another dynamic in this race that has been interesting. I do think that this sets up - just for the candidates that are there, that are gonna be in the general - really interesting matchups and comparisons. And I do think that Democrats - all of the Democrats in these races - do need to be out on the doors, do need to work through the general. Certainly a favorable result in the primary, but another one where they can't rest at all and need to continue to push forward. But one where I think - this was an area where people were wondering - Hey, where's the public safety conversation gonna be? And are Republicans gonna be able to land some hits here and are people hyper-worried about inflation? I think, yet again in this district, I think people saw that the conversation on public safety on the ground is a lot more nuanced than it is in the media - I think is safe to say. So many times we hear the conversation between more cops and "Back the Blue" and - hey, we're - no candidates are actually running on this, FYI - but like "Defund Everything." There's not actually a candidate saying that right now, but the perception is out there - that that has been there. And people aren't there - even people who favor more police, who are not bothered by more police - are saying - but what we really need are behavioral health services, are substance use disorder, addiction treatment services, are housing for people. We have to address these root causes. If there's an issue with someone who is going through a crisis, police just don't have the tools to solve that. I think that's pretty universally acknowledged and not a controversial statement. And when polling goes beyond just some very basic questions and probes into those, we repeatedly see the public saying - yeah, of course we need those things. And so it was very interesting to see some of these attacks - whether it's in the 30th, or throughout the state, in the 47th - on those issues and they just fell flat. And even on the inflation issue, people are worried and people are absolutely squeezed, but looking at - okay, so what are you gonna do about it? And I think Democrats told a better story about - okay, here's the plan. This is what we plan to invest in and this is how we plan to help. I think working people felt that Democrats had a plan that was more tailored to their needs from Democrats. So just an interesting result that we saw there. We will pivot a bit to the Seattle races, which are different than all of these battleground races that we've been talking about. And these are in the City of Seattle - Democrat versus Democrat races. We saw a number of open seat races that have happened here. And so we can start with the 36th District, which had a pretty stark and conclusive result, I think, in the open seat race that was there, where there was a contested primary that had five Democratic candidates there - different shades of there, from more progressive to probably on the most moderate end with Waylan Robert. But we saw Julia Reed, who received The Seattle Times and The Stranger endorsement take 55% of the vote, followed by Jeff Manson who is making it through the primary with 13.5% of the vote. And then followed by Nicole Gomez, Waylon Robert, and Elizabeth Tyler Crone. Looks like that is a race that is Julia's for the taking, I think realistically, just looking there. And certainly benefited from both The Times and The Stranger endorsement. There's another race in the 37th in South Seattle where Chipalo Street got both The Stranger and The Times endorsement, but that was a much closer race where we saw Chipalo with 41% of the vote - 41.53% - and Emijah Smith making it through the primary with 35.37% of the vote - a much closer race. We saw in the 46th Legislative District - Darya Farivar make it through in first place, the progressive candidate in the race - she currently has 31.61% of the vote and Lelach Rave finishing in second, making it through the primary at 28.06% of the vote. And then we saw in the 34th Legislative District, in that open seat there, Emily Alvarado with 54% of the vote to Leah Griffin's 31.2%. I'll kick this off, as we discuss these Seattle races at-large. It's been talked about so many times before - how in Seattle, how consequential the Seattle Times and The Stranger endorsements are. On a previous post-primary recap, Michael Charles put it very succinctly - saying there are two political parties in Seattle - The Seattle Times and The Seattle Stranger. And actually went back and looked at the numbers - and for races in the City of Seattle, for legislative districts in Seattle, for candidates on the ballot, for the past decade - candidates endorsed by The Stranger have made it through to the primary a 100% of the time. It actually seems like, particularly for progressive candidates, the path requires going through The Stranger - requires that endorsement to make it on to the general. How consequential is that, and what do you think we saw overall in general in these races, Doug? [00:16:50] Doug Trumm: Yeah, I think that Stranger endorsement - it's really huge, particularly in a primary in Seattle - I think the 46th is where we really saw the test of that. In Seattle the Urbanist Elections Committee, which I'm a member of, is lucky enough to talk to most of the candidates. And when people skip - usually it's a sign that they're either running in that centrist lane, or they just got the race together so late that they didn't really have time or put it together enough to respond. But we agreed with The Stranger and The Seattle Times with Julia Reed - I think there's a unique case where there's just a candidate that was so - just polished - and any other candidates had some promise, but there just weren't really compelling case to say - but why not, Julia Reed. And I think that's a testament to running a really good race and being a good candidate. And hopefully everyone's right about that, 'cause I don't think you see all three of us agree very often. In the 46th, on the other hand, we did end up endorsing Melissa Taylor and really liked what she brought to the table in housing. But we were also - really thought that Darya Farivar was a fantastic candidate as well. And particularly around the issues of transportation - being Policy Director at Disability Rights Washington, which is a great partner of us and a great leader on all these climate and climate justice issues at the state level and the local level. So we were happy with both candidates and great to see Darya go through and being several points ahead of Lelach where - we didn't get a chance to talk to her. And I think she's more in the Sara Nelson lane of the party who endorsed her, if you will. How that race shakes out will have, I think, pretty big bearing on just what is possible on some issues like housing, where it seems like someone like Rave is staking out a very moderate position there and not really being upfront about - Hey, we need to do something about exclusionary zoning, we need to make our zoning more inclusive and be able to fit more people into parts of the city - where Northeast Seattle is so wealthy, so much opportunity, so many good schools and good parks and everything, and it's a part of the city that's pulled up the drawbridge a little bit. Maybe she will change her tune on that position a little bit, but I think - although Darya didn't talk about housing a lot, she's someone who on the questionnaire was pretty clear - she's on that same page around ending exclusionary zoning and promoting missing middle. It's an issue that we track really closely - polling shows that Washington voters are increasingly focused on that. And I think it's because people are smart and you get that the whole world's experiencing inflation - you can't really blame one party for that. You maybe can blame Putin for that a little bit, but no one can control Putin. But what are you gonna do to help people control their costs? And one - the hugest thing is housing. It's just - it's a massive cost in our region. And if you don't have a solution that both gets at promoting affordable housing through investment and also dealing with our zoning and policies that just make it really restrictive to create more housing, you're not really tackling that problem. And I think for some voters that's really starting to hit home, which could give a candidate like Darya the edge. And I will let EJ break down some of the other races, as I've gone on long enough. But it definitely was a reassuring result in that sense. [00:20:45] EJ Juárez: Yeah, so I - one, I appreciate being on a show with Doug because Doug is so smart about so many things. And as he is talking, I'm writing down things - oh, I need to look into some of that. For me, back to the question around endorsements and the power of The Stranger. I think Michael Charles was absolutely right around the two-party system now. I also feel like it is incredibly disingenuous for anybody who works in politics to be surprised if the candidate who gets The Stranger endorsement gets through. I think it shows a lack of context around just how much that means to people, both as a key part of many people's own political maturity within the city, right? The Stranger serves as this thing that people learn about Seattle from, learn how Seattle operates - and discounting the weight of that endorsement is done at one's own peril. I think how we get, how we've gotten to this place - and many of these endorsements and many of the races bear this out - is that there are a couple of things at play. Media consolidation has removed many of the other endorsing organizations that had typically seen - excuse me, typically been seen as nonpartisan, right? We no longer have The Seattle PI, we no longer have many of the regional or neighborhood papers that were also doing this for many years. The lanes of engagement have also changed for people who are coming into elected office. The salaries that we pay people to do public service no longer match the cost of living in many of our cities. So therefore, you are narrowing the field more and more and more as this goes. I think the two remaining factors that I think of when you think about just the power of these - of The Times and The Stranger's endorsements - are the policy hegemony, right? The lane in which we talk about policies is so locked in and narrow in the full spectrum of possibility. So the process of differentiating - if we're looking at the 36th - 7 candidates, is it 2, 4, or 6 candidates who have minor policy differences and may only sell that difference with enthusiasm or gusto differently, but are 99% aligned - is more and more difficult for voters to actually judge on policy versus performance. And I think that gets to the last piece here of - the opposition that is understood in Seattle politics has become more and more clear around - there is the folks that are trying to do good and the folks that are trying to do bad. And the folks that are trying to do bad - when I started working in politics here, that was - you could name 50 different organizations, 50 different people off the top of your head. And now it feels like every campaign has really locked in on - the bad guys are Amazon, the bad guys are the tech bros, the bad guys are X, Y, and Z, but it's really focused on small pockets of opposition. And for many reasons, some of those groups earn that label - I will say that - but in many ways it limits the amount of discourse that happens. And I'm going on a little bit long, but I think it can't be overstated that many of these factors inform how we got to a place where two newspapers informed so much of our political success in the City. [00:24:25] Crystal Fincher: Yeah - to your point - the reason why Hacks & Wonks exists is because of the frustration with how narrow and shallow some of those conversations can be, with so much consolidation and with the thinning of just the amount of people covering these races, the amount of visibility that races and policy have, the lack of accountability that we see with so many of our leaders - not just federally, but in the City of Seattle - we're still wondering what happened to texts that disappeared at a really pivotal time in the City. So it is challenging to work through that and deal with that. And I just think that this is a time where I hope lots of community organizations lean in and engage and try to connect their own memberships, their own spheres of influence to the process. One thing that I found really exciting about these results that I haven't really seen talked about was - there's a lot of public polling available, but the primary is a spectacular, actual public poll. And when we talk about inclusive zoning and making progress on affordable housing, the vast majority of voters in every single district - from the 46th to the 37th - voted in favor of the candidates who said we're taking on exclusive zoning, we're going to make it more inclusive, we're going to vote for that missing middle housing bill, and that spoke strongly in favor of it. That they voted overwhelmingly for candidates who talked about strengthening the social safety net, who talked about addressing behavioral health services, substance use disorder services, supportive housing and wraparound services - and not just focusing on the - well, we just need to lock people up and do what we've been doing that has landed us here today. They're really talking about addressing a lot of these root causes and taking substantive - not incremental, but pretty dynamic - change in many of these areas. And voters were right there, so I think that that