2006 Candidate Questionnaire
SECTION I
BASIC CANDIDATE INFORMATION
1. Name as it will appear on the ballot
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First Name |
Middle Initial or Nick Name |
Last Name |
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Jamie |
D. |
Pedersen |
2. Office sought (include office, jurisdiction, position/district number):
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State Representative, 43rd District, Position 1 |
3. Are you the incumbent? Yes No
4. How long have you resided in this district/city?
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11 years |
5. How long have you resided in King County?
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11 years |
6. Is the office sought partisan or nonpartisan? Partisan Nonpartisan
7. If partisan, please indicate party: Democrat
CAMPAIGN CONTACTS
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Campaign Name: |
People for Pedersen |
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Address: |
815 First Ave., #111 |
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City/State/Zip: |
Seattle, WA 98104 |
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Campaign Phone: |
(206) 370-7987 |
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Campaign Fax: |
(206) 370-6152 |
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Campaign E-mail: |
jamie@peopleforpedersen.org |
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Campaign Website: |
www.peopleforpedersen.org |
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POLITICAL BACKGROUND
1. Beginning with the most recent position, please list public offices which you have held. Include positions on appointive Boards or Commissions.
Public Office |
Elective or Appointive? |
Dates Held |
Leadership Role (if any) |
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(none)
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2. If you ran for public office but were not elected, please list those races below:
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Office Title |
Year of Run |
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(not applicable)
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SECTION III
In this section, we are seeking responses that reflect the four ratings criteria: involvement, effectiveness, character, and knowledge. These are defined as follows:
- Involvement: What has the candidate done previously in family, neighborhood, community, volunteer work, employment or public life to suggest readiness to accomplish challenging objectives? How do these activities demonstrate readiness for the challenges unique to the office sought?
- Effectiveness: Has the candidate demonstrated promise of being productive in the office sought? Has the candidate shown the ability to work with other people?
- Character: Do the candidate's personal traits show the ability to take on the responsibilities of campaigning for and holding the public office she or he is seeking? Is the candidate a leader, participant or observer? Is the candidate trustworthy, reliable and candid?
- Knowledge: Has the candidate demonstrated the willingness and ability to learn and adapt? Does the candidate understand the duties and challenges of the office sought? Does the candidate have a firm grasp of the issues important to his or her constituency and their potential effects?
1. In a page or less, why are you running for this office? (Note: the interview committee will be given a copy of this statement before your interview; at the beginning of your interview you will have the opportunity to expand on this statement in any way you wish.)
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I am running for the legislature because I feel a responsibility to do my part in building a community of which we can all be proud.
I grew up in Puyallup, the son of two public school teachers. My dad taught math and science. My mom taught hearing impaired kids and later was an elementary school principal. By their example, they taught me the importance of public service. That lesson was reinforced in the Lutheran church and as I worked my way to become an Eagle Scout.
I have tried to live out that commitment to public service in a variety of ways. For almost 15 years, I have provided pro bono legal help for refugees fleeing persecution to win political asylum in the United States. When the funding for a feeding program at my church was cut, I helped to organize the Community Lunch on Capitol Hill, which provides meals to hundreds of people every week. I helped to set up nonprofits to protect the environment in the Puyallup and Green/Duwamish watersheds. And for the last 10 years, I have been working on gay and lesbian civil rights issues, including chairing the national board of directors of Lambda Legal, the country’s leading legal organization advocating for full equality for LGBT people.
I have knocked on over 9,000 doors of voters in the 43rd district, listening to what people have to say about the challenges that we face in health care, public education, and transportation. Some people don’t think that there is any hope that the legislature can solve any of these problems.
