Convention Conversations: NPI catches up with State House hopeful Kristine Reeves

Edi­tor’s Note: On Fri­day, June 24th and Sat­ur­day, June 25th, the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty held its 2022 con­ven­tion in the City of Des­tiny at the Greater Taco­ma Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. The staff of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute trav­eled to Taco­ma to speak with par­ty lead­ers and elect­ed offi­cials about the work they’re doing in advance of the midterm elections. 

This is one of those Con­ven­tion Con­ver­sa­tions, fea­tur­ing Kris­tine Reeves, a can­di­date for the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Press play below to lis­ten to the audio, or read the tran­script below. You can use the link in this para­graph to access the oth­er install­ments that we record­ed from the con­ven­tion hall. 

Listen to the conversation

Press play to begin lis­ten­ing; use the slid­er to the right to adjust the volume.

Read the transcript

Note: Tran­script has been light­ly edit­ed for clarity. 

CAYA BERNDT: Wel­come to Con­ven­tion Con­ver­sa­tions, a spe­cial lim­it­ed pod­cast series from the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute record­ed live from the 2022 Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­ven­tion in Taco­ma. I’m your host, Caya Berndt; we are glad to have you with us! For this install­ment, we are hon­ored to be joined by Kris­tine Reeves for the Wash­ing­ton State House of Representatives.

Kris­tine, it’s awe­some to have you!

KRISTINE REEVES: Thanks, Caya, so much.

CAYA BERNDT: Absolute­ly. So, jump­ing into it, the Top Two elec­tion is just a few weeks away, with bal­lots on the verge of being mailed to voters.

How is your cam­paign going?

KRISTINE REEVES: Yeah, thanks for asking.

So, as many folks may know, I’m a for­mer state rep­re­sen­ta­tive. I served in the Leg­is­la­ture for three years, from 2017 to 2019. When I got elect­ed in 2016, in a tough swing dis­trict elec­tion in South King Coun­ty, I became the first black woman elect­ed to the Leg­is­la­ture in eigh­teen years. I was the only woman with kids under the age of five. I am so excit­ed to see the pro­gres­sion that we have made in elect­ing more moms and elect­ing more folks of color.

But I can tell you now run­ning again, to replace, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John­son, there are still a lot of vot­ers out there who are, ques­tion­ing the val­ues of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and where, where we need to be in, and par­tic­u­lar­ly in South King Coun­ty, where we have, you know, a cell of the Proud Boys, [who are] you know, white suprema­cist group. We are doing work to make sure that in a major­i­ty-minor­i­ty dis­trict, folks are vot­ing their values.

And that’s what I bring to the table.

CAYA BERNDT: Def­i­nite­ly. And how is your cam­paign plan­ning on and try­ing to mobi­lize some of those vot­ers who may be dis­il­lu­sioned, as you’ve mentioned?

KRISTINE REEVES: Yeah. I mean, it’s real­ly talk­ing to our neigh­bors in every place and space in South King Coun­ty. It’s talk­ing to them at their doors. It’s talk­ing to them at the gro­cery store. I just had a great con­ver­sa­tion with Ms. Regi­na at a local busi­ness in Fed­er­al Way on the heels of the SCOTUS deci­sion. Talk­ing about how we’re going to advance repro­duc­tive health­care rights, how we’re gonna make sure that folks are get­ting access to uni­ver­sal healthcare.

So for me, it’s real­ly about meet­ing folks where they are, get­ting to talk to them, intro­duc­ing myself, and build­ing trust in community.

CAYA BERNDT: Yeah. Build­ing trust is essen­tial. So, what are your pri­or­i­ties for the next two years, should you be elect­ed? What would you most like to accomplish?

KRISTINE REEVES: Yeah, absolutely.

Well, par­tic­u­lar­ly, for me as a mom of two young kids, you know, I went to the Leg­is­la­ture orig­i­nal­ly because I was fight­ing for equi­table education.

As some­body who grew up in the pub­lic school sys­tem, has expe­ri­enced home­less­ness as a first gen­er­a­tion col­lege grad­u­ate, I know that edu­ca­tion is para­mount to mak­ing sure that every kid in our, our com­mu­ni­ty succeeds.

