The Roundup: We Talk Election, From Firsts to Fights

CN: Yeah. So, we had a special election in D5, which is North Seattle, because Kathy Moore stepped down last year. The race has been called, Nilu Jenks won, and she was the more progressive in the race versus Julie Kang, who had lots of dark money supporting her. With that win, there are now four progressives on City Council versus five, we'll call them, "moderates."

So, at Dan Strauss' press conference, I asked him, "Are you going to wait for your vote to overturn Mayor Wilson's veto of the RV legislation?" Because he needs six votes to do that. No one has asked Jenks how she'd vote, but her campaign leaned progressive. But Dan Strauss said no, he's going to try to get it done as fast as possible.

He has from 5 to 30 days to act after the mayor signed the veto, which was Tuesday. So, in theory, he could wait until the election is certified and Jenks gets sworn in, but he said he won't wait.

I asked Rob Saka, and a reporter from The Stranger asked Rob Saka, if he was on Mayor Wilson's side on this. And he did not directly answer that question. Twice. He gave a very long answer that didn't have the words "yes" or "no" in it. But he was at the press conference, so I'm assuming it's a yes. But he didn't say that.

In my opinion, they should wait until the new D5 council member gets certified. That way, the voters have their newly elected representative in place to help decide what the city does moving forward.

CN: This is a ban that will keep trans girls out of school or intramural sports that are designated for girls. It passed by a pretty healthy margin. But it's not just the ban, it also requires testing that all girls have to go through in order to be allowed to play in girls sports.

It includes a medical test that has to be certified by a doctor, and that test can include a mouth swab, a blood test, or, most controversially, a genital exam.

Washington has the more extreme version of this ballot initiative. But this ballot initiative of banning trans girls in sports was nationwide. It was also up for votes in Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska, and they all had this similar thing that happened with their votes, in which they would vote for very progressive ideas — in Arizona, it was voting to ban traffic cameras; in Colorado, they voted to stop law enforcement from working with ICE so heavily; and in Nebraska, they voted to ban all sports betting — but they all, like Washington, decided to ban trans girls from sports.

But all states that had this type of legislation on ballots, whether red, blue, or purple, they all voted for it. In Washington, there was a lot of misinformation. The people who wrote it, like Brian Heywood, didn't highlight the genital exam.

Overall, it really did show maybe progressives or left-leaning people were maybe not reading the moment, or maybe not making their outreach to the suburbs. Because if you look in Washington State, it was the suburbs, which we would think of as loyal Democratic voters, that voted for these bans.

CN: It's not over. Like every ballot initiative that Washington State votes on, it will always go into the court. That's why Brian Heywood does not like the state Supreme Court. He has these ballot initiatives that do pass the voters, like the natural gas initiative he had, they all passed, and then it goes to the court systems, and they find some reason why it was illegal.

CN: Oh, Brian Heywood said the minute that vote came in that the courts would be the next step. This will make its way through the circuit and end up in the Supreme Court. Brian Heywood does not have a very good track record when it comes to the state Supreme Court, so the assumption is that the Millionaires Tax will pass, even though there's various laws in our state constitution that say that we can't have an income tax. The people of the legislature, Bob Ferguson, Jamie Pedersen, are hoping that they crafted this legislation well enough that it will survive the Supreme Court.

CN: I think the one that surprised me the most, that might have been a big win for progressives, was Kelabe Tewolde basically winning in a landslide, going from a primary where he only won by four points to then swinging completely and winning with over 60% of the vote. I was very surprised by that, and it followed the national trend of democratic voters not wanting multi-decade incumbents representing them anymore. And in this specific race, the incumbent focused a lot on bipartisanship and working across the aisle. I don't think voters want that anymore.

And, obviously, Jaelynn Scott's win was very historic as the first openly Black trans legislator in the whole United States, and a very proud socialist as well. I think that was a very big win, but, you know, she won with like 88% of the vote, so I wasn't surprised by that one.