I believe that the legislature can and must address these critical issues. In both private practice and in community service, I have tackled many problems that people thought could not be solved. With strong leadership, some creativity and skill, and a lot of hard work, I have helped to bring people together to solve those problems. There’s a lot at stake in the issues before the legislature: whether our kids get a decent education; whether people who get sick can count on receiving proper medical care; whether we build a transit system that allows us to get safely and efficiently from place to place and protects the environment; and whether every person and every family has legal rights. I will work in the legislature for solutions to each of these challenges to improve our community and to serve the needs of the people of the 43rd District.
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2. Describe your most important personal characteristics or traits as they relate to the office you seek.
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1. Integrity & Honesty. In all aspects of my professional and personal life I work to stand up for what I believe in, do what I say I will do, and act in a principled and forthright way. Whether in private practice or public office, I believe we each must act with integrity in our decisions and actions.
2. Respect. I believe strongly in the dignity and worth of every person and the importance of respecting each other in a world that has become increasingly embattled. Having worked in the gay rights movement for the last decade, I know first-hand how difficult this can be to do when you may feel assailed and your liberty is under attack. But we will never get to a better place unless we can learn to understand what motivates others to think as they do and try to affect their views by respectful dialogue. We felt this very poignantly this past week, with the State Supreme Court decision in the marriage litigation and the shooting at the Jewish Federation. Whether as president of my church council, co-chair of the Lambda Legal board, or Hiring Partner at my law firm, I have been able to work effectively with people from very different backgrounds and have built effective teams with a sense of shared purpose and camaraderie. I think those skills will serve me well in the legislature.
3. Strength of Purpose. I believe that we each have an obligation to make things better for those who come after us. For me, that has meant serving as President of my church and bringing the congregation together to create a community lunch program; serving as Board Co-Chair of a national legal advocacy organization working for LGBT equality; serving for three years as my law firm’s Hiring Partner; and playing a lead role in keeping PacMed Clinics from going bankrupt, so that it could continue to serve the indigent and military retirees.
4. Compassion. I have great faith that our community can become better than it is and that as an elected official I can truly make a difference for people in the district and across the state. Health care, education, transportation are not theoretical issues. Not having systems that meet the needs of real people affects their daily lives and their families. If a child doesn’t have access to housing and health care, she won’t be able to learn. If a parent doesn’t have affordable transportation and childcare, she won’t be able to hold a job and support her family. If a pharmacist can refuse to fill a prescription, a woman is denied her fundamental right to reproductive choice. Legislators can play a significant role in helping individuals, families and communities.
5. Energy. I am a busy and productive lawyer with a growing practice who has made time to be very active in the community over many years. On average, I have provided over 250 hours of pro bono legal services and over 400 hours of community service per year for the last several years. I have applied that same energy to the campaign, knocking on nearly 10,000 doors so far. I will take that energy to Olympia and work tirelessly to achieve our district’s priorities in health care, education, transportation, and civil rights.
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3. Please describe in sufficient detail, one to three accomplishments or contributions of which you are most proud. These examples should illustrate effective skills and capabilities you think apply to the office you are seeking. These accomplishments may have occurred at any time in your personal, professional, or public life.
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Access to Health Care. 25 years ago, President Reagan tried to end medical services for the poor that were provided by the public health service hospital on Beacon Hill. He was not successful, because the community came together to save those services and create PacMed Clinics. But in 2001, PacMed was on the verge of bankruptcy – just about to shut its doors to our most vulnerable. I was asked by the Board to examine the complex legal and financial challenges PacMed faced and design a way to save the clinics. Working with the Board and staff, the City, the County, the federal government, organized labor, and the community clinics, I helped to reorganize PacMed into a thriving health care provider that has increased its charity health care. I learned a tremendous amount about what we need to do to reform our health care system in this state and I’m proud to have played a role in ensuring care is provided to the most vulnerable in our community.
