Yesterday, Equal Rights Washington took to Twitter and e-mailed supporters announcing its endorsements for this year’s city council elections. A glaring omission: District 3, where hate crimes against LGBTQ people are on the rise, where current Council Member Kshama Sawant is running and held a forum on that issue, and, oh yeah, where ERW’s former executive director Rod Hearne is a candidate. (District 3 covers Capitol Hill and the Central District.)
Among ERW’s priorities in picking candidates were their ideas for combating homelessness among LGBTQ youth. But they skipped endorsing in the district of the city visibly grappling with violence against gay and trans people, a district where activists have called for a shelter for homeless LGBTQ youth. What the hell?
It seems like a careful dodge. After his work on marriage equality, Hearne is a likely pick for the group. But he’s lagging in the race, and endorsing against Sawant could risk alienating a close ally.
But ERW’s board chair, Monisha Harrell, has a different explanation: All of the candidates are just too good. Candidates were judged for a possible endorsement based on a 10-question questionnaire from ERW, but Harrell says they want to bring in the District 3 candidates for follow-up in-person interviews before they endorse. Then they’ll endorse after the August 4 primary.
“There were some beautifully nuanced answers in every single person’s questionnaire and [they all] said something in there that would make them a fantastic representative for us,” Harrell says.
The answers in District 3 were “far above where we’ve seen in other areas and that’s very important to us—commitments to the transgender community and fighting for true equity,” Harrell says. “There are a lot of areas that don’t get how important that is. Everyone in District 3 does.”
Hearne is now a member of ERW’s board, but Harrell says he’s not involved in any discussions about the District 3 endorsement. Likewise, Harrell is the niece of Council Member Bruce Harrell, who’s running in District 2, so she says she was not involved in any discussions about that endorsement.
Harrell says ERW won’t decide until after the primary whether it will spend any money on any of the city council races. Still, with a mailing list alone of more than 55,000 people, about half of them in District 3, “we recognize the power and the reach of our endorsement,” Harrell says. “And so it’s not something we took lightly.”
The group also hasn’t yet endorsed in District 6, where Mike O’Brien is running for reelection, but Harrell says that’s because candidates turned in their questionnaires late. (District 6 covers Ballard and Fremont.) “That’s probably not going to be our most difficult decision,” she says. “That was just a timing issue.”
Here are the picks they did make, including a couple of dual endorsements.
District 1: Shannon Braddock, Brianna Thomas
District 2: Bruce Harrell
District 4: Michael Maddux
District 5: Sandy Brown, Debora Juarez
District 7: Sally Bagshaw
Position 8 (citywide): John Persak
Position 9 (citywide): Lorena González
