Retired City Attorney Pete Holmes to accept Lynn Allen Award at NPI’s 2023 Spring Gala

April is upon us! With the date of our 2023 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala draw­ing near, NPI is delight­ed today to announce that we will be rec­og­niz­ing Pete Holmes, a for­mer Seat­tle City Attor­ney who served the peo­ple of the Emer­ald City for three terms as its chief legal offi­cer, with a Lynn Allen Award at the event.

Here’s an extend­ed bio­graph­i­cal sketch:

Pete Holmes has worked at all lev­els of gov­ern­ment to address need­ed reforms and poli­cies to pro­tect pub­lic safe­ty and make sure that our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem reflects our shared values.

Holmes has helped change statewide sen­tenc­ing laws to pro­tect immi­grants from depor­ta­tion, worked to both legal­ize cannabis and vacate past pos­ses­sion crim­i­nal records, devel­oped new incar­cer­a­tion diver­sion pro­grams to help young peo­ple avoid life­long crim­i­nal records, and redou­bled the city’s efforts to address gun violence.

Pete served as a con­sis­tent liai­son between the City and the fed­er­al judge over­see­ing the Depart­ment of Jus­tice con­sent decree to ensure that last­ing and mean­ing­ful struc­tur­al changes are enact­ed at the Seat­tle Police Department.

Upon tak­ing office, Pete dis­missed all pend­ing mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion cas­es and declined to file sub­se­quent charges. He became a pri­ma­ry spon­sor of Ini­tia­tive 502, cul­mi­nat­ing in Washington’s his­toric 2012 vote to legal­ize, reg­u­late, and tax mar­i­jua­na for adult use. He has been and remains an out­spo­ken crit­ic of the War on Drugs.

In his first year as City Attor­ney, Pete also took action to reduce pros­e­cu­tions of peo­ple dri­ving with a license sus­pend­ed in the third degree, also known as “dri­ving while poor.”

To avoid manda­to­ry depor­ta­tion of doc­u­ment­ed immi­grants con­vict­ed of minor crimes, he fur­ther instruct­ed pros­e­cu­tors to stop request­ing sus­pend­ed jail sen­tences total­ing 365 days. Pete sub­se­quent­ly helped con­vince the Leg­is­la­ture to lim­it the max­i­mum jail sen­tence for all mis­de­meanors to 364 days, lim­it­ing the reach of dys­func­tion­al fed­er­al immi­gra­tion laws across the state.

He also suc­cess­ful­ly defend­ed Seattle’s sta­tus as a Wel­com­ing City to immi­grants despite a Trump Administration’s ongo­ing hostility.

Pete part­nered with King Coun­ty to launch a ground­break­ing region­al firearms unit to enforce civ­il extreme risk gun sur­ren­der orders, one which was recent­ly used in part­ner­ship with fed­er­al author­i­ties to a seize weapons arse­nal main­tained by white suprema­cist neo-nazi accel­er­a­tionists. A cham­pi­on for police reform, Pete was an orig­i­nal mem­ber of Seat­tle Police Department’s first civil­ian over­sight body, the Office of Pro­fes­sion­al Account­abil­i­ty Review Board, and served as chair for 5 years. He is also a mem­ber of the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion for Civil­ian Over­sight of Law Enforcement.

In 2019–2020, Pete Holmes and his office were part of the suc­cess­ful coali­tion that sued to stop Tim Eyman’s incred­i­bly destruc­tive Ini­tia­tive 976 from going into effect, destroy­ing mul­ti­modal trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture and slash­ing tran­sit ser­vice across the state, includ­ing Seat­tle. Our team is deeply appre­cia­tive of Pete’s com­mit­ment to defend our com­mu­ni­ties from bad bal­lot mea­sures like 976.

The Lynn Allen Awards, begun in 2017, are NPI’s high­est honor.

We bestow them upon peo­ple who have made indis­pens­able con­tri­bu­tions to pro­gres­sive caus­es for a decade or more. Each year, we con­fer two Lynn Allen Awards on deserv­ing recip­i­ents of dif­fer­ent genders.

Lynn Allen was a found­ing board­mem­ber of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute. 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 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 believed strong­ly in the pol­i­tics of inclu­sion, and walked her talk.

As com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor of the Insti­tute for Washington’s Future, she 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.

The sea­son of renew­al is the per­fect time to cel­e­brate her legacy.

Read­ers, we invite you to join us on Sat­ur­day, April 29th (either in-per­son or online) as we rec­og­nize Pete Holmes with a Lynn Allen Award.

Here are the details for this year’s gala:

• What: NPI’s 2023 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala
• Where: South Belle­vue Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter or online… your choice!
• When: Sat­ur­day, April 29th | Recep­tion at 5:30 PM; pro­gram at 6:30 PM
• Who: Join the NPI team and Lynn Allen Award recip­i­ent Pete Holmes
• Why: Help NPI con­tin­ue to expand its essen­tial research and advocacy

Be inspired to con­tin­ue work­ing for a pro­gres­sive future for our region and coun­try: join us on April 29th at the Ren­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter! Fol­low this link to secure­ly buy your indi­vid­ual, house­hold, or liv­ing light­ly ticket.