Convention Conversations: NPI catches up with State Party Chair Tina Podlodowski

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 Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty Chair Tina Pod­lodows­ki. 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’re glad to have you with us! For this install­ment, we are hon­ored to be joined by Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty Chair Tina Pod­lodows­ki. Welcome!

TINA PODLODOWSKI: Thank you so much. I’m so hap­py to be here. Thanks for hav­ing me.

CAYA BERNDT: Of course. Yeah, we’re real­ly hap­py to have you here too. First ques­tion: We’re in the midst of a heat­ed midterms cycle, but last year we had a num­ber of excit­ing local elec­tions across the state that yield­ed some impor­tant vic­to­ries for Democ­rats. What stood out to you as the party’s biggest wins last year?

TINA PODLODOWSKI: Oh boy, that’s a fan­tas­tic ques­tion. And I have to say, we were so excit­ed as a state Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty to par­tic­i­pate in over 4,825 dif­fer­ent local elec­tions around the state of Wash­ing­ton. It’s real­ly an impor­tant com­po­nent of build­ing our bench and mak­ing cer­tain that Demo­c­ra­t­ic voic­es and val­ues are at every lev­el of gov­ern­ment, whether you’re talk­ing about school board, pub­lic util­i­ty dis­tricts, city coun­cils, coun­ty coun­cils, all the way through.

I guess I’ll start with Sarah Per­ry — the incred­i­ble Sarah Per­ry! — win­ning her race for King Coun­ty Coun­cil against the long-term Repub­li­can incum­bent Kathy Lam­bert. Final­ly, there is rep­re­sen­ta­tion that tru­ly rep­re­sents that par­tic­u­lar dis­trict at the King Coun­ty Coun­cil. And Sarah is a tremen­dous and expe­ri­enced politi­cian, but [also an exem­plary] com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber. The work that she’s done with­in that par­tic­u­lar dis­trict has been laud­ed on both sides of the aisle.

So hav­ing her on the King Coun­ty Coun­cil is just a tremen­dous win.

But I also want to say say we’ve done such great work in a lot of great places, [like] in the Wal­la Wal­la area. You know, return­ing Nor­ma Her­nan­dez [to be] May­or of Col­lege Place was fan­tas­tic and mak­ing that hap­pen. To mak­ing cer­tain that we have Lat­inx rep­re­sen­ta­tion on the Wal­la Wal­la City Council.

We ran the table with the Van­cou­ver City Coun­cil and it now has a pro­gres­sive major­i­ty. And then, I think [a vic­to­ry] every­one is so proud of too, is in Sequim, Wash­ing­ton, where, work­ing with the Sequim Good Gov­er­nance League, we were able to get out Q‑Anon city coun­cil mem­bers and put in a pro­gres­sive slate.

So it mat­ters. It mat­ters what’s hap­pen­ing there as well as a vari­ety of school  board races. So many great races to men­tion all around the state!

CAYA BERNDT: Yeah, that’s fan­tas­tic. So mem­bers of both par­ties, includ­ing Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, are call­ing on long­time incum­bent Mike Krei­dler to step down from his posi­tion of insur­ance com­mis­sion­er, fol­low­ing the rev­e­la­tions of his abu­sive behav­ior towards staff while in office. If he does­n’t resign, will you be work­ing to recruit a cred­i­ble Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger to run for his office in 2024?

TINA PODLODOWSKI: Yeah, I think Democ­rats need to walk the talk and in Mike’s case, it def­i­nite­ly… this is an incred­i­bly seri­ous sit­u­a­tion in his office. When we heard about this par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tion, Mike assured every­one that he would get train­ing, that he would deal with the sit­u­a­tion. I think every­one was con­cerned. And cer­tain­ly I issued a state­ment say­ing, I think that this is one of those things where the trust is just about gone. So let’s see what hap­pens here.

But then the whistle­blow­er who start­ed this entire com­plaint was then fired by Mike. And to me, that’s the last straw. We don’t do things like that.