was encouraging to see. And I would just wonder and hope that we're going to see that reflected and responded to throughout the general election. Full disclosure - I worked for Melissa Taylor, I've paid close attention to the 46th and a number of these races - and am excited to see a strong progressive get through in that race - and Darya Farivar, especially with a lot of the work that she's done in disability justice, which is critical. And so it's just gonna be really interesting to see as these general election races go by, and I think the 37th Legislative District looks like a very competitive race that could go either way right now, that it's gonna be really interesting to hear in these opportunities where it's not quite a Democrat versus Republican conversation that does get flattened a lot, but hopefully we can get into some of the meatiness of issues. There's a lot of policy space in the Democratic arena, in the progressive arena to really talk through - what are your plans for fixing the issues that are challenging people? How do you plan to make people's lives easier and simpler and what are you going to stand up for? Where are your red lines? What are you gonna lead on? Are really interesting and exciting things to see, that I see there. So I think that the entire media ecosystem from The Urbanist playing a crucial role, the South Seattle Emerald, Real Change - just a lot of community media. Community organizations have a lot of power just because there just aren't many people covering or talking about this - and this is an opportunity for them to talk about what's important to them, their members, people they serve, their community. And we need it now more than ever - as we finish thinking about these Seattle races and just other races across the state, is there anything that you think is flying under the radar that's notable or things that we haven't discussed tonight that you feel we should be paying attention to? And I will start with Doug. [00:29:05] Doug Trumm: Oh, so many things - I think, just to add another thought about the Seattle races is - again, I think what was another case with Chipalo Street, where we endorsed him as well and I think that's another race where Seattle Times and Stranger - we agreed. And I think that may have partially been just an advantage of him having his game plan set when he announced and it seemed like Emijah Smith was a little bit more still trying to catch up - announcing a little bit later, I think. And we didn't get a chance to talk to her, so that was part of our decision - she didn't return a questionnaire. But he was someone who was really good at talking about housing. So again, I think that fits the theme and Emily Alvarado doing better than Leah Griffin, who we endorsed - but we like both candidates, we were very clear that you have two great options there - again, someone with housing chops was doing a little better. I don't know - I might be stretching this theme a little bit much, but it definitely seems like credibility on that issue is a huge asset. And that should be good news. Unfortunately we're gonna have people like Gerry Pollet getting re-elected, but they might look at this and go - maybe I've been doing this a little bit wrong if I really want to continue getting re-elected. But I guess one race we didn't talk a lot about - but we shouldn't shy away from the bad news, which is the 42nd did not go well for Democrats. You had hope of a Senate pickup there and it's still not completely impossible, but Sharon Shewmake, who is an incumbent House representative, getting 47% in that district - that's not a great result against two Republicans. And one of 'em did have kind of that name ID - Simon Sefzik, or however you say that - so that might have helped him, but does look like he'll be the one through. So she'll continue to face that in the primary. And then we have actually - two of those seats are Democratic held, so the people lower on the ticket did a little bit better. But these could be the two seats we lose, but I do think we make that up maybe in LD10 where Greg Gilday, the Republican incumbent, isn't doing well at all - is down like four points. And also in the 26th, as we've talked about a little bit, with having Adison Richards potentially being a pickup there - it might end up coming out in the wash. But I don't know what's going on in the 42nd - I thought that district was drifting a little bit blue, but - and the redistricting is really odd because it's such a huge district - all the changes happened within the sort of Bellingham scope. And I guess they must have just carved out a little bit of Bellingham that was keeping that district where Shewmake was winning. And it's also - I guess, maybe Shewmake wasn't as strong of a candidate as maybe some of - her seatmate Alicia Rule doing a point and change better. I don't know if that's just the money in that race or what, or if it really should have been flip-flopped who tried to grab that Senate seat, but it might have been for naught if that district is just now a +3 or something Republican - you really have to run a really good race maybe to win that. And with Republicans pouring money in there, it's not as favorable terrain - which kind of brings us back to redistricting - it's a weirdly drawn district and I guess we left it that way, but why? Maybe I'll leave it at that for now and let others jump in. [00:32:44] Crystal Fincher: Go ahead, EJ. [00:32:45] EJ Juárez: I think I'll start with the 42nd. I think this is a district that is an opportunity for Democrats to begin with, right? If it were not for the death of conspiracy theorist, COVID-denying Doug Ericksen, who loved to work for dictators - I think we wouldn't even be in this situation. Any Democrat who is putting up numbers right now - it was an uphill battle - and I think that the points are valid around just how hard that was going to be for just about anybody, given the challenges of where the lines are gonna be and all these things. I think in terms of other stuff that is top of mind for me is the real tragedy of Julie Anderson's run for Secretary of State - incredible underperformance, not even carrying her own county of Pierce County, running as an independent against the incumbent Steve Hobbs - is something that I can't, I keep coming back to where I'm like - all right, that does not make sense in my head yet. Given everybody's enthusiasm of keeping Steve Hobbs as far away as possible from actually legislating - that part does. But the lack of challenge to his ascension into the Secretary of State's office seems a bit odd. It is almost certain that the Democrat will hold that seat for the first time in 60 years, and I think that is something that is to celebrate. I think that is a good thing for Washington, even as oddly as we have arrived at that fact. Some of the other quick things on my list is - as long as you're asking for that grab bag - I'll go back to the complete lack of strategy on the Republican side, in terms of how they are planning on taking and building a majority in this state. Still top of mind for me - it is the bright, shiny object of - are they going to produce a strategy at any point in the next decade? I don't know. And then lastly, where Democrats have made long-term investments, they are starting to yield the results and the rewards of that - whether that's Federal Way, whether that's in the 26th out in Gig Harbor - Democrats are getting those rewards for decisions and investments that they made 8-10 years ago. And the multiple cycle layering of those massive multimillion dollar investments in voter turnout, in improving the data on who lives in those areas, and making the case to those voters is making their job easier. And when you look at places that have not enjoyed that investment that are continually looked at as opportunities and pickups, especially when you're looking at the kind of "demographics as destiny" argument that gets made, we don't see perennial investments in places where there are large populations of color that are ascendant to majorities. We haven't seen the multi-layered approach in Yakima. We haven't seen that multi-layered approach in the Tri-Cities. And frankly, the results show - Democrats are not moving forward in many of those primaries and the lack of investment from the party shows. But where they have done it, it has been an incredible reward for them. [00:36:03] Crystal Fincher: Completely agree. And with that, this recap comes to a close. I want to thank our panelists - EJ Juárez, Doug Trumm - for their insight and making this an engaging and informative event. To those watching online, thanks so much for tuning in and for sending in questions. If you missed any of the discussion tonight, you can catch up on the Hacks & Wonks Facebook page or Twitter, where we're @HacksWonks. Special thanks to essential members of the Hacks & Wonks team and coordinators for this evening, Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. If you missed voting in the primary, you still have time to make your voice heard in the general elections coming up on November 8th. If you need to register to vote, update your registration, or find information, you can go to MyVote.wa.gov. And as a reminder, even if you've been previously incarcerated, your right to vote is restored and you can re-register to vote immediately upon your release, even if you are still under community supervision - so that's new this year. You can vote if you are not currently incarcerated - you just need to re-register at MyVote.wa.gov. Be sure to tune into Hacks & Wonks on your favorite podcast app for our midweek interviews and our Friday week in review shows or at officialhacksandwonks.com. I've been your host, Crystal Fincher - see you next time. [00:37:27] Bryce Cannatelli: Thank you for listening to part 2 of our Hacks & Wonks 2022 Post-Primary Election Recap. If you missed part 1, you can find both parts of the livestream in our podcast feed or you can find the video and text transcript for the full recap on our website at officialhacksandwonks.com. Thank you for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On today's Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Associate Editor of The Stranger, Rich Smith. They start this week discussing the heatwave currently affecting western Washington, and how despite the real risks to some of our most vulnerable neighbors, the city moved forward with a sweep of a homeless encampment. Rich points out that there's not actually adequate housing for all of those hurt by the sweep, and discusses how legal action might be the necessary catalyst to get the city to change its behavior when it comes to handling our homelessnes crisis. In specific races, Crystal and Rich discuss the Congressional race in Washington's 8th Congressional District, where three Republicans are vying for the chance to take Kim Schrier's seat. They next follow-up on the horrifying pattern of Black electeds, candidates, and campaign staff being harassed, threatened, and attacked, and the lack of resources and support from the HDCC to protect candidates of color. Next, they look at the 47th legislative district's Senate and House races, both of which have very competitive D-on-D races happening during the primary. Rich explains the Stranger's Editorial Control Board's struggle to pick who to endorse in the 34th's State Rep. position 1 race. Crystal and Rich talk about the disproportionate amount of money going to D-on-D races in districts that are safely Democrat, and what needs to be done to make sure campaign finance needs are less of a barrier for candidates. After that, they go over close-looking races between Democrats and Republicans across the state. Finally, they remind you to VOTE! Ballots are due August 2nd. Make your voice heard!  As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Rich Smith, at @richsssmith.  