Alex Ramel, Michael Lilliquist, and Marco Morales nominated to succeed Jeff Morris

A spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus called by the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee today select­ed three nom­i­nees to suc­ceed depart­ed State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jeff Mor­ris in the 40th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict, which encom­pass­es San Juan Coun­ty along with por­tions of What­com and Skag­it counties.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic precinct com­mit­tee offi­cers in the 40th were tasked with the respon­si­bil­i­ty of pre­sent­ing to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s statu­to­ry state cen­tral com­mit­tee a list of three names to be for­ward­ed to the leg­isla­tive bod­ies of the afore­men­tioned coun­ties for a pos­si­ble joint appoint­ment. It is the par­ty’s duty under the State Con­sti­tu­tion to pro­pose nom­i­nees for leg­isla­tive vacancies.

From among a pool of sev­en can­di­dates, the 40th’s PCOs select­ed the fol­low­ing indi­vid­u­als to be for­mal­ly nom­i­nat­ed by the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party:

1. Envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate jus­tice activist Alex Ramel
2. Belling­ham City Coun­cilmem­ber Michael Lilliquist
3. Indige­nous Stud­ies Foun­da­tion Pres­i­dent Mar­co Morales Mendez

Four oth­er indi­vid­u­als put their names for­ward, but were not cho­sen: Aman­da Hubrik, Andrea Doll, Ashan­ti Monts-Tre­viska, and Rud Browne.

The Con­sti­tu­tion does not require or state that the par­ty rank its nom­i­nees, but the par­ty does so any­way in the hopes of influ­enc­ing who is actu­al­ly appointed.

The last time the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty sent the What­com Coun­ty Coun­cil and the Skag­it + San Juan Coun­ty Com­mis­sions a list of nom­i­nees for a vacan­cy in the 40th, the joint appoint­ment went to the par­ty’s sec­ond choice… Ana­cortes City Coun­cilmem­ber Liz Lovelett, who is now Sen­a­tor Liz Lovelett.

Vot­ers retained Lovelett in her posi­tion last month.

Ramel was a con­tender in last year’s con­test to select a replace­ment for retir­ing State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kris Lyt­ton, who unsuc­cess­ful­ly sought to be appoint­ed to the Sen­ate when Kevin Ranker abrupt­ly resigned fol­low­ing the 2018 midterms (the posi­tion went to Liz Lovelett instead, as men­tioned above).

A total of four Democ­rats sought to take over from Lyt­ton: Ramel, Browne, Debra Lekanoff, and Tom Pas­ma. Lekanoff was the only Demo­c­rat to move on from the Top Two to the gen­er­al elec­tion. Ramel fin­ished in third place, behind Repub­li­can Michael Petr­ish, who became Lekanof­f’s autumn opponent.

Ramel gar­nered 7,684 votes (19.13%) of the vote in the August 2018 Top Two elec­tion. While on the trail, he spoke to NPI’s Caitlin Har­ring­ton about his desire to serve the peo­ple as one of the state’s nine­ty-eight state rep­re­sen­ta­tives:

“The skillset I bring is being able finds ways to work togeth­er, find­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties, and doing the hard work and sweat equi­ty of build­ing trust,” Ramel says. This is espe­cial­ly true in his cur­rent job at Stand.earth, where the cur­rent pri­or­i­ty is resist­ing oil indus­try expan­sion projects, and where Ramel has suc­cess­ful­ly found ways to col­lab­o­rate with (instead of alien­ate) refin­ery workers.

Ranked sec­ond on the par­ty’s list is Belling­ham City Coun­cilmem­ber Michael Lilliquist, who has a decade of expe­ri­ence in local government.

From his Coun­cil biog­ra­phy:

First elect­ed to the Belling­ham City Coun­cil in 2009, Michael served as Pres­i­dent of the Coun­cil in 2017.

He chairs the Plan­ning & Com­mu­ni­ty Devel­op­ment Com­mit­tee and serves on the Pub­lic Works & Nat­ur­al Resources Com­mit­tee and the Parks & Recre­ation Committee.

He rep­re­sents the City of Belling­ham on the gov­ern­ing boards of What­com Trans­porta­tion Author­i­ty (pub­lic tran­sit), the What­com Coun­cil of Gov­ern­ments (region­al trans­porta­tion plan­ning), Sus­tain­able Con­nec­tions, and the Down­town Belling­ham Partnership.

He also serves on the Region­al Fire Author­i­ty Plan­ning Com­mit­tee and the Coun­ty’s Home­less Strate­gies Work Group.

Lilliquist rep­re­sents the city’s sixth ward.

Morales, of Mount Ver­non, describes him­self on LinkedIn as an “expe­ri­enced Pres­i­dent skilled in Non­prof­it Orga­ni­za­tions, Cus­tomer Reten­tion, Vol­un­teer Man­age­ment, Pub­lic Speak­ing, and Mul­ti-cul­tur­al team build­ing. Strong busi­ness devel­op­ment pro­fes­sion­al with a Mas­ter of Arts — MA focused in American/United States Studies/Civilization from Hei­del­berg University.”

He declared on social media that he would be a can­di­date for Mor­ris’ seat the Sat­ur­day after Mor­ris announced that he was step­ping down.

The What­com Coun­ty Coun­cil, Skag­it Coun­ty Com­mis­sion, and San Juan Coun­ty Com­mis­sion are sched­uled to meet on Jan­u­ary 6th to delib­er­ate on a pos­si­ble joint appoint­ment. If they can­not agree to appoint Ramel, Lilliquist, or Morales on with­in six­ty days, the respon­si­bil­i­ty for mak­ing an appoint­ment will pass to Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee in accor­dance with the Wash­ing­ton State Constitution.