I would tell you that I’m also very, very focused in a post-pan­dem­ic soci­ety on address­ing the inequities in our sys­tem. We kind of saw that Band-Aid get ripped wide off. I would tell you for com­mu­ni­ties of col­or, we always knew it was a prob­lem, but you know, I think peo­ple saw the gap and the dis­crep­an­cies in our sys­tem being equi­table for everyone.

And then last­ly, I would say we are deal­ing with some real eco­nom­ic well-being issues. Folks are, you know, strug­gling to pay for gas and gro­ceries. They’re strug­gling to pay for baby for­mu­la. And again, as a mom, that just breaks my heart as some­body who’s expe­ri­enced pover­ty. So I wan­na make sure that we’re think­ing about how we build an econ­o­my that works best for work­ing families.

And that’s what I’m com­mit­ted to doing.

CAYA BERNDT: And what do you think the state Leg­is­la­ture needs to do in order to help Amer­i­cans that are grap­pling with those ris­ing prices, par­tic­u­lar­ly in areas that you’ve men­tioned, [like] the baby for­mu­la short­age, it has been devastating.

KRISTINE REEVES: Yeah, absolutely.

I think, again, it’s elect­ing folks who under­stand what work­ing fam­i­lies are going through right now. As some­body who has to bal­ance my bud­get at home and, you know, try to get my kids through school and, and deal with those things. It’s elect­ing folks who actu­al­ly are expe­ri­enc­ing those challenges.

I would also say, I think, in hav­ing been there before, you know, it’s address­ing our rev­enue short­falls by insti­tut­ing things like a wealth tax. Insti­tut­ing things like a exces­sive prof­its tax, mak­ing sure that the cap­i­tal gains tax stays on the books. I’m invest­ed in mak­ing sure that we are tax­ing every­one in our state fairly.

And in the most regres­sive tax sys­tem in the coun­try, part of the rea­son folks are strug­gling to pay for things is because we tax work­ing fam­i­lies at 16% to 17% of their income. And we’re not tax­ing the Jeff Bezos­es or the Elon Musks at the per­cent­age of income that they should be taxed at.

So for me, we get to an equi­table econ­o­my by mak­ing sure that every­body in our econ­o­my is actu­al­ly pay­ing their fair share.

CAYA BERNDT: Noth­ing gets my pulse rac­ing like the phrase cap­i­tal gains tax. I love it. Ear­li­er, you men­tioned, in our pre-record­ing dis­cus­sion, that you were the Chair of the Black mem­bers cau­cus for the state par­ty. What expe­ri­ences from that are you hop­ing to bring to the house? And can you share some top pri­or­i­ties and, yeah, just what you hope to bring to the House?

KRISTINE REEVES: Yeah. Well, when I was in the Leg­is­la­ture before, I actu­al­ly had the hon­or of found­ing the first Black mem­bers cau­cus for the Leg­is­la­ture, and since then have done the work, to advance a Black mem­bers cau­cus for the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

And, you know, I’m com­mit­ted to that work. I know a lot of folks are like, well, why, why this? Because at the end of the day, we need to make sure that our mes­sage on diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclu­sion and our meth­ods actu­al­ly align.

And hav­ing served in that build­ing, I rec­og­nize that we are ask­ing women and peo­ple of col­or in par­tic­u­lar to get elect­ed… check the diver­si­ty box, for sure.

But, at the end of the day, we don’t do any­thing to actu­al­ly sup­port them once they’re elect­ed and mak­ing sure that they can nav­i­gate, you know, two hun­dred, three hun­dred, four hun­dred year old sys­tems that lit­er­al­ly were built, you know, not by them, not for them, or with their inclu­sion in mind. And I wan­na make sure that we’re doing more than just elect­ing them… that we’re actu­al­ly keep­ing them there so that they can advance the equi­table pub­lic pol­i­cy and the sys­tem change that we need to make sure that our democ­ra­cy works for everyone.

So I’ve been real­ly for­tu­nate to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to serve in these lead­er­ship posi­tions, but this work real­ly comes from com­mu­ni­ty, from our grass­roots, and advances, the issues that mat­ter most to, to black com­mu­ni­ties, African Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties, folks in the black dias­po­ra. [I] look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to do that work in the Legislature.