More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   WA Voting Resources Ballot and replacement ballot information: https://voter.votewa.gov/WhereToVote.aspx    Ballot Box and voting center locations: https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/research/drop-box-and-voting-center-locations.aspx    If you're an eligible voter with previous felony convictions, you CAN vote as long as you're no longer confined. For more information, see here: https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/felons-and-voting-rights.aspx    Resources   “Seattle removes homeless encampment in Sodo during heat wave” by Greg Kim from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/seattle-removes-homeless-encampment-in-sodo-during-heat-wave/    “A new push to combat harassment of Black candidates and staff” by Melissa Santos from Axios: https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2022/07/25/black-candidates-washington-harassment   “Republicans vie for swing-district shot at defeating WA Rep. Kim Schrier” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/republicans-vie-for-swing-district-shot-at-defeating-democrat-rep-kim-schrier/   “Northeast Seattle House race features 5 Democratic candidates and big money” by David Gutman from The Seattle Times:  https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/northeast-seattle-house-race-features-5-democratic-candidates-and-big-money/   “Seattle voters have a slew of choices in Legislative races” by Joseph O'Sullivan from Crosscut: https://crosscut.com/politics/2022/07/seattle-voters-have-slew-choices-legislative-races    Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks and Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show, as well as our recent forums, are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week. Welcome back to the program today's co-host: Associate Editor of The Stranger and - never forget - noted poet, Rich Smith. [00:00:55] Rich Smith: Hi. [00:00:55] Crystal Fincher: Hey, so it's been a hot week. We're in the middle of another heat event, climate change is unrelenting, and we're feeling the effects of it. It's been a challenge. [00:01:09] Rich Smith: Yeah, I'm against it. I don't think it should be happening. Seattle really is dying, as is the rest of the globe, is my understanding. [00:01:19] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. We just saw Europe go through this right before we did. And I'm sure we're all going to be going through it with increasing frequency, which makes one thing that happened this week, just particularly - not just unfortunate, but really infuriating to a lot of people - and plainly harmful. It's that the City of Seattle decided to move forward with sweeps of encampments for the unhoused in the middle of this heat wave. What went on here? [00:01:50] Rich Smith: Yeah, they - Bruce Harrell has made a point to deal with visible homelessness by employing a tactic that has not worked, which is sweeping people around the City, and in the middle of a heat wave, he swept a city, or a spot a little bit south of downtown. I wasn't - I'm not quite sure on the address. I think there was about 30 people there. And first thing in the morning - sun was heating up, these people had to put all their belongings on their back, and move across town, or find a cooling shelter or - in the heat. And it was just cruel and unfortunately, not unusual. And I can't even blog in this heat, let alone move all of my earthly possessions across town, just because somebody doesn't want to see me there. So that's what happened. [00:02:53] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and it is - a lot of people understand that this really makes no sense to do - it's harmful, it's against public health guidance. We're still in a pandemic - even though people want to be done with it, it's not done with us. We have more challenges in that direction coming our way, which we might touch on a little bit later. But even with this, there were a lot of community members who reached out to the mayor's office when they heard about this and heard that it was upcoming. This is on the heels of last summer - the heat dome event being the most deadly weather event that Washington has ever experienced. We know how lethal extreme heat is. And so for people who don't have any kind of shelter to be put through this at this particular time, and as a lot of activists talked about and actually Councilmember Tammy Morales called out before, since and after - there's not enough shelter space, there's not enough housing space to get all of these people in shelter. To which Bruce Harrell and his administration replied - well, there's space at cooling centers and we can get them vouchers to go there. But those aren't 24/7 - that's a very, very temporary solution. So you know that you're throwing people out, certainly at night, and tomorrow when there's extreme heat again - 90+ degree temperatures - where do they go then? And they have even less to work with in order to do that. It's just - as you said in the very beginning - it's ineffective, this doesn't get people in housing. Some people talk about homelessness being primarily a problem of addiction or of mental health resources - that's not the case for everybody, but the one thing that everyone who is - does not have a home - has in common is not having a home. Housing is the one thing that will, that we can't do without to solve homelessness. We have to start there. And so to act as if this is doing anything different, when over and over again, we see when they sweep a location, the people who were there just move to different locations in the City. We don't get people housed, we're doing nothing but making this problem worse while wasting so much money in the process of doing so. It's just infuriating and I really hope it stops. There's not really a reason to believe so, based on the track record in this area of this administration, but it's wrong and there's really no two ways about that. [00:05:25] Rich Smith: Yeah, and just to hop on that Tammy Morales point and the reporting that The Times did on the ground, there's this - the administration thinks that they're offering everybody shelter, they say that they're offering everybody shelter. And then reporters go there and ask around and people say - nobody offered me anything. A couple people said - I'm gonna take this tent down the road, I'm not gonna get to that shelter. And so I just think that the City needs to start getting sued for this stuff. I just - if a referral system is clearly adequately not functional, and we're not supposed to - under Martin v. Boise - sweep people unless we have adequate shelter to put them in. And if we haven't created a system that gets people into adequate shelter that meets their needs, then how is it legal? is my question. And I don't think that this is gonna stop until there starts to be legal consequences for the City. [00:06:29] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and like you said, there is precedent - that's a fairly recent decision, that we seem to be acting - in Seattle and in other cities - in direct defiance of, so I hope along with you that it is challenged in court. It's a big problem that continues. We're doing nothing to solve this issue that everyone recognizes is a crisis, and it's time we start doing things that actually work to make the problem better instead of wasting money on things that just perpetuate the issues that we're having. So this week, we're - Friday, July 29th - we are just days before this August 2nd primary on Tuesday, which means if you have your ballots, you better fill them out and get them in. Have any questions - feel free to reach out to us here at officialhacksandwonks.com, us on Twitter. You can go to MyVote.wa.gov if you are having issues with your ballot - I know there're places like Ferndale in the state that're experiencing extreme post office delays and some people still haven't received their ballots up there. But any issues that you're having can probably be addressed by starting out at MyVote.wa.gov, but do not pass up this opportunity to make your voice heard. There is so much at stake. As frustrated as sometimes we can be with how things are happening federally, whether it's the Supreme Court or seeming inaction in Congress - although we may have gotten some encouraging week this past week, encouraging news this past week - it is really important to act locally. Especially with things being in disarray at the federal level, the state and local level is where we protect the rights that we count on. It's where we shape what our communities look like. And the fact that they can look as different as Forks and Sequim and Seattle and Bellevue and all the rest just is a testament to how much power communities have to shape what they look like. So get engaged, be involved and - just starting out, we've seen just a slew of activity. We'll start the conversation around the Congressional districts, the Congressional races. What is happening in the 8th Congressional District where Kim Schrier is the current incumbent? [00:08:46] Rich Smith: This is - yeah - the front of the national red wave in Washington, to the extent that it crashes down here or gets held, it'll be in the 8th, which is east King County District now. It got changed around a little bit with redistricting - picking up some pieces of Snohomish County, but also some rural areas that it didn't have before. And Schrier faces a challenge from three Republicans minimum - there's a bunch of other people who aren't viable, but the major ones are Reagan Dunn, a King County Councilmember who's also a Republican and whose mom represented the district - I think in the 90s and early '00s - so a little bit of a legacy candidate there for Dunn. He has, as a brief aside, been also awarded by me just now the trophy of using his personal or his professional press release apparatus through the County Council in the most abusive way I've ever seen. This man sends out a press release about some kind of Republican red meat he's doing on the council, literally every eight hours, and it has been for the last year. If this is what he thinks doing his job on council means, then he hasn't been doing it since before this year. But anyway, Reagan Dunn is one of them. And Matt Larkin, a failed Attorney General candidate, who's going for the red meat Trump vote more openly than the other two are at least is is also running. He's got a bunch of his own money in - I wanna say north of $500,000, but maybe it's just $300,000. And and then we've got Jesse Jensen who ran last time. He's a veteran and a tech manager and he almost - he lost to Schrier in 2020 by four points. And so the Republicans are bickering amongst themselves with Jensen spending some, or a PAC on behalf of Jensen spending some money bringing up Dunn's - his struggles with alcoholism, and his divorce, and a bunch of drama related to that. And Dunn pushing back against that and calling it cheap blows. And Matt Larkin just trying to pick up any pieces that fall from that spat and capitalize on it. Schrier will, I suspect, will get through and it'll just be - which of these icky guys is gonna challenge her. [00:11:31] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's really interesting to see. And the theme of our congressional primaries and many of these races is - yeah, Republicans are fighting amongst each other in some really interesting, sometimes entertaining, but also vicious ways among each other. And so in this race it's been interesting to see, I think particularly just as people who live in King County and who have seen Reagan Dunn operate for a while - for a while he used to kind of court and relish his - the impression of him being a more moderate Republican, or Republican who can be elected in King County and touted that for a while. But now the base is different than it used to be when it comes to Republicans - they are not in the mood for a - someone who's moderate enough to be elected in King County and his votes, his rhetoric, the way he operates has completely reflected that. Including voting against women's reproductive rights, against abortion rights and access - really is, as you just talked about, trying to appeal to the Trump-loving red meat base and prove that he is conservative enough to do that. And just speaking a lot differently than he did before. But I think this is just reflective of - there are no - really, there is no such thing as a Republican moderate. Because everyone who has called themselves a moderate on issues of any kind of importance - at most - is silent. They won't oppose their party on things that they know are blatantly wrong, whether it's the lie of the 2020 election and the conspiracies surrounding that or vaccine issues - all this kind of stuff. Or you've seen them go the direction of Dunn and we recently saw, in a vote against same-sex marriage in Congress with Jaime Herrera Beutler, that they're voting against those things. And it's absolutely in opposition to a majority of Washington residents by every public poll that has been done. And so it's just interesting to see how that dynamic has played out throughout that. Again, it should be Schrier and we'll see who her opponent is gonna be, but that's gonna be a race to continue to pay attention to throughout the general election. So there's - you talk about a lot dealing with the 9th CD - there's a lot of legislative districts in the 9th CD - some of them very big battleground districts. And before we get into talking just a little bit about the legislative candidates, I did want to talk about an issue that The Stranger covered, that Axios covered this past week - and it has been the escalating incidences of harassment and violence against Black candidates, some of which are in the most competitive races in the state that we've been seeing lately. There have been lots of incidences that have been reported on that we know of throughout the state of Black candidates having their signs and property defaced - that's happened to a number of them, having their staffs harassed, followed, threatened from people in the community - and we saw that happen last week, one week before last now. And then that same week a candidate in the 30th Legislative District, which is Federal Way, Algona area, was shot twice with a BB gun. And when you're getting shot by BB gun, you don't actually know necessarily that it's a BB gun - and so you just know that you're getting shot at. Very scary situation and with those, certainly, I know that candidate Pastor Carey Anderson feels like that seems like a down payment on more violence, that seems like a type of harassment and targeting that's like - we are coming after you, we're harassing you. It's just very, very scary. And so throughout this process - and again, we saw these instances in 2020, we're now in 2022 seeing them - these campaigns have had to make considerations adjust their field plans and their canvassing plans in ways that soak up more resources, soak up more money and time, and it's just worrisome to be doing this. And realistically, this has been - continues to be a systemic problem. And so as I shared before, a number of people have - the parties should have an impact in fixing this. And specifically, I don't know if you're - I know you