From the Oct 31 – Nov 6, 2002 issue

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LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT NO. 11 REPRESENTATIVE POS. NO. 2

Vote for Velma Veloria

Staying true to her reputation as a woman who speaks her mind, incumbent Velma Veloria literally started yelling at the Glee Club during her interview. She was upset by our accusation that the legislature showed no leadership when it passed R-51 off to the voters. "God dammit!" she swore at us. "Don't lump me in with that. I had that leadership." She's right: Veloria was one of the few reps who voted to keep R-51 in Olympia. While her passion doesn't always translate into results, it's nice to have a Democrat with a pulse taking votes in Olympia. (In fact, she was one of the few Democratic interviewees who made no bones about her disappointment in Gov. Locke: "If he's going to be the education governor, why do we have a 60-percent literacy rate?" she questioned.)

Her mysterious opponent, Republican John Potter, was a no-show, so we can't really compare him to Veloria, whose record speaks for itself. As chair of the House Trade and Economic Development Committee, Veloria's done a lot of great things, like passing legislation to help minority businesses, getting more housing for the poor, targeting toxic-waste sites in her district (there's a lot of them), and going to bat for immigrant women through anti-trafficking and mail-order-bride protection bills.

Plus, if you were a Republican, would you want to go up against a broad with a hard-boiled name like Velma Veloria? Heck, the Glee Club was glad she didn't pull a tire iron from her alligator purse and bash us during her closing statement.