CAYA BERNDT: You men­tioned pri­or­i­tiz­ing… mod­ern­iz­ing the Leg­is­la­ture and cre­at­ing polit­i­cal equi­ty for younger mem­bers. Recent­ly, we had the largest exo­dus of first term mem­bers from the Leg­is­la­ture. Why do you think that is, and what are your pro­posed solu­tions for bridg­ing those gaps?

KRISTINE REEVES: Yeah, Caya, thanks for that ques­tion. So, what folks may not know is, what was I doing after los­ing my con­gres­sion­al cam­paign in 2020? Well, as a for­mer leg­is­la­tor, and some­body who cares pas­sion­ate­ly about sys­tems that work for every­one, I found­ed what’s called the Polit­i­cal Equi­ty Project.

And this is real­ly a project focused on mak­ing sure that we spend mil­lions of dol­lars recruit­ing and train­ing women and peo­ple [of col­or] to run for office.

We get them elect­ed, and we check again, check that box for diver­si­ty. We spend zero dol­lars actu­al­ly pro­vid­ing them pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment sup­ports once they’re elect­ed to nav­i­gate these insti­tu­tion­al­ly racist, exclu­sion­ary and sys­temic sys­tems that weren’t built for them, by them, or with their inclu­sion in mind.

And so the Polit­i­cal Equi­ty Project is the work that I’ve been doing for the last two years, with the help of the Open Soci­ety Foun­da­tion. I look for­ward to bring­ing what I’ve learned in from sci­ence based prac­tices, things like coach­ing and, you know, DEI train­ing, to be able to take that sci­ence-based work to the Leg­is­la­ture, to be able to advance sys­tems change, sys­tems trans­for­ma­tion, to make sure that our pub­lic pol­i­cy is not per­pet­u­at­ing exclu­sion­ary or racist prac­tices, but rather trans­form­ing itself to make sure that it’s inclu­sion­ary of everyone.

And I think that’s the growth that I’ve been able to do over the last two years, not being in the Legislature.

CAYA BERNDT: Thank you so much for that answer. Just one more quick ques­tion for you. So, yes­ter­day, the Supreme Court over­turned Roe v. Wade.

KRISTINE REEVES: Yes.

CAYA BERNDT: What do you think the Leg­is­la­ture should do to respond to this deci­sion? Do you think the Leg­is­la­ture should pass a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to pro­tect abor­tion rights? Or some­thing else?

KRISTINE REEVES: Oh, absolute­ly. I mean, I would tell you that I’m run­ning in a swing dis­trict where, quite frankly, you know, it is a tra­di­tion­al swing dis­trict and we have folks in our com­mu­ni­ty who would be per­fect­ly com­fort­able elect­ing a leg­is­la­tor who, you know, may not be proac­tive in advanc­ing these issues.

I, for one, am com­pet­ing with two [oth­er can­di­dates]: a Repub­li­can and anoth­er com­peti­tor who won’t stand in the way if oth­er peo­ple lead on this. I want a leader in my com­mu­ni­ty who’s gonna go to the leg­is­la­ture and advance repro­duc­tive health­care rights for all birthing people.

And I would just say for me, you know, as a pro-choice cham­pi­on, it is a pri­or­i­ty that we pass a con­sti­tu­tion­al amendment.

[But] I think we have to go far­ther than that. I think we need to do the work of get­ting rid of cri­sis preg­nan­cy clin­ics. I think we need to do the work of mak­ing sure that we’re resourc­ing Planned Par­ent­hood and oth­ers — repro­duc­tive health cen­ters — to make sure all birthing peo­ple have access to the support.

And we know that, you know, when oth­er states are out­law­ing this [abor­tion], more and more folks are gonna come [here]. If you’ve watched Tik­Tok recent­ly — we call it camp­ing on Tik­Tok — a lot more peo­ple are gonna be com­ing camp­ing to the Pacif­ic North­west [to get repro­duc­tive healthcare].

And I wan­na make sure that we have the resources to do that.

CAYA BERNDT: Kris­tine, it’s great to be able to catch up with you. Thanks for tak­ing the time to talk with us about your cam­paign. If you enjoyed this pod­cast, we invite you to check out our oth­er Con­ven­tion Conversations.

For NPI, I’m Caya Berndt. Take care!