Priscilla O’Leary: 1958–2018

Per­haps the most impor­tant thing I’ve learned from being involved in pro­gres­sive pol­i­tics since the ear­ly 2000s is that the peo­ple you have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with are just as impor­tant as the work that you do. Friend­ships and team­work are the key to effec­tive activism. No one makes it on their own… we only suc­ceed with the help and sup­port of our friends, fam­i­ly, teach­ers, coach­es, and mentors.

Nei­ther I nor the team at the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute would be where we are today with­out the stal­wart sup­port of friends like Priscil­la O’Leary. Priscil­la was one of our ded­i­cat­ed Com­mon­wealth Bond­hold­ers — peo­ple who give month­ly to sus­tain NPI’s essen­tial research and advo­ca­cy. She had a bril­liant mind and was skilled at work­ing with data. Her con­tri­bu­tions to NPI, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, and oth­er pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions were more than sub­stan­tial… they were immense.

Last night, after hav­ing bat­tled can­cer and the com­pli­ca­tions of surgery to remove it, Priscil­la passed away. She was fifty-nine, just a week shy of her six­ti­eth birth­day. A long-term thinker with a keen intel­lect and a strong will, Priscil­la had opt­ed last week to begin pal­lia­tive care. She had decid­ed that it was time for her to go.

It is tru­ly fit­ting she passed on from this life on her own terms.

My team and I will miss her great­ly, but we are glad that her suf­fer­ing is over. We will always cher­ish her sup­port and wise coun­sel. She was a treasure.

I first met Priscil­la through my involve­ment in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. We both joined our local par­ty at around the same time in the mid-2000s. Then, the 45th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict was a bat­tle­ground most­ly rep­re­sent­ed by Repub­li­cans, with just one Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tor: Lar­ry Springer. That changed in 2006, when for the first time, the dis­trict elect­ed an all-Demo­c­ra­t­ic del­e­ga­tion to go to Olympia.

That his­toric vic­to­ry was unfor­tu­nate­ly not repli­cat­ed in the next midterm election.

Although the dis­trict returned to hav­ing a mixed del­e­ga­tion in 2010, it became all Demo­c­ra­t­ic again last year when Man­ka Dhin­gra was resound­ing­ly elect­ed to the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate in a fierce­ly con­test­ed spe­cial elec­tion. This year, Dhin­gra and her col­leagues Lar­ry Springer and Roger Good­man face only token oppo­si­tion, and each received over 60% of the vote in the August Top Two election.

Nev­er before have the vot­ers in the 45th so over­whelm­ing­ly backed all three of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­isla­tive can­di­dates on their bal­lots. It appears that the 45th is no longer a bat­tle­ground at all. Rather, it has become a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic district.

The Top Two elec­tion was held at around the same time that Priscil­la had her surgery. I am very glad that she lived long enough to see and hear those num­bers. As a com­mit­ted Demo­c­ra­t­ic activist and a long­time mem­ber of the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee (WSDCC) from the 45th, Priscil­la cared deeply about elect­ing effec­tive Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates to rep­re­sent the district.

She and I served on the board of the 45th Dis­trict Democ­rats togeth­er for over ten years. For five of those years, we rep­re­sent­ed the 45th togeth­er on the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee, the gov­ern­ing body of the state party.

Priscil­la knew before she passed on that her work had helped cre­ate a strong Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty in the 45th. Her lega­cy will unques­tion­ably con­tin­ue to ben­e­fit pro­gres­sive caus­es and can­di­dates on the East­side for years to come.

No one worked hard­er over the years to pre­pare the 45th Dis­trict Democ­rats at cau­cus time than Priscil­la — espe­cial­ly in 2008 and 2016. If it weren’t for her, I’m not sure the 45th’s precinct and leg­isla­tive dis­trict cau­cus­es could have even tak­en place. With­out her prepa­ra­tion and orga­ni­za­tion, I think we’d have been sunk.

It is thanks to Priscil­la’s fore­sight that we nev­er had any prob­lems with our cau­cus paper­work. We always knew who we had elect­ed to be del­e­gates to the next lev­el, and we knew what sup­port each pres­i­den­tial can­di­date had received.

While Priscil­la cared pas­sion­ate­ly about many pro­gres­sive caus­es, I think it’s safe to say that pro­tect­ing and expand­ing LGBT rights was at the top of her list of con­cerns. I can still vivid­ly remem­ber her giv­ing a pas­sion­ate speech in sup­port of approv­ing Ref­er­en­dum 71 in 2009. (It passed, keep­ing expand­ed civ­il unions intact in Wash­ing­ton, and paved the way for mar­riage equal­i­ty three years later.)

Priscil­la’s part­ner Kris passed away sev­er­al years ago, depriv­ing Priscil­la of her clos­est com­pan­ion. In the after­math of Kris’ death, Priscil­la asked me for my exper­tise in set­ting up a web­site to remem­ber her, and I glad­ly oblig­ed. Even in dif­fi­cult times, Priscil­la always kept her focus and main­tained a strong work ethic.

I have many fond mem­o­ries of my years-long friend­ship with Priscil­la. We weren’t sim­ply col­leagues… we shared inter­ests beyond pol­i­tics, like moviego­ing. Priscil­la real­ly loved tak­ing in movies at iPic The­atres, often with a friend. For her, the cin­e­ma was a place to relax, unwind, and escape for a few hours.

For exam­ple, ear­li­er this year, she and I screened Ava DuVer­nay’s ground­break­ing film A Wrin­kle In Time at iPic. The film was a box office dis­ap­point­ment for Dis­ney, but we cer­tain­ly enjoyed spend­ing an evening watch­ing it. (The film is cur­rent­ly avail­able to stream on Net­flix, and I rec­om­mend it to any­one who has­n’t seen it.)

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty was not the only insti­tu­tion Priscil­la cared about. Priscil­la was also a val­ued, devot­ed employ­ee of T‑Mobile, spe­cial­iz­ing in cor­po­rate infor­ma­tion secu­ri­ty. She will doubt­less be remem­bered this week for her many years of con­tri­bu­tions to the com­pa­ny by her col­leagues in Factoria.

Priscil­la appre­ci­at­ed my pas­sion for secu­ri­ty and keep­ing peo­ple safe from scams of all kinds thanks in part to her work with T‑Mobile. I could always rely on her to offer thought­ful guid­ance when faced with a dilem­ma or a prob­lem of any kind. She was an excel­lent lis­ten­er as well as a crit­i­cal thinker. I val­ued every con­ver­sa­tion I ever had with Priscil­la, includ­ing our final chat a few days ago.

I will real­ly miss being able to strate­gize with her, but I’m grate­ful to have known her and worked with her since the mid-2000s. I hope to be able to cel­e­brate many much-need­ed vic­to­ries tomor­row night in hon­or of her, Al Gar­man, Elaine Phelps, and all the oth­er NPI sup­port­ers that we have lost this year.