I mean, the Repub­li­cans refused to, [for exam­ple], you know, kick out Matt Shea from his seat [in the State House], when they had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do that. They removed him from the cau­cus, but cer­tain­ly they did­n’t remove his vote, and they depend­ed upon him, and still con­tin­ued to work with him, despite the fact that it was very clear he was work­ing with white suprema­cists and extremists.

We appre­ci­ate the entire career that Mike has had. He’s done amaz­ing things for the peo­ple of the state of Wash­ing­ton, but it is time.

I’ve called for Mike to step down.

I am still going to call for Mike to step down and for us to find a replace­ment. And I know that we will have incred­i­ble Democ­rats run­ning in 2024, if we do not replace [Mike Krei­dler] pri­or to [that election].

CAYA BERNDT: Thank you! Switch­ing gears a bit. Wash­ing­ton is apply­ing to be one of the first states in the 2020 fourth cycle to hold a demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry. This past week, the state made its pitch in the oth­er Wash­ing­ton to the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws com­mit­tee. How did that pre­sen­ta­tion go?

TINA PODLODOWSKI: It went great. I think that there are so many things that the State of Wash­ing­ton brings to a pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry dis­cus­sion, but let me set the stage ini­tial­ly. So the entire DNC Rules and Bylaws com­mit­tee is look­ing at changes to the states that would hold those ear­ly pres­i­den­tial primaries.

I think every­one knows that Iowa, New Hamp­shire, South Car­oli­na, and Neva­da have been those states. What’s clear in [the wake of] this last cycle is poten­tial­ly that a state like Iowa no longer [effec­tive­ly] rep­re­sents Democ­rats and no longer rep­re­sents Amer­i­ca in that vote. There is not a lot of diver­si­ty in the folks in Iowa who are tak­ing that [first in the nation] pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry vote.

And in fact, in Iowa, it is not a pri­ma­ry. It’s a caucus.

Here in Wash­ing­ton State, a cou­ple of things are at play. Num­ber one is there has to be one state from each par­tic­u­lar region who is rep­re­sent­ed as an ear­ly pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry state. And there’s an oppor­tu­ni­ty for a fifth state to be added. The Rules and Bylaws Com­mit­tee gave them­selves that leeway.

So in the west, there are only three states who are com­pet­ing for a slot. It’s us in Wash­ing­ton State, it’s Neva­da, and it’s Col­orado. So that’s step num­ber one.

If you take a look at the diver­si­ty with­in the State of Wash­ing­ton and how it stacks up against both Col­orado and Neva­da, there are many, many advan­tages with Wash­ing­ton State. The first is not just in the west, but among any state apply­ing to be an ear­ly cau­cus state: Wash­ing­ton has the largest Asian Pacif­ic Islander pop­u­la­tion of any of those states.… over 800,000 peo­ple. That is a group that is his­tor­i­cal­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed in pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry votes.

We haven’t done that here in Wash­ing­ton State. If you take a look, [you’ll find] incred­i­ble leg­is­la­tors like Con­gress­woman Prami­la Jaya­pal, the first South Asian woman to be elect­ed to Con­gress. And one of the few immi­grants in Con­gress, if you look at Mary­land Strick­land, the first Black and Kore­an con­gressper­son to be elect­ed here in Wash­ing­ton State, and then incred­i­ble leg­is­la­tors like Man­ka Dhin­gra, and My-Linh Thai, and a whole host of dif­fer­ent folks that are incredible.

So we have that diver­si­ty going for us that puts us in a num­ber one slot.

Num­ber two is the num­ber of Native Amer­i­can tribes that we have here in Wash­ing­ton state. We have rela­tion­ships and there are twen­ty-nine fed­er­al­ly rec­og­nized tribes in Wash­ing­ton state. That is more than any oth­er state under con­sid­er­a­tion with the excep­tion of Oklahoma.

And we’ve been able to increase the vote in those trib­al com­mu­ni­ties by 40% over the course of the last four years. So that’s an incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty and a great group that need to be rep­re­sent­ed as well.

And then final­ly, there’s labor. We have 630,000 union mem­bers in Wash­ing­ton state, includ­ing every­one and myself who works for the state party.