are - but people that are listening - the campaign apparatus when it comes to a state party - there's a state party. They do the Coordinated Campaign, which is the volunteer arm for a lot of the candidates in the state, they do a lot of supportive canvassing, phone calls, especially for - from the top of the ticket in the state on down. So Patty Murray being at the top of the ticket this year to candidates, especially in battleground areas. But the entities that are most responsible for dealing with campaigns are the House Democratic Caucus and the Washington Senate Democratic Caucus - that the House caucus and the Senate caucus are actually very frequently in contact with campaigns. They exist solely to support the political campaigns of their members. And so they provide information, guidance, infrastructure for the most competitive races against the opposing party. They're actively involved in these races and they basically act like co-consultants and adjunct staff for these. So there is a very close relationship and those are the two entities - House caucus for House candidates, Senate caucus for the Senate candidates - who are already doing that work in general. And so it has not escaped a lot of people's notice that this has been, as I was quoted saying, a glaring omission in what they've talked about. And it's not the first time the party has heard about this or confronted it. There have been conversations about this before. They've not resulted in action up until now. And so that article was particularly troubling to me. And this situation is particularly troubling to me because although everybody was asleep before then, we've seen the State Party basically say - yeah, we do have a responsibility to handle this and to try and work on a solution. We've seen the Senate caucus say - yeah, we do and we're working on a solution. And we have not seen that from House caucus leadership. And it was - we don't see this often for anything in any issue, but you had three candidates, two of them members in some of the most competitive races in the state saying - Hey, this happened. April Berg - this happened to me earlier this year and I asked the House caucus for help, I didn't get any - and now we're sitting here asking again and we're waiting. And Jamila Taylor, the head of the Legislative Black Caucus, saying essentially the same thing - we're waiting for help, we're asking, we're waiting. And then Pastor Carey Anderson, candidate in the 30th, saying we asked and we haven't - and these candidates are feeling like they're left alone and being left high and dry. And their campaigns are wondering - is it safe to be out there - and to not even have the caucus back them up like that is really something. And if Black lives do matter in this state, then we gotta do a better job of showing it, starting with these candidates. And this is - attacks on these candidates are really foundational - saying, we don't think you deserve a voice in this society, in our democracy, we're gonna try and intimidate and harass you out of it. And really, no one's really doing that much to stop it, so let's keep going. And not having support going through that is a really challenging thing. Will Casey for The Stranger also did an article on it this week. So I guess as you're looking at it, what does it look like from your vantage point? [00:20:11] Rich Smith: Yeah - well, in their defense the HCCC - or whatever, I don't know what they call it - just found out about structural racism this year, so they're hopping on it. They're also just figuring out racism as well. We might give 'em a chance to catch up. No, I was - the Rep Berg, whose canvasser was one of the people who got yelled at by a white guy who slammed his bike to the ground and did the "get off my lawn" racism up in Mill Creek, I wanna say, I can't remember where it was. But anyway, she and Rep Taylor pointed out that this - if you want to expand the number of people into your party, you want to have a big umbrella, if you want to diversify your party, which has been white for a very long time - then you're gonna want to provide some protection for people. You're gonna at least want to get a phone tree - set up some kind of protocol so that the party knows when this stuff happens and can act accordingly. The fact that we didn't have one means that we didn't prioritize it. And the fact that they didn't prioritize it means that there's not enough people in high places who are thinking about this stuff. And the fact that this has to come from the candidates who are not, who are running to be part of the party, is inexcusable because we've known that this has been happening for a long time. So yeah. It hurts recruitment for that party and it's inexcusable that they haven't done anything - they haven't done anything about it until now. [00:22:05] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and even then until now - we're waiting, we're waiting. [00:22:09] Rich Smith: Yeah. [00:22:09] Crystal Fincher: We're waiting to see - [00:22:10] Rich Smith: Did the Senate put out some recommendations, but the House hasn't? [00:22:13] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. [00:22:14] Rich Smith: Okay, I see. [00:22:16] Crystal Fincher: And as well as the State Party - they've worked in conjunction. So it'll - we're waiting to see - I hope that we see more action, but it has certainly been disconcerting, worrisome. Frankly, infuriating - [00:22:31] Rich Smith: Pramila's getting yelled at. [00:22:32] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and beyond yelled at - life threatened by dude outside of her house with a gun - telling her to go back where she came from and threatening to kill her. It's - and we saw an organizer this past week with a continued campaign of harassment from someone who already has a restraining order against them for this. It's just a worrisome time and it's gonna take everybody engaging, especially white people, to get this to stop. Relying on the victims of harassment and the victims of assault and the victims of stalking to be able to engage and solve their whole problem, when a lot of their energy is spent just trying to keep themselves safe, is not realistic and not what we can count on in order for it to change. But also, in other news - so south King County has got a lot of races. There haven't been many that have been covered. The Stranger has covered them and even engaged in a recent endorsement in one of the most competitive legislative districts in the state, which is the 47th Legislative District. And so there is one incumbent in the House seat running - Debra Entenman in that seat. And then there is a competitive Senate race and a competitive House race, both of which have open seats. And interestingly, both are D vs R races, where we're in a pretty competitive D primary, not so competitive R primaries. Well-funded Republican opponents - both of those Republican opponents are also Black, against a number of Black candidates running. So you have Shukri Olow and Chris Stearns running for one seat. You have Satwinder Kaur, who's a Kent City Councilmember currently, running against a former State Senator, Claudia Kaufman, in the other seat - running against another current Kent City Councilmember, Bill Boyce, who's a Republican. And then Carmen Goers for that other seat, who's also a Republican. So how did you - just going through that race - you made endorsements and recommendations. In that, what did you come out with? [00:24:52] Rich Smith: Yeah. In those races - yeah, first of all, the 47th is huge. It's a bellwether district. Everyone's gonna be looking at it and analyzing it on election night to figure out what it means for the general election and whether or not the Democrats are gonna be able to hold their majority in the State House and - or break even in the Senate, with Mullet as the swing - lord help us. But yeah, in the race - starting from the Senate race - that's the one that is Kaur and Kauffman vs probably Boyce - or yeah, Bill Boyce - [00:25:33] Crystal Fincher: Bill Boyce - yeah. [00:25:33] Rich Smith: Kent City Councilman. Yeah, we came down on Kauffman there, mostly because Kaur had lied to us, basically, in the course of the endorsement process. She said that - we asked about whether or not she wanted to put cops in schools and Kent, they recently - Kent School District and City Council approved recently - put cops back in the school so that they could handcuff mostly kids of color when they get out of line, and or when they say they get out of line. [00:26:13] Crystal Fincher: And a long history of that happening in the district. [00:26:15] Rich Smith: Yes, and Kaur's initial response to that was - that wasn't my, our jurisdiction, that was a decision that the school made, the school district made, yada, yada. Kauffman stepped in and said - excuse me, you voted on that. And then we were like, what? And then she's like - yeah, the City Council approved the budget that put the cops back into the schools in Kent and also, you all deliberated about it. There's a meeting - you talked about this. It was not only within your jurisdiction, but you joined a unanimous vote to put cops back in the schools. And then she's like okay - yeah, that happened. I was like - well, why did you say it didn't happen? Or why did you suggest that it was out of your jurisdiction? And so you didn't have anything to say about it? So that kind of - that didn't - that wasn't cool. We didn't like that. And we also didn't like that the vote to put the cops back in schools because, and when we questioned her on that, she said she had mixed feelings about it personally, but she voted for it because this was something the community asked for. But scratch the surface a little bit, and the community also asked for the school not to put the cops back in the schools. And so it was - she was representing people in the community, some people in the community, and dismissing - or not really dismissing - but pretending as if other people in the community didn't exist. She wanted to represent the interest of those people and not those people, so that was - otherwise they were pretty, pretty close on the issues, but her handling of that situation initially and the substance of it, I think, was what pushed us toward Kaur. We recognize that it's a moderate district, or a purple district, in a lot of ways and maybe that comes back to to haunt Kauffman, but Kaufman also just had a really forthright, blunt, straightforward way of talking. She held her ground, said what she said. And we were like - that's, there we go. There was just less triangulation, it felt like, happening. And so those were the things that pushed us there. Olow and Stearns was also really tough for us - because love Stearns' work on Treatment First Washington and his history with - him foregrounding treatment and wanting to get in - we really, would be great to have a champion in there, someone to join Rep Lauren Davis on her crusade to try to squeeze something out of that body to build a treatment infrastructure in the first place and a recovery infrastructure at the state level. I'm sure Stearns would've done that. [00:29:07] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, full disclosure - I was also part of that coalition - appreciate his work on that, definitely believed in that. [00:29:14] Rich Smith: Well, and he had been elected to Auburn City Council. And so he has a constituency he can tap - he's familiar. Olow though - we endorsed her against Upthegrove when she ran for County Council and she aligned with everything that Stearns was saying, or agreed with everything that Stearns was saying, and just has a lot of expertise in youth development and education and that's something where we need as many of those champions in the Legislature as humanly possible. And she had just had a - it looked like at the time when we were making the endorsement - just a better campaign infrastructure and so probably would've done, we thought would've done the best, will do the best against the Republican challenger. [00:30:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, really well-funded Republican challenger. Yeah. [00:30:15] Rich Smith: So that's what went into our thinking in those races. [00:30:18] Crystal Fincher: Yeah - no, made sense. Shukri has been doing work for the Best Starts for Kids program, which is very big in the district. Got her doctorate in education after starting out as a girl in public housing in the district. Has just - she really is someone who knows the district really well - grew up there, has certainly given back a lot, and so - know them both, appreciate them both. And just know that in both of those races, it's gonna be really tough for the Democrat vs the Republican. So whichever way that goes through, I hope listeners continue to pay attention and engage in those 'cause it's going to take help from folks who don't live there to make sure that the Democrat does get across the finish line. 