Last month, the pro­gres­sive com­mu­ni­ty in the Pacif­ic North­west lost a liv­ing leg­end: Tony Lee. The for­mer Sol­id Ground Advo­ca­cy Direc­tor spent decades work­ing to raise every­one’s qual­i­ty of life as one of Wash­ing­ton State’s lead­ing pub­lic inter­est lob­by­ists. Known affec­tion­ate­ly as the “con­science of the Leg­is­la­ture,” Lee was pas­sion­ate about help­ing peo­ple. He believed, as all pro­gres­sives do, that no one should go hun­gry or be with­out shelter.

“I was sad­dened to hear of Tony Lee’s pass­ing last month,” Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee remarked a few weeks ago in a Face­book post. “He was a tire­less advo­cate for jus­tice. He was an incred­i­bly kind man. And he was a hero to me. Gen­er­a­tions of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans will ben­e­fit from the lega­cy of his incred­i­ble work.”

We whole­heart­ed­ly agree. That’s why we’ve decid­ed to posthu­mous­ly bestow upon Tony the Lynn Allen Award, our high­est hon­or, as our final act of 2020.

Named for our late sis­ter Lynn Allen, a found­ing board­mem­ber of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, these awards rec­og­nize peo­ple who have made indis­pens­able con­tri­bu­tions to pro­gres­sive caus­es for a decade or more.

We lost Lynn to ovar­i­an can­cer in 2011, but her spir­it has remained with us. (And so have her pub­lished works, pre­served by NPI at Rebuild­ing Democ­ra­cy.)

Lynn emphat­i­cal­ly believed in the impor­tant work of orga­niz­ing rur­al com­mu­ni­ties and act­ing on issues of con­cern to peo­ple liv­ing far away from our big cities and urban areas. She preached and prac­ticed the pol­i­tics of inclusion.

As com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor of the Insti­tute for Washington’s Future, Lynn trav­eled reg­u­lar­ly to Washington’s rur­al coun­ties and small towns, cham­pi­oning sus­tain­able busi­ness and agri­cul­tur­al practices.

A skilled facil­i­ta­tor and gift­ed lis­ten­er, Lynn under­stood the impor­tance of and need for effec­tive activism. Not a day goes by when we don’t miss her.

We estab­lished the Lynn Allen Awards as part of our con­tin­u­ing effort to ensure that Lynn’s good works will be remem­bered and her lega­cy appreciated.

Each year, we hon­or two out­stand­ing indi­vid­u­als with a Lynn Allen Award.

In 2017, we pre­sent­ed the very first Lynn Allen Awards to Joni Earl and Paul Lawrence. In 2018, Major Gen­er­al Paul Eaton (Retired) and Alex Hen­drick­son became our third and fourth hon­orees. In 2019, Estela Orte­ga and Al Gar­man became our fifth and sixth hon­orees. Back in August, the leg­endary Jus­tice Mary Fairhurst became the sev­enth Lynn Allen Award recip­i­ent.

And today, Tony Lee becomes the eighth recipient.

For decades, Tony worked to com­bat harm­ful aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures and secure more fund­ing for essen­tial pub­lic ser­vices (espe­cial­ly human ser­vices) in Wash­ing­ton State. He saw the dam­age Ronald Rea­gan’s regime was inflict­ing on the coun­try and resolved to do some­thing about it. Michael Ramos, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Church Coun­cil of Greater Seat­tle, told The Seat­tle Times: “His legacy’s pret­ty vast — a lot of what the human ser­vices sec­tor is accom­plish­ing today is due to Tony.”

Dur­ing his near­ly two decades with Sol­id Ground, Lee worked earnest­ly with for­mer Speak­er Frank Chopp and oth­er leg­is­la­tors to secure fund­ing for human ser­vices in a long suc­ces­sion of Wash­ing­ton State budgets.

