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Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Sunday, June 9th, 2019

LIVE from Bothell: Democratic PCOs meeting to choose nominees to succeed Guy Palumbo

Good after­noon from Bothell!

Today, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic precinct com­mit­tee offi­cers of Wash­ing­ton State’s 1st Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict have assem­bled to draw up a list of can­di­dates to suc­ceed Guy Palum­bo in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate, who recent­ly stepped down from his posi­tion in the Leg­is­la­ture to become a lob­by­ist for Amazon.

Due to Palum­bo’s depar­ture, a vacan­cy now exists for state sen­a­tor in the 1st. The Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion stip­u­lates that the process for fill­ing a Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­isla­tive vacan­cy begins with the nam­ing of three can­di­dates from the same dis­trict and of the same par­ty by the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee, because the 1st is a mul­ti-coun­ty dis­trict span­ning neigh­bor­hoods in north King and south Sno­homish counties.

The WSDCC, of which I am a mem­ber, spec­i­fies in its bylaws that when a vacan­cy is declared, the state par­ty chair shall call a spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus of precinct com­mit­tee offi­cers from that dis­trict for the pur­pose of draw­ing up a list of three names for the WSDCC to rat­i­fy. That’s what’s hap­pen­ing now. I will be updat­ing this post at peri­od­ic inter­vals to sum­ma­rize the pro­ceed­ings that are tak­ing place.

2:05 PM: The spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus has been called to order by Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty Chair Tina Podlodowski.

2:10 PM: There are forty-three Demo­c­ra­t­ic precinct com­mit­tee offi­cers present and eli­gi­ble to vote at this cau­cus. The first order of busi­ness is the selec­tion of the pro­ce­dure that will be used to draw up the lists of nominees.

2:18 PM: Four can­di­dates were nom­i­nat­ed to fill the Sen­ate vacancy:

  • David Bain
  • Derek Stan­ford (cur­rent­ly one of the 1st’s two State Representatives)
  • Hillary Moralez (cur­rent­ly the Chair of the Sno­homish Coun­ty Democrats)
  • Lin­da Tosti-Lane

2:20 PM: Lin­da Tosti-Lane spoke first. She asked the PCOs to sup­port Derek Stan­ford as their first choice and then to vote for her as a sec­ond or third choice.

David Bain spoke next and echoed Linda’s request, ask­ing PCOs to sup­port Derek Stan­ford as their first choice. He also dis­cussed leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ties he’d like to see the Demo­c­ra­t­ic-con­trolled Leg­is­la­ture enact, like addi­tion­al fund­ing for rail tran­sit (exist­ing fund­ing is present­ly threat­ened by Tim Eyman’s I‑976).

State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Derek Stan­ford was the third to speak. He sum­ma­rized his accom­plish­ments as a mem­ber of the House and talked about the need to con­tin­ue mak­ing progress towards ful­ly fund­ing pub­lic edu­ca­tion, strength­en­ing envi­ron­men­tal and work­er pro­tec­tions, and expand­ing healthcare.

Hillary Moralez was the final can­di­date to speak. She empha­sized her sup­port of Derek Stan­ford and asked PCOs to nom­i­nate her as “a fight­er” who would stand along­side Derek dur­ing the final stages of the appoint­ment process.

2:35 PM: Bal­lot­ing has begun. State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Shel­ley Klo­ba is offer­ing remarks while the Tal­ly Com­mit­tee does its work.

2:45 PM: The results of the first round of bal­lot­ing are in.

  • There were forty-two votes for Derek Stanford
  • There were five votes for Hilary Moralez
  • There was one vote for Lin­da Tosti-Lane
  • There were no votes for David Bain

Accord­ing­ly, Derek Stan­ford’s name will be placed first on the list of names sub­mit­ted to the King and Sno­homish Coun­ty Coun­cils by the WSDCC.

Now the PCOs are vot­ing on whose name should be placed second.

2:48 PM: Results are in for the sec­ond round of balloting.

  • There were twen­ty-nine votes for Hillary Moralez
  • There were ten votes for Lin­da Tosti-Lane
  • There were eight votes for David Bain
  • There was one spoiled bal­lot (some­one did­n’t fol­low instructions)

Hillary Moralez’s name will be placed sec­ond on the list of Sen­ate nominees.