'Cause, man - lots of these - Republicans are trying extra hard to put a moderate face on themselves, whether it's the 5th District talking about their bipartisan support and they're moderate and they're socially progressive and fiscally responsible - is how they're trying to present it. Whether it's in Emily Randall's district, or in the 5th district against Lisa Callan in that area. And it's just - we've got a lot at stake on this ballot. And so I really - and it's not inconceivable that Democrats could lose the majority here. With hard work, hopefully not, but it is within the realm of possibility and Republicans are looking to move backwards a lot of policy and are saying some really alarming things on the campaign trail with every - and it's not rhetoric. They're intending to move forward with repealing all of the rights that are in danger at the national level, and really being in alignment with what's happening there. And so things could go the other direction really fast. [00:32:17] Rich Smith: It's scary. It's also - is it within the 9th Congressional District as well? [00:32:21] Crystal Fincher: Yep. I think it's split between the 8th and the 9th, actually. I need to double check that post-redistricting, which is another thing - when you talk about just the 47th district, everything about everything in that race is just nonstandard. We don't know how this district, as this is the first time that we're gonna be voting within these new boundaries - so how it actually performs. You've got an interesting composition of people who - some have been on ballots plenty of times there, some haven't, some have but have been unopposed so people don't really pay attention to it. You've got two Black Republicans who are leading and the standard bearers - they're trying to portray themselves as - one of them, Bill Boyce, sent out this mailer of him and Martin Luther King. And there's nothing Republicans love more than throwing out a Martin Luther King quote that he would've thrown back in their face. But anyway, talking about that - which was, I know a lot of Black people in the Kent community looked, gave a side eye to that one really hard. But it'll be really interesting to see. And then there's a chunk of races in Seattle that are these D vs D races that are not gonna be key to the composition of the caucus and the majority, but that may help define what the agenda is in the Legislature and what's able to pass, especially when we talk about issues like progressive revenue and some very basic things that people are trying to tick off - in the healthcare realm, in the climate action realm, whole transportation package, what that kind of would look like. And so just a variety of races across the City that people will be voting on. Make sure to get that ballot in by Tuesday, either in the drop box or in the mail - you don't have to use a stamp on the envelope. But I guess as you're looking there, I see a lot of people - there's been a lot of coverage of the 46th, which full disclosure - I am working with Melissa Taylor on. In the 36th, a crowded race. There's an open seat in the 34th which hasn't quite gotten as much attention, I don't think, as the other two races. What do you see in that race? [00:34:52] Rich Smith: In the 34th? Great sadness and because it was - they're both really good. If you're - you're talking about the Leah Griffin and the Emily Alvarado - [00:35:03] Crystal Fincher: Yes. [00:35:03] Rich Smith: Yeah - what are you, what am I, how - we were all, we talked about this for 45 minutes, an hour. Okay, so our choices in this are somebody who is - we're in a housing crisis and Emily Alvarado ran Office of Housing, is - clearly knows what she's talking about. That's exactly what she wants to do when she gets to the State Legislature, and exactly how to do it, and exactly the coalition she wants to build - Latina and is - voted for Bernie Sanders - and is also impressive candidate who knows her sh*t. Speaking of, Leah Griffin - tremendous - tremendously overcame personal tragedy and didn't just keep that to herself, but used it in part as a catalyst to make real change to help everybody, contacted everybody in the Legislature and Congress - even Patty Murray - and got some responses and helped push an idea that eventually became legislation that got slipped into the Violence Against Women Act that would increase access to more sexual assault kits. So this is a person who has done tremendous work from her couch in Seattle, as she'll say. And so yeah - the choice there is between somebody who is gonna be a strong - and she's up on the news about criminal justice and is in the intersection there between how do we - what's the best way to get fewer rapes - to stop people from rape. She's a really good person who knows the answer to that question and can push for that kind of change in the 34th. And yeah, the question facing voters is - do you want somebody who's an expert on housing and is gonna do all the right things on housing and lead there and join a housing coalition in the House, which we desperately need. Or do you want somebody who is going to lead on the intersection of criminal justice and protecting survivors in the House, which we also desperately need, which is also - it's an impossible decision. I don't - we came down, the group came down at the end on Emily because of the housing crisis, but that's how I feel about that. We were all - could have gone either way. [00:37:46] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it is - it's rough. And there's a lot of rough choices actually in Seattle - these are two great candidates. It's been tougher than prior years in some, where there were more clear choices in a lot of them. In City races, there's more differentiation between, at least among all the candidates a lot of times. And there just are some really hard choices and people across the board that - even if they don't make it through, you really, really, really hope that they continue to be involved and they step up to lead in different areas and really consider continuing to seek leadership. Because both people in this race, people in a number of races - there are some really, really exciting people who are running. You can only choose one. And so we'll see what continues to go through. And we can only choose one, we're gonna run a general election - ultimately there will be one who prevails, but yeah, it, this - I could definitely see that being a hard choice. [00:38:54] Rich Smith: If anybody wants to start some GoFundMe to help move some of these candidates around, would love somebody to move up to Shoreline and challenge Salomon, Jesse Salomon, up there - be a Senator. And could - someone could have jumped into the 46th Senate race too - would've been nice. A guy, Matt Gross, did - got a housing focus, that's great. Didn't do it for us even though - just 'cause his ideas were half baked - would've been nice to have a challenge up, a serious challenger to Javier Valdez too. Valdez is a nice guy, but there's a lot of room for improvement up there. Yeah, there was a lot of races where - would've been cool to see stronger challengers, progressive challengers. And then there were a lot of other races, and then the rest of the races were - oh, look, these people are great. Four great people running for one open seat. What are we gonna do here? So yeah, that - it was tough. [00:39:57] Crystal Fincher: Yeah - and with that, obviously, there's a ton of people who live in Seattle. And so there's going to be more people competing for what wind up being fewer positions. And you see a lot more engagement and attention being paid and candidates for those open seats. And it's - we are still contending with the disparity in resources between those in kind of safe D - Democrats are going to be elected in all of these positions. And seeing a stark difference in spending and donations for other races in the state that could go either way. And it's challenging. Again, I generally don't work with candidates. I'm working with one this year and it's a high - there are three of the top fundraisers in the state. I literally think the top three on the Democratic side non-incumbents in that race - there's a lot of money there. There doesn't need to be that much money in there, but given the composition - just like with Congress, right - especially the representatives basically have to spend all of their time fundraising. And while we desperately need more campaign finance reform, it should not take that. And a system that requires that is a broken system and you're making people make a lot of tough choices. The barrier for people being able to get in these races is challenging, 'cause you have to have enough time to devote to the fundraising and to talking to voters and the other stuff. And it's really hard to do without resources. And even if you don't have the most, you still have to have a substantial amount no matter how you look at it. So I do think there is a glaring need for some really foundational statewide campaign finance reform - also at the federal level - but Democracy Vouchers, does it solve every single problem related to everything? No. But I think it does make things more accessible, forces people to talk to more residents to get the - even if it's just in search of vouchers - hey, it's putting you in contact with more people that you have to directly deal with, which I think is always a good thing for candidates. But it's a problem, it's a challenge. And so many resources are dedicated to Seattle in the political sphere when there are so many needs for lesser-known races throughout the state. How do you see that? [00:42:39] Rich Smith: I agree. I don't know if - I don't know about Democracy Vouchers as a solution, but campaign finance reform for statewide races is great. Yeah - Melissa Taylor's raised what - $200,000 or something almost in that race - like the top, some of the top - [00:42:55] Crystal Fincher: Well, and she's the number two - [00:42:56] Rich Smith: She's the number two. [00:42:58] Crystal Fincher: - behind Lelach. And then, Nancy Connolly is also - there's a lot - now, Melissa doesn't accept corporate donations or anything, but still that's a lot of work, it's a lot of time. And not everybody has the ability to do that and that should not be a requirement of running for office. [00:43:23] Rich Smith: No. Yeah, I agree. And yeah, that's - it's as much as Stephanie Gallardo has raised against - for one House seat. Yeah, than for one US House seat, but yeah - it's crazy, it's a huge high barrier to entry, and we should do something to change it. [00:43:43] Crystal Fincher: We should. So I guess if you are - lots of resources, will link all of this in the comments of the show. As we do that - for just races across the state that may not be on people's radar, the Congressional races - is there anything that you would throw out there for people to consider that's not getting much attention right now? [00:44:05] Rich Smith: Yeah. You wanna do something over the weekend? You might try knocking doors for Emily Randall up in Kitsap - in Bremerton, Gig Harbor area - she's facing off against the Legislature's biggest brat, as Will Casey called him in a piece on the 26th Legislative District there. That's another one of those important races - Randall won by 108 votes or something last time she ran. So it's gonna be a close one. It would be great to have a pro-choice Democrat rather than a Trumpian weirdo in the Senate up there. [00:44:37] Crystal Fincher: Super Trumpian - he is one of the most extreme Republicans in the state, currently a House member running for the Senate seat to challenge her. They tried to put what they felt was one of their best, most resourced people on their side against her and she needs everybody's help. That is absolutely a race for people in Seattle to adopt and do something to help emily win. [00:45:03] Rich Smith: Yeah. If you wanna - if you're closer to the South End, you might try going down to the 30th LD - helping out Jamila Taylor with her race, figuring out what to do with, or helping Claire Wilson in her race. She'll - maybe save those for the general 'cause they'll probably get through. There's some sh*t going down in the 30th as well - is that also the one where Chris Vance is taking on Phil Fortunato - [00:45:29] Crystal Fincher: That's the 31st. [00:45:30] Rich Smith: 31st - that's right. That's just outside - [00:45:32] Crystal Fincher: So like Enumclaw, just to the east. Yep. [00:45:35] Rich Smith: Yeah, just outside. Yeah - so that's gonna be funny - I don't know, it'll be interesting. Phil Fortunato is a freak and a climate arsonist and a genuine weirdo. And I don't know if we're placing him with a centrist Republican, I guess, if Chris Vance is - will be much of an improvement, but it will be interesting to see the extent to which Trump base is being activated in these races in Washington, or whether there's some kind of independent, high Republican sh*t movement going on in the suburbs that really wants to moderate the Trumpers. So that'll be one area where I'm looking looking at that and yeah, but those would be two races that I would highly - [00:46:33] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, no, that absolutely makes sense. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you everyone for listening - this is Friday, July 29th, 2022. Thanks for listening to Hacks & Wonks - the producer is Lisl Stadler and assistant producer is Shannon Cheng with assistance from Bryce Cannatelli. Our wonderful co-host today is the Associate Editor of The Stranger, Rich Smith. You can find Rich on Twitter at @richsssmith. You can find me on Twitter at @finchfrii. Now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Our revamped website has access to all the shows - all of the transcripts to everything is all included, and the forums that we did in the 36th and 37th are also included there. While you're there, if you like - hop on and can leave us a review on something, please do. It helps us out. You can also just get everything and we'll include all the resources and articles we talked about today in the show notes. So thanks for talking with us today. Thanks for tuning in - we'll talk to you next time.