Labor is a key Demo­c­ra­t­ic ally. We are the most union­ized state par­tic­i­pat­ing in this process, and we have twice the amount of union mem­bers of Col­orado and Neva­da com­bined here in Wash­ing­ton State.

We also have 160,000 more union mem­bers than the num­ber two state in com­pe­ti­tion — and that’s Michi­gan, [com­pet­ing] in the Mid­west region for a slot.

So we believe all of those things give us an oppor­tu­ni­ty, poten­tial­ly not to get the West­ern slot. We believe that Neva­da brings Lat­inx rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the table that no oth­er state does as well. But cer­tain­ly look­ing at that fifth state slot is a huge oppor­tu­ni­ty for us. And one that brings those voic­es of the AAPI com­mu­ni­ty, the Native Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty, the labor com­mu­ni­ty to the forefront.

And one last thing: Wash­ing­ton has the gold stan­dard vot­ing sys­tem. It is the sys­tem that we believe the DNC should be repli­cat­ing and work­ing to repli­cate all through­out our coun­try. We have an all mail-in sys­tem, eigh­teen days to [cast a bal­lot]. We have postage paid bal­lot [return envelopes]. We have auto­mat­ic vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, same day reg­is­tra­tion pre-reg­is­tra­tion for six­teen and sev­en­teen year-olds. And we have recog­ni­tion of for­mer felons being able to vote.

So we wan­na make sure that all of those voic­es are there. And every­one has a chance to cast their bal­lot. We are not Texas. We are not Geor­gia that is labor­ing under incred­i­ble and heinous vot­er ID laws, and oth­er sorts of vot­er sup­pres­sion efforts. So we believe we bring things to the table that rep­re­sent the best of democ­ra­cy, as well as diver­si­ty. We’ll see how it goes.

We’ll find out by August 6th, but Wash­ing­ton State def­i­nite­ly made a strong case and made a lot of peo­ple in the room sit up and take notice.

That’s it’s real­ly excit­ing to hear.

CAYA BERNDT: Boost­ing Wash­ing­ton’s vot­er par­tic­i­pa­tion has been a top pri­or­i­ty of the par­ty dur­ing your time in lead­er­ship. How are Democ­rats plan­ning to moti­vate and ener­gize vot­ers to elect demo­c­ra­t­ic majori­ties this sum­mer and fall?

TINA PODLODOWSKI: Yeah, I mean, think about it: We are com­ing out of a pan­dem­ic. Prob­a­bly some­thing that’s endem­ic, if you think of the, the spread of COVID, but that’s prob­a­bly anoth­er pod­cast. I am not an epi­demi­ol­o­gist, but def­i­nite­ly, when you looked at that 2020 elec­tion, we could not do the things that Democ­rats nor­mal­ly do in a pres­i­den­tial year that give us such grass­roots strength. We weren’t able to door knock. We weren’t able to do events. Instead we made over four mil­lion phone calls to turn out vot­ers, as well as text banking.

In this cycle, we have that oppor­tu­ni­ty to door knock. We have that oppor­tu­ni­ty to have events. We just had 1,200 del­e­gates here, par­tic­i­pat­ing both in per­son and vir­tu­al­ly around the state of Wash­ing­ton [in the 2022 Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­ven­tion] and peo­ple are excit­ed and fired up. So we are putting togeth­er neigh­bor­hood pro­grams in every part of the state.

We have been door knock­ing since Octo­ber, par­tic­u­lar­ly in [key leg­isla­tive] dis­tricts. For exam­ple, the 26th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict where Emi­ly Ran­dall has a tough race to make sure she returns to the state Senate.

She is an amaz­ing cham­pi­on for women, for edu­ca­tion, for repro­duc­tive rights. And she’s going up against, Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jesse Young — some­body who can’t even be in the same room with a staff mem­ber by him­self because he’s been cen­sured for his behav­ior. So he has to have at least two peo­ple in the room with him. I mean, it’s ridicu­lous who the Repub­li­cans have running.