Diane Narasa­ki, the for­mer Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Asian Coun­sel­ing and Refer­ral Ser­vice (ACRS), had this to say about Tony before his pass­ing, as relayed in a trib­ute pub­lished by Sol­id Ground after his death in Novem­ber:

“Tony Lee is a real­ly spe­cial human being, with a huge laugh, and huge heart, and brains to go along with it, all of which are put to the ser­vice of improv­ing and sav­ing the lives of the most vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple in our state.”

Tony was beloved among leg­is­la­tors and oth­er pub­lic inter­est lob­by­ists alike.

“In Olympia, we talk about ‘white hat’ lob­by­ists (ver­sus ‘black hat’ lob­by­ists) … mean­ing lob­by­ists that are sim­ply advo­cates for the pub­lic inter­est and all that is good,” said King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Dave Upthe­grove, who was a state leg­is­la­tor before join­ing the Coun­cil as the 7th Dis­tric­t’s representative.

“I think of Tony as the epit­o­me of a white hat lob­by­ist. He was a cheer­ful per­sis­tent cham­pi­on of pro­grams and fund­ing to address pover­ty and inequal­i­ty– and he did so in such a pos­i­tive and enthu­si­as­tic way that I could­n’t help but lis­ten and want to work with him. He was an hon­est, com­pas­sion­ate, friend­ly man who we would be wise to con­sid­er a role mod­el for how to engage in leg­isla­tive politics.”

“Tony was my hero,” said Sameer Ranade. “He was a men­tor and went out of his way to help me when I ran for office. This is a sad loss for soci­ety, but his essence car­ries on through the many social jus­tice war­riors he led and inspired.”

“Tony Lee was a super­star advo­cate for low income peo­ple, ahead of his time con­nect­ing the dots on racial and eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty — and above all a won­der­ful human being with a spir­it that stayed after he left the room,” said for­mer Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Lisa Brown, now Wash­ing­ton State’s Direc­tor of Com­merce.

“I met him as a cit­i­zen activist and Econ pro­fes­sor at East­ern well before I ran for the leg­is­la­ture, so when I got there, I knew I had a friend. Our meet­ings always involved sol­id strate­gic infor­ma­tion exchange, some com­mis­er­at­ing, some dish­ing, and some laugh­ter. Love and light to all like me, who are miss­ing him.”

“I worked with Tony at Sol­id Ground and he sim­ply emanat­ed authen­tic­i­ty, empa­thy, and true wis­dom,” said Group Health Foun­da­tion’s E.J. Juarez.

“He made me laugh so hard. He was as fun­ny as he was smart — very. I’m for­ev­er grate­ful to have learned from him and had the hon­or to work for him. This is a tremen­dous loss for our com­mu­ni­ty and the many peo­ple touched by his bril­liance and com­mit­ment to racial and eco­nom­ic justice.”

Reflect­ing on his life’s work and pas­sion for advo­ca­cy, Tony said: “Every day, peo­ple of col­or face dis­crim­i­na­tion in the hous­ing mar­ket, in lend­ing prac­tices, in our school sys­tem. That is real­ly one of the big rea­sons I’ve done what I’ve done.”

“One of the things that I think makes Sol­id Ground unique com­pared to many oth­er non­prof­its is our com­mit­ment not to just work with peo­ple that may need some assis­tance, often due to bar­ri­ers they face relat­ed to racism and oppres­sion, but our ded­i­ca­tion to also address the root caus­es of those bar­ri­ers, indi­vid­u­al­ly and sys­tem­i­cal­ly,” says NPI’s Doc­u­men­tary Advo­cate There­sa Cur­ry Almu­ti, who has worked on home­less­ness pre­ven­tion for Sol­id Ground since 2015.

“We have a full Advo­ca­cy Depart­ment, which Tony led for many years, that works to change laws and poli­cies at local and state lev­els to address sys­temic roots of prop­er­ty, and also includes the Statewide Pover­ty Action Net­work, which sup­ports peo­ple with lived expe­ri­ence of pover­ty to par­tic­i­pate in polit­i­cal process­es in Olympia. Most oth­er teams at Sol­id Ground also engage in some advo­ca­cy for laws and bud­gets at every lev­el of gov­ern­ment to bet­ter serve all mem­bers of our com­mu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly those most impact­ed by pover­ty and oppression.”

