Meet the 2021 Seattle mayoral candidates: Former State Representative Jessyn Farrell

Who­ev­er suc­ceeds Seat­tle May­or Jen­ny Durkan will find a lot on their plate on day one. The issues raised in the last year alone are pret­ty daunt­ing. The glob­al coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic threw Seat­tle (home to the region where many of the U.S.‘s first known cas­es emerged) into tur­moil; a few months lat­er, racial jus­tice protests brought the city’s whole pub­lic safe­ty appa­ra­tus under renewed scrutiny.

Even pri­or to the events of 2020, the city’s lead­er­ship was grap­pling with sev­er­al long­stand­ing prob­lems – most notably acces­si­ble hous­ing, but also cli­mate dam­age and grid­lock from depen­dence on auto­mo­bile travel.

Vot­ers will have to decide whether Seat­tle’s next leader should be an expe­ri­enced politi­co who can bring their knowl­edge of the levers of pow­er to the job or an out­sider with fresh eyes. The two can­di­dates in the race with the high­est name recog­ni­tion – City Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Lore­na González and for­mer Coun­cilmem­ber Bruce Har­rell – fall into the first cat­e­go­ry, while polit­i­cal new­com­ers like Colleen Echohawk and Andrew Hous­ton fall into the latter.

There is at least one can­di­date in the race who can rea­son­ably claim both man­tles. As a for­mer state rep­re­sen­ta­tive and trans­porta­tion advo­cate, Jessyn Far­rell has polit­i­cal expe­ri­ence in spades, and a rep­u­ta­tion as a smart nego­tia­tor and strate­gist; but as some­one who has not served in a city lev­el posi­tion, she is well posi­tioned to offer cred­i­ble cri­tiques of cur­rent and past city leadership.

Far­rell, forty-sev­en, has by all accounts been invest­ed in pol­i­tics her whole life; in high school she was vot­ed “most like­ly to become a politi­cian” by her class­mates. Dur­ing her time at uni­ver­si­ty, she served as an Ameri­Corps vol­un­teer and interned at the Yugoslavia War Crimes Tri­bunal.

After law school, she stared her career with the Wash­ing­ton Pub­lic Inter­est Research Group (Wash­PIRG), lob­by­ing law­mak­ers in Olympia.

From Wash­PIRG, Far­rell moved to the Trans­porta­tion Choic­es Coalition.

Pub­lic trans­portation is a cause close to Farrell’s heart. As a teenag­er, she trav­eled in Japan and mar­veled at the country’s advanced high-speed tran­sit system.

In 2005, she became the Coalition’s Exec­u­tive Director.

She suc­cess­ful­ly led efforts to lob­by and cam­paign for tran­sit expan­sion projects, most notably the mul­ti-coun­ty cam­paign to pass Sound Tran­sit 2.

In 2009, Far­rell was recruit­ed for a senior role in Pierce Coun­ty Tran­sit. Under her lead­er­ship in 2012, PCT won the VISION 2040 Award – a prize giv­en by the Puget Sound Region­al Coun­cil for inno­v­a­tive pro­grams pro­mot­ing sustainability.

That same year, Far­rell was elect­ed to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to rep­re­sent North­east Seat­tle, where she grew up. As a state leg­is­la­tor, Far­rell was a strong advo­cate for work­ing Wash­ing­to­ni­ans: she chaired the Work­ing Fam­i­lies Cau­cus, led mul­ti­ple efforts to raise the state min­i­mum wage, spon­sored pro­tec­tions for preg­nant women in the work­place, and sup­port­ed manda­to­ry paid sick leave.

Nat­u­ral­ly, giv­en her ear­li­er polit­i­cal expe­ri­ence, Far­rell was also very engaged in trans­porta­tion issues. Serv­ing as a vice chair of the House Trans­porta­tion Com­mit­tee, she was a leader in nego­ti­a­tions for a $16 bil­lion trans­porta­tion pack­age in 2015 which cov­ered high­way improve­ments, pedes­tri­an and bike infra­struc­ture, and expan­sions to light rail and bus services.

In 2017, Far­rell decid­ed to give up her seat in the House to run for May­or of Seat­tle. She was one of many can­di­dates to step up when the race sud­den­ly opened up with the announce­ment by May­or Ed Mur­ray that he would not run for a sec­ond term (Mur­ray faced a series of sex­u­al abuse alle­ga­tions).

In a crowd­ed Top Two field of twen­ty-one can­di­dates Far­rell came in fourth,  trail­ing Nikki­ta Oliv­er and the sec­ond place fin­ish­er Cary Moon, who ulti­mate­ly went on to lose to Jen­ny Durkan. She fin­ished ahead of for­mer May­or Mike McGinn and State Sen­a­tor Bob Hasegawa.

The 2017 may­oral race was a bruis­ing affair, evi­denced by the fact that of the twen­ty-one can­di­dates only Far­rell has opt­ed to run again. In fact, Far­rell is the only major can­di­date in 2021 to have run for the posi­tion before, which could prove to be help­ful. Far­rell is get­ting a much ear­li­er start this time around.

After the 2017 cam­paign, Far­rell did not return to elec­toral pol­i­tics right away. Before announc­ing her 2021 run for may­or, she worked as a Senior Vice Pres­i­dent at Civic Ven­tures, Nick Hanauer’s well-regard­ed think tank and pol­i­cy shop.

Far­rell entered the may­oral race as some­thing of an underdog.

She lacks the name recog­ni­tion of estab­lished city lead­ers like González and Har­rell, and lags well behind them (as well as fel­low can­di­dates Echohawk and Hous­ton) in fundrais­ing num­bers.

It would, how­ev­er, be unwise to count Far­rell out. In a city beset by major prob­lems, Far­rell comes to the table with a rep­u­ta­tion as a tough-mind­ed prob­lem solver and nego­tia­tor. She is the field’s fore­most expert on trans­porta­tion mat­ters, and is well-versed in issues such as child-care and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty. Her work with Civic Ven­tures could also be ben­e­fi­cial in help­ing her and her advi­sors make bet­ter deci­sions about how to com­mu­ni­cate her val­ues and ideas.

With four years of hind­sight and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to rein­tro­duce her­self to the peo­ple of Seat­tle, can the sec­ond time be the charm for Jessyn Farrell?