(The following, and the above feature, were posted on the Socialist Alternative Party’s website.)
Dear Friends,
I’m running for Washington State House in Seattle’s 43rd District to challenge the corporate domination of politics. For too long, working people, students, the elderly, and the disabled have been forced to pay ever increasing taxes to fund vital social services while mega-corporations, like Boeing, are handed record-breaking tax breaks.
The political system is broken. Big business and the super-rich are well represented by the Republican and Democratic parties while working people have no independent political representation in Olympia. While workers were reeling from the economic recession with layoffs, home foreclosures, and long-term unemployment, my opponent, 20-year incumbent and Speaker of the House Frank Chopp, oversaw over $10 billion in cuts to social services and continued massive handouts to corporations.
We deserve better.
Like Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, I am a proud socialist and member of Socialist Alternative, an economic and social justice organization fighting for workers, LGBTQ people, and people of color. Like Sawant, I will not take a penny from big business but will instead rely on the financial support of working people and progressive activists.
As a climate scientist, I understand the crisis humanity faces in the coming decades with extreme weather, rising sea levels, and heat waves. Under Chopp’s leadership, our metro funding is constantly under threat, and oil and coal trains continue to roll through our state. Both political parties have dragged their feet for decades. We can’t wait another 10 or 20 years to phase out fossil fuels and replace them with renewable energy. This must be done now.
As the Organizing Director of 15 Now, I have helped lead the fight for a $15/hr minimum wage in both Seattle and in cities across America. Speaker Chopp was unable to even get a $12 minimum wage out of committee. I understand that working people need and deserve a representative that will fight for their interests.
With your help, we can send a powerful message to an out of touch political establishment by removing House Speaker Frank Chopp, a symbol of the broken political system in Olympia. Together we can make history by electing the first socialist to the State House in decades, but it is going to require you getting involved. To get the campaign started, we are aiming to raise $10,000 in the next week. Please donate and sign up to volunteer today!
In Solidarity,
Jess Spear
Socialist Alternative Candidate for WA State House, District 43, Seat 2
I sure hope so.
Darn.
I think Jess Spears is making a serious strategic mistake in her and Socialist Alternative’s approach to running against State Representative against the State House Speaker, Frank Chopp. Chopp came up politically around affordable housing issues – which has ended up meaning funding for housing enclaves for poor people among the rapid gentrification of Seattle. And in Washington State the state has prohibited any locality having any form of rent stabilization. So why not take on Chopp around the unaffordability of housing in Seattle and WA State? And the fact that he has never done anything to try and get the state to repeal the rent stabilization prohibition. If rents were regulated, there would be more housing affordable to all levels of income. Instead of the way things are now in western Washington, one has to be either rich to pay the high rents or poor enough to qualify to live in one of the public housing enclaves the poor are limited to.
In my opnion Socialist Alternative should take a page from the old Socialist Party of America’s “sewer socialism”. SocAlt does not see things like regulating renbt as a strong enough class issue. But who is most affected by high rents? Working people. I do not think Jess Spears has any chance running on anti-corporate welfare as her central issue. If that theme could get a person elected to office Ralph Nader would have been a two term President!
If we don’t have enough money to send your to Mars and leave you there, I hardly think we have the money to buy Siberia. I’m just saying.
You don’t have enough money. If you want to explore space you need revenue. We can get that revenue by buying and fracking Siberia.
Yeah, sounds like a plan. Can he take Newt Gingrich with him?
Agreed Paulie!
I’m in favor of relocating Nathan Norman to Mars and leaving him there by himself with no spaceship.
As a climate scientist she should know we can’t do anything about climate change. Let’s resolve the issue by evacuating Earth and relocating to a terraformed Mars through efforts funded by exploiting Siberian minerals.