“Advo­ca­cy is in the DNA of Sol­id Ground, and so much of that is due to Tony. One can­not talk about the work of Sol­id Ground and its impact with­out hon­or­ing and acknowl­edg­ing Tony Lee.”

In 2015, short­ly after his retire­ment from Sol­id Ground, Tony became the lead plain­tiff in the law­suit to over­turn Tim Eyman’s hostage-tak­ing Ini­tia­tive 1366, which attempt­ed to wipe out bil­lions of dol­lars in fund­ing for Wash­ing­ton’s essen­tial pub­lic ser­vices if leg­is­la­tors did not agree to sab­o­tage the State Con­sti­tu­tion to give Repub­li­cans a per­ma­nent veto over rev­enue bills.

The suit, Lee v. State, was suc­cess­ful in over­turn­ing Eyman’s mea­sure, which implod­ed and nev­er went into effect. Paci­fi­ca Law Group, which rep­re­sent­ed NPI in its appli­ca­tion for tax exempt sta­tus with the IRS, expert­ly rep­re­sent­ed Lee and the oth­er plain­tiffs, win­ning a com­plete and total legal vic­to­ry over Eyman.

It is so fit­ting that that case and great legal vic­to­ry will always be known as Lee.

In addi­tion to his work with Sol­id Ground, Tony was:

• Board Pres­i­dent and Co-founder of the Equi­ty in Edu­ca­tion Coalition
• Co-chair of the King Coun­ty Chap­ter of the Asian Pacif­ic Islander Coalition
• Steer­ing com­mit­tee mem­ber of Front and Centered
• Found­ing mem­ber of the Asian-Pacif­ic Islander Coali­tion of Washington
• Advo­cate for the Wash­ing­ton Asso­ci­a­tion of Church­es and the Catholic Archdiocese

Tony’s award com­men­da­tion is as follows:

Known affec­tion­ate­ly as the “con­science of the Leg­is­la­ture,” Tony Lee (1948–2020) was a kind­heart­ed, leg­endary cham­pi­on for racial equal­i­ty and end­ing pover­ty with an instant­ly rec­og­niz­able boom­ing laugh. As the Advo­ca­cy Direc­tor of Sol­id Ground, he lob­bied patient­ly and effec­tive­ly for Wash­ing­ton State’s essen­tial pub­lic ser­vices, secur­ing fund­ing for pri­or­i­ties like hous­ing and nutri­tion assis­tance ini­tia­tives. Thanks to his efforts, nutri­tion assis­tance was extend­ed to tens of thou­sands of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans who’d pre­vi­ous­ly been exclud­ed from food stamp eli­gi­bil­i­ty. Even after step­ping back in 2014, Lee con­tin­ued to be active in efforts to defend Wash­ing­ton’s future; he was the lead plain­tiff in the law­suit that suc­cess­ful­ly over­turned Tim Eyman’s hostage-tak­ing Ini­tia­tive 1366. Tony proved through his exem­plary work that pol­i­tics and pub­lic pol­i­cy­mak­ing can be about improv­ing peo­ple’s lives. His for­mi­da­ble con­tri­bu­tions will con­tin­ue to ben­e­fit our communities.

Tony’s oth­er hon­ors include:

• Life­time Achieve­ment Award by the Seat­tle Human Ser­vices Coali­tion (SHSC) at their 30th anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion on June 8, 2018.
• The Gold­mark Award for excep­tion­al lead­er­ship in social jus­tice from the Wash­ing­ton Legal Foundation.
• The Tony Lee Apart­ments – The Low Income Hous­ing Institute’s new low-income hous­ing facil­i­ty, locat­ed in Lake City Way Village.

Thank you, Tony, for every­thing. We miss you, but you shall nev­er be for­got­ten, and nei­ther shall your indis­pens­able con­tri­bu­tions to pro­gres­sive advocacy.