43rd District’s Walkinshaw announces Congressional bid

Since he was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1988, Jim McDermott has never garnered less than 70 percent of the vote in each of his following 13 reelection campaigns. In a surprising announcement on Monday, Jan. 4, he revealed he would not try to stretch that streak to 14. 

“I leave Congress with no regrets,” he said, noting that while it wasn’t an easy decision, he told his family over the holidays he had realized there were other ways he wished to spend his time. 

McDermott’s announcement also meant there were just two candidates at press time in what could prove to be hotly contested race later. One of them is the two-term 43rd District Rep. Brady Walkinshaw, who announced his bid last month for McDermott’s 7th Congressional District seat, in what may be his most vigorous challenge since taking office.  

“I really respect the Congressman,” Walkinshaw said last month. “I believe, though, that we’re at a really unique moment where it is time for our region to elect our next progressive leader.”

Walkinshaw — who won his first full-term to the state House in 2014, after being appointed to fill Jamie Pedersen’s seat in a domino effect set off by Ed Murray’s election as Seattle mayor — said there was a sense of urgency to enter the race now. 

“We are living in a world where our climate is getting hotter,” he said. “We’re living in a world where our society is becoming more and more unequal. We are living, right now, in this world where I truly worry about the future of the kids that we haven’t had yet.” 

Walkinshaw’s platform

Calling the region an incubator of innovation and ideas, Walkinshaw said efforts to increase the minimum wage, decriminalize drugs like marijuana and an upcoming ballot measure on carbon pricing are examples of innovative policies that need to be effectively articulated and advocated for on the national level. 

As this region continues to grow, he said, there’s also a need for stronger federal partnerships, especially when it comes to building and maintaining transportation infrastructure, and addressing homelessness. 

“The values of this region are ones that I would like to see in the mainstream nationally,” he said, “and those are values of economic equity [and] those are issues of taking on racial justice; it’s [also] about climate change.”

Walkinshaw said issues of social justice, economic equity and opportunity are at the core of many of the decisions he’s made throughout his life, dating back to his youth in rural Whatcom County. In particular, he said he looked to his grandparents, who emigrated from Cuba and worked their way up in the restaurant industry in Florida, as an example of upward mobility into the middle class. 

“I never met stronger patriots than my grandparents, who believed that you could come to this country with very little and make it into the middle class, and the truth is that’s just not the case anymore,” he said. 

His upbringing also guided his interest in food policy, another element of his platform. 

“I think it’s really important to think about how food affects our lives, and it’s an issue I hear more and more about in the community,” he said. 

Though he’s only been in the Legislature since 2014, Walkinshaw said he’s passed important legislation on mental health and criminal justice and addressed issues that people face when reentering society after prison and with heroin and opiate addiction.

While Walkinshaw admits, “the last decade of my professional life isn’t really a conventional one to go into politics,” he said his past experience outside that realm — from working as an AmeriCorps volunteer in a public school in New Jersey, to studying as a Fulbright Scholar in Honduras and working on issues of food security in Ethiopia and Brazil — has served him well. 

When coupled with an upbringing “in an environment where it was not always easy to be gay and to look different than other people,” he’s developed a leadership style he thinks is needed in Washington, D.C. 

“I think that those experiences help to create empathy and build the type of leadership I think we need,” he said, “which is leadership that will engage more people, bring more people to the table [and] help to build influence from our region so we’re able to advocate for what we believe will ultimately help people realize their full potential.”

Endorsements

As of Jan. 3, Walkinshaw had announced the endorsements of more than 30 community leaders, including Seattle City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw and former Mayor Charles Royer. 

“I think it demonstrates that I’ve been able to build coalitions, and I don’t believe ever that any one person can solve problems,” he said of his endorsements. “I believe that groups of people — and often small groups of people coming together to form coalitions — can solve problems.”

Royer, who worked with Walkinshaw as a member of the Friends of Waterfront Seattle board, said his quiet and thoughtful approach has served him well in working with different groups.

“He just has a way of working with people across all kinds of different lines,” he said. 

Walkinshaw has also announced the endorsements of two Democratic state senators (Marko Liias and Cyrus Habib) and 11 Democratic state representatives. 

Among those representatives is Jessyn Farrell of the 46th District (Northeast Seattle), who said while McDermott has been “a great liberal lion” in Congress, Walkinshaw has a great set of skills as the Democratic Party tries to refocus at the local level across the country: “I think that Brady and his vision can really help us rebuild.”

Farrell said, despite Walkinshaw’s youth, his time as an LGBTQ community activist, food access activist and his other work in his career make him a good fit. 

“Brady has a unique set of life experiences that are particularly well suited to this time,” she said.

Getting ‘back on track’

If elected, the 32-year old Walkinshaw would become one of the youngest members of Congress. Currently, just three members of the House of Representatives are under age 35, while 25 are under age 40. 

As his congressional bid begins, Walkinshaw said he’s excited that the district will get to discuss its representation on the federal level. 

“We haven’t had this conversation in the community since 1988,” Walkinshaw said, “and I think it’s an exciting opportunity to talk about how our region is changing, what are our priorities in the future, what kind of leadership do we need and — I think, most importantly — how can our region help to get the country back on track?”

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