I was proud to sponsor a resolution in support of Congresswoman Jayapal’s Medicare For All Act of 2019; making Seattle the first city to support her federal legislation! Join me, Congresswoman Jayapal, other elected officials and the community in the ongoing fight for #Medicare4All because health care is a right not  privilege! 

We are proud to have earned the support of women’s groups and many more progressive organizations throughout Seattle.  Take a minute to view our endorsement list!

I was proud to help champion paid family leave for all Washingtonians. Working with a bipartisan coalition and the Governor we were finally able to make these basic protections a reality for our state’s workers starting in 2020.

People experiencing homelessness are generally victims of complex mental, physical, societal and/or economic conditions. People experiencing homelessness are also the product of decades of governmental divestment. They are a daily reminder of our failure to fulfill a social contract to take care of one another. I am ashamed of this failure. We all should be.

Lorena González, the council member who drafted the new ordinance, gave a powerful speech upon introducing the legislation. “Being gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer or transgender is not an illness,” she said. “Nor is it something that needs a cure.”

The latter portion of the discussion generally focused on reducing the scale of MHA zoning changes, which also would reduce affordable housing that program was designed to deliver in the first place. Councilmembers Teresa Mosqueda, M. Lorena González, and Debora Juarez pointed this out and highlighted the need to undo the legacy of racist housing policy and discrimination in the marketplace.