On this midweek show, Crystal chats with Claudia Kauffman about her campaign for State Senator in the 47th Legislative District - why she decided to run again for a seat she previously held, what it's like to run in a swing district, how the last legislative session went and her thoughts on addressing and prioritizing issues in the LD47 community such as housing affordability and zoning, COVID-19 impacts on education, making schools more welcoming, and protecting fundamental privacy rights. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Claudia at @SenClaudiaK.   Resources Campaign Website - Claudia Kauffman: https://www.voteclaudiakauffman.com/   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today we're pleased to be welcoming to this program, a former senator who is now running again for State Senate in the 47th legislative district, here in South King County, Claudia Kauffman. Welcome to the program. [00:00:53] Claudia Kauffman: Thank you for having me. [00:00:54] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much. So I guess I just wanna start off by asking what made you decide to run again? [00:01:03] Claudia Kauffman: First, I am Claudia Kauffman - I am a member of the Nez Perce Tribe, I grew up in Seattle, I have lived in South King County for about 22 years - raised my family, my children went to the Kent School District, and I am deeply involved and engaged in my community. I am a homeowner and a mother and a grandmother, so I'm engaged and I'm involved and I'm invested in the community. Both my professional and my elected experience positions me well to be running for this seat at this time. I worked over 20 years for Muckleshoot Indian Tribe in government relations - working on government relations on the local state, federal levels and working on legislative agendas and working with consultants and helping to identify strategy behind the agendas. But I also, as you had mentioned - former State Senator of the 47th legislative district. Given those two wonderful aspects in my life that an opportunity has come forward with an open seat in my previous position that I held and I thought it was an excellent opportunity to go back and continue the great work that I did when I was in the State Senate before, and having the understanding and knowledge, experience. I thought this was a fantastic opportunity, and I loved working in the State Senate and being a State Senator - I just loved everything about it. And it's all about serving community. [00:03:05] Crystal Fincher: So it has been eight years since you were in the Senate - do I have that right? And the district has been a swing district, it remains a swing district even after redistricting. And with this open seat, there's a quite competitive primary race going on, with another Democratic opponent, a Republican in the race. It is really one of the races that people across the state are looking at and that may determine the balance of power in at least one chamber in our legislature. And so, as you were looking at this and considering running and having represented the district before, what is it like? Especially for people who are used to living in safe, blue, Democratic districts - what's it like to be running a race in one of our state's top battleground districts, where you have heated Republican rhetoric, at this time when there is so much at stake? What is that like? [00:04:12] Claudia Kauffman: It's true that the 47th district is a swing district and it has gone back and forth and back and forth. Before I was first elected, there was a Republican State Senator for 12 years. And then I got in and then Joe Fain, a Republican, got in. And then Mona Das, a Democrat, got back in. And so it does swing that way. And it's true - this is not a safe blue district like in Seattle - you don't walk up and say, Hello, I'm a young, progressive woman of color. It's just - that doesn't reflect what this district is. There are some large cities - Kent and Auburn and Covington are included in the 47th, but that also includes rural areas. And there are a lot of farms - local farms in the district - and as well as manufacturing, so incorporates a tremendous amount of variety and diversity in terms of the work and the population and the people. But it also is diverse in things that are valued. And so this is a district - and you can't, I think, just put out a number of measures on the ballot to increase taxes to do such things as repair and reconstruct, or even rebuild the Kent Police Department - has always been turned down. There have been measures for taxing to increase support in the water system and that's been turned down. So this is a different district and, as such, there are Democrats and there are Republicans, but there is a huge middle that is more independent and works that way. And so knowing and understanding the district, I think, is very important in this race. And I have that experience, I come with all that knowledge. [00:06:34] Crystal Fincher: It does take knowing the district - it's different, I think - a lot of times when people are here - I live almost on the border of the 33rd and the 47th and have - very familiar with Kent and Covington and elsewhere. So how, as when you're running and there is such a wide variety of people, diverse population in every single way - how do you stay true to your values as you are talking to people who may feel very different ways? How do you stay grounded and how do you stay principled when you're talking to all of those voters? [00:07:17] Claudia Kauffman: For me, I convey that the values that I was raised with are taking care of your children, having respect and dignity for your elders, honoring your veterans, and serving your community. These are some core tenets that I was raised with and this is something that really translates and embraces voters - that we do need to take care of our children and our elders and our veterans and serving the community is very important. And so my - I don't go forward in terms of coming in with a real progressive agenda - it's really about taking care of our community. [00:08:10] Crystal Fincher: So we just came out of a legislative session where some great things happened, some not so great things happened - which is true of a lot of legislative sessions. What was your evaluation of this past session? [00:08:25] Claudia Kauffman: I was - there was a lot of work done on the plastic bags - and so a lot of people are asking me who led that and why did they do that? And that was our State Senator in the 47th, and I'm not sure that those things were the priority of the voters of the 47th legislative district. I think it was a statewide issue, but it became a signature issue for that particular person. And I think it's important that we get back to understanding the basic needs around our children, such as investing in early learning or addressing issues since the pandemic - when children were in school, outta school, in school, outta school and it created a lot of issues around the social and emotional and the mental health issues for the children, as well as the educational needs. I think if we refocus back on some of our basic needs within our communities - would be very important. And I wasn't quite convinced that we needed to send over a hundred million dollars and whatever it was from operating to transportation. And then in transportation, they also increased a number of fees and was a very large transportation budget. When we talk about what our needs are - how are you gonna fund them - well, stop sending operating dollars away. We need to address the needs within our communities. [00:10:28] Crystal Fincher: So with that, I guess we're looking at the transportation budget, which had record investments in transit funding, in mobility improvements and enhancements, including in the 47th district. Are you saying that was a mistake to do? And that we should just focus on maintaining roads and not necessarily investing in transit or other infrastructure? What about that strikes you as excessive? [00:10:59] Claudia Kauffman: Okay, I apologize if that came across the wrong way - I am not saying that I just wanna invest in expanding highways - that's not what I meant at all. We need - [00:11:14] Crystal Fincher: Or even if it's not expanding highways, is it that - I do not wanna put words into your mouth and so just seeking clarification - you were talking about focusing more on the basic needs. What falls outside of the basic needs that they were dealing with in the Legislature when it comes to transportation? [00:11:37] Claudia Kauffman: So I obviously didn't make all that clear, so let me go back. When we're looking at the basic needs for our communities - in running for office or being a state legislator, people always ask - how are you gonna fund that? Where are you gonna get the money to fund that? And what I'm saying about, because you asked me about this last session, was they took out money from operating and they put it into transportation. That's nothing to say about transportation, that's just to say about operating. And imagine the possibilities that we could have, if we had the full money in the operating, to help address more issues within our community. [00:12:23] Crystal Fincher: What would you address in the community? [00:12:25] Claudia Kauffman: Increase early learning, I would increase money going to the Housing Trust Fund to create more affordable housing, I would increase the income threshold for more seniors and veterans, people with disabilities to qualify for property tax relief. There are a number of things that could have went that way - investing in small businesses, having a comprehensive review of the impacts of COVID-19 on our students, on our teachers, our paraeducators. I think there's a number of things that we could have done with that money. And so I'm just talking about the fact that they moved the money from operating and they put it in transportation. [00:13:21] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. And so with some of those investments that you mentioned, especially in early learning and education and the schooling system, you were known as a champion for education when you served before - certainly, I recall a lot of educators just really being thankful and supportive of the stances you took in a variety of areas. And we're having a time in our local school districts here, including the Kent School District - one of the largest school districts in the state - and an issue that we're hearing about nationally, we're dealing with right here at home with book bans being talked about and a number of issues from some very conservative right-wing elements trying to push that into our schools. Where do you think, what do you think the school should be doing? Do you think the school board is doing the right thing? Do you think we should be reevaluating which books we're looking at in our schools? [00:14:28] Claudia Kauffman: I really think we should be evaluating the impacts of COVID-19 and how our students are doing. Being a mother, I became a fierce advocate for my children's education and I did those things, and I joined the PTAs, and I went to the meetings, and I'll bake the cookies and made cupcakes. And really wanted to have the data - what does the data show for our students? And when I was finally able to get the data, they had data for every racial group except for American Indians. And I said why - you're not providing the data, I said - Go back, just some basic things and what's happening? What is the graduation rate while we're talking about American Indian students. What is the graduation rate for American Indian students? And it was only 36%. And I said - Okay, that should be a priority - that should be a priority for everyone, not just me, not just the native community. Everyone should make that a priority that there is a particular group of students - only 36% graduation rate. And at the - they just recently voted to put in police officers at every school district. Now I'm all for safety and safety is very important. But I also want to have public schools to be an open and welcoming institution in which students are - come in and not being fearful or harassed or intimidated at the atmosphere in which they're placed at, in which they need to walk by every single day. To me, it needs to be more open and accepting and welcoming. When I was in the State Senate, the Kent School District had hired private security at every school, and the school board allowed them to use force and to handcuff children and a little five-year old was handcuffed for not walking down the hall too fast - you're taken down and you're handcuffed if you talk back. And so when I was in the State Senate, and then I tried to work on - can't handcuff children if you're not a law enforcement officer - I received a lot of backlash from the Kent School District on that. And so I said - okay, show me reports - start reporting every single time you use force on children. How many times do you handcuff them? How many children handcuffed? What are the reasons for them being handcuffed? What's the location? What was the - give me some data on the student, demographic data on the students. And that just demonstrated the complete lack of any standards when it comes to that. [00:17:43] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and maybe time has proven - [00:17:44] Claudia Kauffman: And Kent School District - yeah, Kent School District is doing it now with police officers in every single school. So I have concerns about what they're doing and how they're doing it. And I know that they just hired a new superintendent, so I'm hoping things will improve in that area. I think they hired a great superintendent. [00:18:09] Crystal Fincher: I certainly hope things will improve in that area. I do wanna circle back to the original question. And you made mention about wanting kids to feel safe and welcome in school - there are some kids questioning right now, because of some of the books that are being targeted for banning and the reasoning that's being given with them - do you think that any of those book ban discussions should be on the table? Or do you feel like it's inappropriate? [00:18:36] Claudia Kauffman: No, I'm not in favor of the book ban and especially - I was asked recently about how do we help students in the LGBTQ community. And I said - You need to have them to feel welcome in the public school system. And if you're banning books that deal with that, it's not gonna feel very welcoming and you're gonna feel targeted. [00:19:08] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And in that vein, we're sitting here at a time not too long after the Dobbs decision that eliminated a woman's right to reproductive health and also signaled - from the dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas - that there is an intention and a welcoming of also eliminating rights to same-sex marriage, same-sex relationships, privacy, contraception. What can we be doing