So I think all of those things cou­pled with Roe cou­pled with the recent deci­sions on guns, cou­pled with every­thing that we’re see­ing because of the Jan­u­ary 6th [Select] Com­mit­tee and the efforts that they’re doing, and real­ly the big lie that’s out there from Repub­li­cans. The insur­rec­tion­ism… this idea that they are indeed tear­ing down our democ­ra­cy and doing that every day and reduc­ing rights for folks. Well, that’s a moti­va­tor. It’s just doing that and mak­ing sure that we get peo­ple to turn in their bal­lots. And I think we do that bet­ter than any­one else.

So door knock­ing, phone bank­ing, text bank­ing, events, a com­bi­na­tion of all of that. We’re also hir­ing. So if folks are lis­ten­ing to this pod­cast, go to our web­site. We are hir­ing and we are work­ing through a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent diverse com­mu­ni­ties. Our efforts in Span­ish lan­guage com­mu­ni­ties, our efforts in immi­grant com­mu­ni­ties, our efforts with young peo­ple, our efforts, all the way through are, are real­ly some­thing that has turned out the vote for Democ­rats in every sin­gle coun­ty, over the course of the last five years and result­ed in a six to 16% increase for Democ­rats in every county.

In the state of Wash­ing­ton, if I were the Repub­li­cans, I would be real­ly wor­ried about what this elec­tion is going to do to Republicans.

CAYA BERNDT: You have long been a cham­pi­on of unions and orga­nized labor, being a “union kid” your­self. How can cham­pi­ons for work­ing peo­ple cap­i­tal­ize on the momen­tum gen­er­at­ed from orga­niz­ing suc­cess­es at com­pa­nies like Ama­zon and Star­bucks to grow the union movement?

TINA PODLODOWSKI: Absolute­ly. Well, we work hand in hand with the union move­ment. I was so excit­ed to be some­one [whose] dad was a UAW shop stew­ard. My mom was a UAW machin­ist. I grew up at the union hall. I’m very proud that all the Wash­ing­ton Democ­rats and our staff are IUPAT members.

We’re with the painters, ’cause we’re paint­ing the state blue.

We’re hav­ing a lot of fun with that. And it is impor­tant. Every work­er deserves a union. So we work hand in hand in those orga­niz­ing efforts.

And we applaud the efforts that are hap­pen­ing at both Ama­zon and Star­bucks and oth­er com­pa­nies to make that happen.

Look, in Wash­ing­ton State, we added almost 80,000 union­ized work­ers in 2021 alone. It’s one of the com­pet­i­tive advan­tages, frankly, going back to the con­ven­tion and ear­ly pri­ma­ry dis­cus­sion that we had… both Neva­da and Col­orado actu­al­ly lost union mem­ber­ship while we increased it. And our unions are diverse. There are over a hun­dred dif­fer­ent locals here in the state of Washington.

So whether it’s teach­ers, whether it’s folks build­ing air­planes, whether it’s folks who are baris­tas and work­ing at Star­bucks, whether it’s folks who are in health­care, whether it’s folks who are our pub­lic employ­ee union mem­bers, our fire­fight­ers, our incred­i­ble teach­ers, all the folks. We stand with them, and we con­tin­ue to do that work and advo­cate for those orga­niz­ing efforts.

At the fed­er­al lev­el, our Wash­ing­ton del­e­ga­tion stands strong for the PRO Act, [which is aimed at] giv­ing the right to every­one to be able to orga­nize. And here in Wash­ing­ton State, we are not a “right to work” state. We are a right to orga­nize state. So Democ­rats have made that def­i­nite­ly hap­pen at the leg­isla­tive lev­el and sup­port our union rights and mem­ber­ship at every level.

CAYA BERNDT: Chair Pod­lodows­ki, it’s been great to be able to catch up with you. Thanks for tak­ing the time to talk with us about the work that you’ve been doing for the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton. If you enjoyed this pod­cast, we invite you to check out our oth­er Con­ven­tion Con­ver­sa­tions. For NPI, I’m Caya Berndt.

Take care!