Now the PCOs are vot­ing on whose name should be placed third.

2:52 PM: Results are in for the third round of balloting.

  • There were twen­ty-five votes for Lin­da Tosti-Lane.
  • There were twen­ty-one votes for David Bain.
  • There was one abstention.
  • There was one spoiled ballot.

Lin­da Tosti-Lane’s name will be placed third on the list of Sen­ate nominees.

2:54 PM: Four can­di­dates were nom­i­nat­ed to fill the House vacan­cy that would be cre­at­ed if Derek Stan­ford is appoint­ed to fill the Sen­ate vacancy.

  • Hillary Moralez
  • Davina Duerr
  • Roy Wilkin­son
  • Dar­shan Rauniyar

We will now pro­ceed to can­di­date speeches.

3:10 PM: As with the Sen­ate nom­i­nees, each can­di­date for the House vacan­cy was giv­en five min­utes to speak. Davina spoke first, fol­lowed by Roy, then Hillary and Dar­shan. Each can­di­date is remark­ably dif­fer­ent than the oth­ers: Davina is a Both­ell city coun­cil mem­ber with exten­sive local gov­ern­ment expe­ri­ence, Roy is a vet­er­an who works at Boe­ing and is active in the labor move­ment, Hillary is a young bira­cial Demo­c­ra­t­ic activist cur­rent­ly chair­ing the Sno­homish Coun­ty Democ­rats and serv­ing on the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee, and Dar­shan is a Nepali-Amer­i­can busi­ness leader who has pre­vi­ous­ly run unsuc­cess­ful­ly for Con­gress and the Wash­ing­ton State Legislature.

3:15 PM: Bal­lot­ing is under­way for the House vacan­cy for the first spot.

3:17 PM: We have results for the first round of bal­lot­ing for the House vacan­cy. The out­come was very close between the top two candidates.

  • There were twen­ty-one votes for Davina Duerr
  • There were nine­teen votes for Hillary Moralez
  • There were sev­en votes for Dar­shan Rauniyar
  • There was one vote for Roy Wilkinson

3:25 PM: Davina did­n’t quite get a major­i­ty, so there will be a runoff vote for the first place spot between Davina Duerr and Hillary Moralez.

3:32 PM: There was a twen­ty-four to twen­ty-four vote tie in the runoff for the first place spot, so the vote will be repeat­ed. And the vote will con­tin­ue to be repeat­ed until the tie is bro­ken, State Par­ty Chair Tina Pod­lodows­ki says.

Again, this is for the House vacan­cy that would be cre­at­ed by State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Derek Stan­ford’s move to the Sen­ate, replac­ing Guy Palumbo.

3:37 PM: Here are the results of the sec­ond runoff for the first place spot. One PCO changed their vote from Hillary to Davina, there­by break­ing the tie.

  • There were twen­ty-five votes for Davina Duerr
  • There were twen­ty-three votes for Hillary Moralez

Davina’s name will be placed first on the list of House nominees.

3:42 PM: Here are the results of the vot­ing for the sec­ond place spot.

  • There were thir­ty-three votes for Hillary Moralez
  • There were twelve votes for Dar­shan Rauniyar
  • There were three votes for Roy Wilkinson

Hillary’s name will be placed sec­ond on the list of House nominees.

3:48 PM: Here are the results of the vot­ing for the third place spot.

  • There were thir­ty-six votes for Dar­shan Rauniyar
  • There were eleven votes for Roy Wilkinson

Dar­shan’s name will be placed third on the list of House nominees.

These are the final list of names for the Sen­ate vacancy:

  1. Derek Stan­ford
  2. Hillary Moralez
  3. Lin­da Tosti-Lane

These are the final list of names for the House vacancy:

  1. Davina Duerr
  2. Hillary Moralez
  3. Dar­shan Rauniyar

The King and Sno­homish Coun­ty Coun­cils plan to hold a joint meet­ing on June 27th to make an appoint­ment. Who­ev­er is appoint­ed to the two vacan­cies will be sworn in imme­di­ate­ly and begin their new duties as a state legislator.

3:55 PM: The spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus has adjourned. This con­cludes our live cov­er­age. Thank you for join­ing us; we hope you found it informative!

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