now in our state to protect against these coming attacks - the existing one that already happened with the Dobbs decision and these coming ones on some of our fundamental rights. What can you do as a legislator to help protect against that? [00:20:04] Claudia Kauffman: I think that we can start working on some privacy issue - I know that there are a number of apps on phones in which you can, women can track their menstrual cycles and when they have a doctor's appointment. And if we don't have privacy around our own technology, there's opportunities for that information going out. And other states that now offer $10,000 rewards for naming those who get an abortion or those who assist in abortions is really scary. And it's not just ensuring we have the right to make our own medical decisions, it's the privacy issue that everyone's gonna know that you - and I can't believe the amount of information and data that is out there. When I was in the State Senate, I had the bill that prevented the Washington State Patrol from pulling up your car in an accident and downloading your vehicle's data, 'cause they did that all the time without your knowledge or permission. And so my bill was to stop that - it's my car, it's my data, you can't have that, you can't have my cell phone, you can't have anything. And I got a lot of pushback from the Washington State Patrol, but it's all about privacy and consumer protection. And so us as consumers and - 'cause everyone needs to seek medical attention for one reason or another throughout their lives, and we need to have privacy around that. [00:22:05] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely agree. Do you think we should call a special session to do that? There's certainly conversation about - hey, if we do have a number of these competitive races and battleground districts and we aren't sure what the composition of the legislature is going to be, potentially waiting until next session could jeopardize our ability to codify some of these protections into law. Should we be calling a special session to deal with law to protect abortion access in addition to these other things? [00:22:41] Claudia Kauffman: That's certainly up to leadership to decide that and I don't believe that the Senate is going to - they have a comfortable lead in terms of their numbers, the Senate Democrats do. And so I don't believe that's going to - they will lose all those in one swoop. [00:23:04] Crystal Fincher: But if the House did - even if you passed it through the Senate, it potentially wouldn't make it through the House. Do you think it's, do you think it's just probably likely that Democrats will retain control and so we might as well wait to get it done, or do you think it is more urgent than that? [00:23:24] Claudia Kauffman: It might be more urgent, given the redistricting that's happened and what's happened with the Redistricting Commission. That was a real disappointing, 10-year - [00:23:38] Crystal Fincher: That was a lot of things. [00:23:39] Claudia Kauffman: Yeah, so - [00:23:43] Crystal Fincher: Certainly not an ideal process, and we're still waiting to see what the ultimate outcome of the redistricting is, but certainly questions about fairness - whether a variety of districts across the state adhere to the Voting Rights Act. But it looks like we're gonna be voting in these districts right now, so if it were up to you, would you think we need to move on a special session or take some more time to plan and wait until regular session? [00:24:16] Claudia Kauffman: Yeah, maybe - wait until after, because even after the election, people are not in until they're sworn in - and that's in January. I think they'll have a better idea after the elections. [00:24:33] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. And now you made mention about taking action to make housing more affordable. Lots of talk across the country and the state, in Seattle and elsewhere - we are certainly no exception to this housing affordability crisis. And the cost of housing has skyrocketed - certainly, a lot of people's property values and home values have skyrocketed. And as people are looking at the equity that they have grow, sometimes that makes people feel wonderful. At the same time, that's creating - with strained housing supply, lot of investment property buying, and increased percentage of renters that we're seeing - people are having a harder and harder time managing the rents that are rising faster than they have before. And on an individual basis, rising year-over-year at higher percentages than we've seen them. What should the Legislature do to make housing more affordable in this district? [00:25:43] Claudia Kauffman: I think we can do a few things. One, as I mentioned earlier, invest additional money into the Housing Trust Fund so that more dollars, state dollars can go out for affordable housing. I also believe that the state should invest and look at investment in community developments - community-led, like El Centro De La Raza is a perfect example. They could build housing, so it's not just the for-profit developers who are going out and getting land from cities to develop housing. It really should be community-led, community-driven and build that capacity within our communities - non-profit organizations 'cause nonprofits - they work hard within their communities. So I think if we invest in the capacity building and invest in community-led non-profits - in their vision for their community to create more housing, more affordable housing as an option. Transit-oriented housing - we have the Sounder train that goes straight through Kent and Auburn. And then increasing opportunities - training, technical assistance for home buyers, provide down payment assistance on a realistic level - since the housing market has been so high, we need to be able to match that in a real sense - so that is meaningful in a down payment assistance program. [00:27:40] Crystal Fincher: Should we be increasing zoning, including in single-family areas to help broaden the ability to build more supply and have more options for people in our communities that are more affordable? [00:27:55] Claudia Kauffman: I grew up on Beacon Hill in South Seattle and in a single-family neighborhood. And I really just loved it - and loved all the houses, individual houses on the blocks and blocks and the alleys and the number of neighbors that we had. And given Seattle's history of redlining - is all, mostly all communities of color. And I just love that neighborhood. And so I understand the desire to preserve that neighborhood as single-family. But I also don't want to have undue laws on local cities that say that you have to do that. I think there's a - I think there should be an opportunity to involve communities, neighborhoods, and cities to help identify how we can have additional housing units that provide that density. And a lot of people do it without even realizing that - I was at an event the other day and one of the candidates was like - yeah, I got a mother-in-law house and I rent out this house. I said - See, you're already doing it, you're already creating that middle housing. [00:29:23] Crystal Fincher: That is exactly middle housing, but unfortunately that's exactly the kind of thing that is not permitted in many of the single-family areas without an increase in zoning. And I think one thing that people are trying to contend with is certainly - I've also lived in single-family neighborhoods and a sense of community, wonderful, lots of nostalgia from childhood and thinking about wanting to preserve that - but because of the constrained supply, what was the neighborhood, the neighborhoods that we grew up in 20 years ago are very different today. And the average home values in those same neighborhoods - in Beacon Hill is approaching, it's over $800,000 now, in a previously redlined area and a diverse area. But an area that's seen a lot of gentrification and a lot of displacement because those same homes cost quadruple what they did even 15, 20 years ago. And cities have had this much time to take action themselves and to work together with their neighborhoods and haven't. So do we expect that to change in the short-term without any additional action or prompting, by the state, or do we feel like we need to take more definitive action to help people to be able to stay in neighborhoods, afford them there? How do you balance that and what should be done? [00:31:00] Claudia Kauffman: I think it's a great opportunity - thank you for the question. I think it's a great opportunity to invest in communities, to have more community organizing and community development programs that can work specifically so there is reduction in the gentrification of a neighborhood or a community. And work with the community to reinvest state dollars to improve local area and providing more assistance to homeowners that are there for updates and repairs. But I also think that it's an opportunity to work with the cities to develop those programs and you don't want it to turn into a big fight of "not in my neighborhood." [00:32:08] Crystal Fincher: Which is where, how it's been, which is how it is - actually. [00:32:13] Claudia Kauffman: Yeah. [00:32:13] Crystal Fincher: And so do we continue to just say - okay, they're saying they don't want it and so let's just keep things rolling as they are, or - you did talk about community investment and development. Do you think that is enough to address the crisis that we're facing with just affordability overall? [00:32:47] Claudia Kauffman: Yes. And I think no - I think, sorry - I'm saying - is words coming out of my mouth? I'm saying - yes, I agree with you. Not, yes. [00:32:56] Crystal Fincher: I gotcha, I gotcha. [00:32:57] Claudia Kauffman: I was like - yes, that's perfect. So - no. So that's why I think the state needs to work with the local cities to find a solution. What went through the State Legislature did not pass, but it did create a tremendous amount of concern from the local state governments about their involvement in the decision that would have a direct impact on cities. But there is a need, there is a housing crisis - we need to have housing and housing availability, and I would get back again to community and community organizing and having it being community-led. But if you do that, if there's also a large demand for duplexes and fourplexes within areas, then I think they should be able to do what they wanna do with that. [00:34:07] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I think that's part of the issue and especially speaking with a lot of candidates who are out on the trail and existing legislators, including Jessica Bateman, who had that middle housing bill. There is fear that when you say - Hey, we're gonna upzone this - that someone's gonna have a humongous apartment building and there's gonna be a 20-story building that gets built next door. But in reality, some duplexes and triplexes, fourplexes are really indistinguishable from other housing - you wouldn't know it's there. And so it's always an interesting discussion hearing that, because it seems like there's a lot of preconceived notions and a lot of fear that's existed. And people afraid of new people coming in or what they have changing, and what seems to get lost in that discussion a lot of times and you talked about it - was just that it already is changing. And we just have to dictate the kind of change that we want. And do we want to build change that enables people, a wide variety of people, diverse people, people of different incomes and backgrounds to be a part of the community? Or are we going to keep moving in the direction of change where it's becoming more exclusive and harder to afford and really limits the diversity of people, the type of people that can live within a community? So I'm sure there'll be a lot of discussion of that heading, moving forward. I guess as we are getting ready to wrap up - being that this is a competitive race, you are gonna be on the primary ballot. You are running against a sitting Kent City councilmember, Satwinder Kaur - two sitting Kent City councilmembers - Satwinder Kaur, who's a Democrat, and Bill Boyce, who's a Republican. As you're talking to voters, what do you tell them as they're considering who to vote for, what the differences are between you, what will be different about their lives if you're elected versus your opponents? [00:36:37] Claudia Kauffman: First of all, I'm Claudia Kauffman, I'm a former state Senator. I've been in government relations for over 20 years. I bring a wealth of experience and understanding, plans, purpose. I have developed relationships with state legislators, local leaders - in those relationships, I cultivate and I work and I maintain good working relationships with a number of people. And so for me, I will hit the ground running - knowing my district and knowing the needs of our community. My priorities will be based on the values that will honor the 47th district. And I've been deeply concerned about recent decisions that the Kent City Council has taken - the recent $1.5 million settlement for assistant police chief. And they had to return or pay a developer $750,000 because they sold him a property so he can develop on it - and only to find out - no, you can't do that, that was a park, you can't just sell a park. And so it was - there's just some decisions that have been happening. Also, they all voted for police in the schools. I'm concerned about just the overall interaction - that the police chief's wife is the head of the PR media for the City of Kent. I think that creates a direct conflict. But that's the operations and that is also the atmosphere in which people feel comfortable doing those things. And so for me, I don't believe that they have set any kind of tone to how you need to operate and what your values are. I haven't seen anyone stand up and say - oh, this was wrong. And so there's a lot of things that have been happening within the City of Kent that are disturbing or concerning to me. You have to be fiscally responsible for your government and your government's money - because you talk about growing economic wealth for everyone, but you can't do that as a city if they're constantly paying out millions of dollars in settlements and then expect to have it be brand new and better this time around. I don't see that happening and that's concerning. [00:39:57] Crystal Fincher: I hear you - thank you so much for joining us today. We will continue to keep an eye on this race and see how this turns out. And I'm sure we'll be talking about this more throughout this election and into the general election. Thank you so much for joining us today, Claudia. [00:40:14] Claudia Kauffman: Thank you. [00:40:15] Crystal Fincher: I thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler with assistance from Shannon Cheng. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. Now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - we'll talk to you next time.

Bill Boyce leads us through Acts 19:8-20.

Bill Boyce continues our series on the Minor Prophets by teaching through the book of Haggai. 

Bill Boyce continues our series on the Minor Prophets in Jonah. 

Bill Boyce kicks off our spring semester series with the book of Amos. 

Bill Boyce gives our second message on the book of Proverbs, discussing the right way to use our words and the wisdom and folly of our speech. "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits." Proverbs 18:21

Bill Boyce teaches from 1 John on the central call to Christian love. He discuss the example of genuine love, the evidence of genuine love, and the expression of genuine love. "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth" (1 John 3:16-18). 

Bill Boyce teaches on the Christian call to love God and to love others. 1 John 4:7-12 "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

Bill Boyce continues to discuss the opening verses of 1 John 1. What is trustworthy? What is true? 

Bill Boyce gave the message at our Reunions FNF out of Titus 2:11-14, "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works."

In preparation for hearing senior testimonies this year, Bill Boyce reflects on what it means to bear witness to Christ, and meditates on Psalm 66:16 "Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul." 

Bill Boyce offers a Good Friday reflection on the Biblical word "Amen" and particularly reflects on 2 Corinthians 1:20, "For no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'Yes' in Christ. And so through him the 'Amen' is spoken by us to the glory of God. "

Bill Boyce teaches on what it means to love others with our speech: “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Matthew 12:34 And he particularly reflect on a series of interactions between Jesus and Peter where Jesus loves Peter by speaking truth to him. 

Bill Boyce continues our series on John 13:34-35 by reflecting on the "hands of love"--what does it look like to reach out to others in love?

Bill Boyce looks at Luke 2:25-38 and the words of Simeon and Anna upon the birth of Jesus.

Bill Boyce concludes our sermon series on the Beatitudes by reflecting on Matthew 5:10-12, "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Bill Boyce relived with us his bucket list trip to the Pacific Northwest in search of the perfect fishing experience. Geoff Hunt from Lobster Port shared tips on what we should be doing to limit out when recreational hooping. Recreational saltwater angler Rob Tressler predicted what anglers could expect to catch if venturing offshore this coming week. WON Bass Director Billy Egan reported on the start of the 2020 US Open and filled us in on upcoming WON fishing events.

Bill Boyce continues our series on the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 by teaching on "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy."

In this message, Bill Boyce teaches on Matthew 5:4, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

Bill Boyce gives an introduction to our Reunions FNF, and gives an update on the state of the fellowship. This is followed by a message from Christ Sallade on 2 Corinthians 5:4-7, 21.

We were unable to be live tonight, so we are playing all-new materials recorded at the Fred Hall Show in Long Beach earlier this year. Guests Include: Justin Poe from Accurate Reels, Jonathan Roldan Tailghunters International, Cal and Eric Sheets from Cal's Custom Reels, Bill Boyce with BookwithBoyce.com, Ted Thibault from Gamakatsu, Darin Dohi Custom Rod builder and Jose Angel and Esvin from Cedros Outdoor Adventures.

Bill Boyce teaches from 2 Corinthians 4 on why Paul did not give up, even when he looked at the discouraging circumstances that surrounded him.

Wendy Reported on the Sunny Trent Fundraiser. Bill Boyce shared with us highlights from some of his latest fishing adventures and updated us with what’s new at BookwithBoyce.com. Dan Wade from H & M Landing talk jig fishing with Tommy Gomes. THE original Fishmonger himself Tommy Gomes educated us on subjects like the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market, his appearance at this year’s Fred Hall Long Beach Show and the status of our quest for sustainable seafood

Bill Boyce begins our spring FNF series on 2 Corinthians by teaching on chapter 1 and explaining what it means that God comforts us in all our afflictions.

Bill Boyce preaches from Isaiah 9, "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

Captain Steve Taft from Sea Adventures Sportsfishing kept us current with what’s happening with the Offshore bite. Cabo Greg Arizpe from Land’s End Charters recapped this year‘s Cabo Tuna Jackpot event. Chad Gierlich from Hookup Baits relived his trip to Pyramid Lake, Nevada with Bill Boyce in search of giant trout. Jimmy Houston joins us to remember the life of Jerry McKinnis and commented on the purchase of FLW by Major League Fishing.

Bill Boyce talked with us about his newest venture bookwithboyce.com, how he did in this year's Bisbee tournament and what's new with Destination Baja. Capt Paul Strasser gave Stan an idea what to expect on his upcoming 13 day trip with Independence Sportfishing and what the happenings were at 22nd St. Landing. Wendy back from here Utah hunt related hoe she bagged her buck. Pro Angler Ish Monroe was our surprise guest and called in to talk about the trip he is going on with Stan. Ish is a fanatical saltwater fisherman too

Bill Boyce teaches on the importance of service in the Christian life. His passage is Mark 10:35-45 which concludes, "And Jesus called them to him and said to them, 'You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.'"

Bill Boyce leads us through Romans 8:4.

In our second FNF of the school year, Bill Boyce teaches from John 17:17 ("Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth") about the authority and trustworthiness of the Bible.

Bill Boyce teaches on the character of God from Exodus 34:5-7

In this episode of Adapt or Perish, we discuss the book of Exodus—the story of The Ten Commandments! For this episode, we read and watched: The Book of Exodus. From the actual Bible. Available literally everywhere. The Ten Commandments, 1923, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Theodore Roberts. Watch it on iTunes and Amazon. The Ten Commandments, 1956, also directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner. Watch it on iTunes and Amazon. The Prince of Egypt, 1998, directed by Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, and Simon Wells, and starring Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Goldblum, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Watch it on iTunes and Amazon. The Ten Commandments, the 2006 miniseries, directed by Robert Dornhelm, starring Dougray Scott, Naveen Andrews, and Omar Sharif. Watch it on iTunes and Amazon. The Ten Commandments, 2007, directed by John Stronach and Bill Boyce, and starring Christian Slater, Alfred Molina, and Ben Kingsley. Watch it on YouTube. Exodus: Gods and Kings, 2014, directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, John Turturro, and Ben Kingsley. Watch it on iTunes and Amazon. Footnotes: “Go Down Moses” “Dayenu” The Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible Anne Baxter and All About Eve Age of Empires Roma and lead actor Yalitza Aparicio Stephen Schwartz, Godspell, and Wicked Brenda Chapman You can follow Adapt or Perish on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and you can find us and all of our show notes online at adaptorperishcast.com. If you want to send us a question or comment, you can email us at adaptorperishcast@gmail.com or tweet using #adaptcast.

Bill Boyce speaks on the parable of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10:25-37.

Bill Boyce continues our series on the parables by preaching on Matthew 13:44-46, which speaks of the treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of great price. This parable teaches us the surpassing worth of the kingdom of God.

Bill Boyce continues our series on prayer from Matthew 6, talking about what it means to pray for "daily bread" and ending with a 10 minute reflection on the place of fasting in our prayer lives.

Bill Boyce begins our January series on prayer looking at the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6.

Bill Boyce leads us through Galatians 5:2-15.

It's the last show of 2018! Bill Boyce from Destination Baja Billy Chapman Jr. from Anglers Inn International talking about fishing Lakes El Salto and Picachos.

Bill Boyce teaches on the priesthood of all believers from 1 Peter 2.

Bill Boyce continues our series on identity by preaching from 1 Peter 1:3-5 on how we are heirs and what we are hoping for in the future.

Bill Boyce kicks off our first Friday Night Fellowship of the school year with a message based on Luke 6:40: "A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher." This begins our fall series on identity.

Rohn Crabtree joined us to talk about the Q MAXX line of corrosion protection products. Sauerfish Eric from Tomahawk sports fishing spent some time speaking with John. James Nelson with an Inshore report. Bill Boyce executive director of Destination Baja talking about all things Baja.

Bil Boyce talks about the role of the Holy Spirit in giving us an assurance of our salvation from Ephesians 1:13-14

Listen to Bill Boyce teach on the Holy Spirit in the first message in our new series. Bill teaches from Matthew 28:19-20 and 2 Corinthians 13:14.

At the Manna/PCF Winter Retreat Bill Boyce opens up our series on the first few chapters of Revelation.

Here Bill Boyce continue our FNF series on the book of Ecclesiastes. His text is Ecclesiastes 3:1-13.

Bill Boyce and Tommy Gomes talk about the US Tuna Industry and sustainable seafood. Pro Angler and All-Outdoor Sportsman Hank Parker joins us to bring everyone up-to-date on what's been happening with him.

Bill Boyce begins a 3-week series reflecting on what it means to live in expectation of Jesus's Second Coming. Bill teaches from 2 Peter 3:1-13

This message is a part of our FNF series on the "I AM" statements of Jesus in the gospel of John. The text for this message is from John 14:6 "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Listen to Bill Boyce share from 2 Corinthians 12

Hear Bill Boyce speak about the lessons we can learn from Jonah's reluctant witness.

Listen to Bill Boyce delivering the first message in our spring FNF series on the Minor Prophets. He looks at Amos's stirring message about justice and integrity.

Listen to Bill Boyce give the fourth in a series of six talks on the PEF/Manna Winter Retreat. The theme of the retreat was "Obstacles to Community" and the teaching was out of 1 Corinthians.

Listen to Bill Boyce give the second in a series of six talks on the PEF/Manna Winter Retreat. The theme of the retreat was "Obstacles to Community" and the teaching was out of 1 Corinthians.

Message 2 of 3 on the book of Titus. Bill Boyce teaches from Titus 2:11-14.

Speaker: Bill Boyce Text: John 10:1-18 Given 12/9/2016

Hear Bill talk about anxiety from John 14-16 at the Friday Night Fellowship before midterm week.

Speaker: Bill Boyce Text: John 1 The opening message at PEF's first Friday Night Fellowship of the fall semester.

We are at the Fred Hall Del Mar Show! Bill Boyce explaining what the Dollar Fishing club is all about, Butch Brown and Jackson Paluczak on Swimbait Fishing, Bill Varney Jr. on Surf fishing Southern California, Bo Tai Product Manager for XtraTuff Boots, Captain Mike from Relentless Sportfishing out of H&M Landing & Captain Frank Ursetti from the Ranger 85, the Constitution and H&M Landing.

  One of the NBADL’s premiere franchises sits in Frisco, Texas and is helmed by Bill Boyce. This is his first venture into sports operations, after serving as an attorney for several years running his own practice for thirteen years. Boyce discusses the NBADL’s emergence in minor league sports and some of the ways in which the Texas Legends have gotten noticed, including utilizing corporate imagining on the front of team uniforms for maximum impression affect. Twitter: @Bill_Boyce