Marriage Equality. Ten years ago, when I started working on the issue of marriage equality for same-sex couples, others said it would never happen. I analyzed the entire Revised Code of Washington to catalog all Washington laws that treat couples differently depending on whether they are married. I spoke to dozens of groups, from Kiwanis and Rotary clubs to Lutheran, Unitarian, and Reform Jewish congregations about marriage. I have spent the last two and a half years working as a volunteer lawyer on the marriage case recently decided by state Supreme Court. In the process, I led the effort to organize “friend of the court” briefs in support of our position and recruited legislators, faith communities, minority bar associations, labor unions, business groups, women’s and children’s rights advocates, mental health professionals, and Libertarians and Republicans to write to the court about how important this issue was to them. Having lost narrowly in the court, we must now turn to the legislature for protection for same-sex couples and their families, just as those fighting against anti-miscegenation laws had to do in the generation before us. I believe that I can make a real difference by being in the legislature when this debate is happening, leading by example, providing information and standing up against the fundamentalist groups’ attempts to amend the state constitution or state statutes.
Feeding the Homeless. My church, Central Lutheran on Capitol Hill, has hosted a feeding program since 1981. In 2001, Lutheran Community Services, which had staffed and provided funding for the program, suffered a budget crisis and ended its support. Our small congregation could not take the program on alone, but felt great ownership over the program. I came up with the idea of creating a new nonprofit that would involve people from other churches and non-church people – with guaranteed representation for our congregation on the Board. I helped organize the nonprofit and get it tax-exempt status. And now the Community Lunch on Capitol Hill is self-sufficient and self-sustaining, providing a hot meal and community for several hundred people every Tuesday and Friday.
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4. Please list or describe your current and past activities in the community in which you have acquired skills that relate to the office you seek. Include your role in the activity and the year(s) in which you were involved. Involvement consists of many areas such as family, neighborhood, community, employment, or public life.
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Lambda Legal (1998-present) Board Co-Chair (2003-2005) Member of National Board of Directors (1998-2005) Committees (Governance (Co-Chair); Strategic Planning; Audit, Finance & Administration; Development) National Leadership Council, Chair (2005-present) Lead Cooperating Attorney: Vasquez v. Hawthorne (inheritance rights of same-sex couples) Carvin v. Britain (de facto parent rights) Andersen v. King County (marriage equality) Central Lutheran Church (1995-present) Congregation President (2000-2002) Treasurer (2004-present) Council (1998-2004) Committees (Call (Chair); Welcome & Nurture (Chair); Advocacy; Stewardship & Finance) Choir (1995-2005) Synod Assembly Delegate (2002-2005) Seattle Men’s Chorus (1996-present) Section Leader (2000-present) Strategic Planning Committee (1999-2000) General Counsel (pro bono) (1999-present) Legal Marriage Alliance of Washington: Board of Directors (2000-2003) Yale Russian Chorus Alumni Association: Board of Directors (2003-present) Pro Bono Legal Counsel to: Northwest Immigrant Rights Project/political refugees (1995-present) Flying House Productions (1995-present) Thalia Allied Artists (1995-present) Social Venture Partners (2002-present) Pups for Peace (2002-2005) The Esoterics (2000-present) Puyallup River Watershed Council (2000-present) Pride Foundation (2001-present) Lambert House (2002-present) Seattle Gay Clinic (2003-2004)
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- Please describe the duties of the office you seek. Which are the most important duties and why?
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1. Preparation. Representative government works when representatives take the time to talk with their constituents and discern which are the most important challenges they and the community are facing; to learn as much as possible about the issues; and to work with experts to develop thoughtful approaches to solving them. . That’s how I approached my work with refugees, my work with Pac Med, and my work on LGBT civil rights.
2. Participation. Legislators need to develop ideas into concrete legislation and comment on the ideas of their colleagues; to work with colleagues to find common ground on issues; to ask questions and continue to learn about issues from colleagues, experts, and citizens; to attend committee meetings and hearings, caucus meetings, and floor votes and deliberation; and to vote as they believe will be in the best interests of those they represent.
3. Communication. Both during and after the legislative session, legislators must help inform constituents about the work of the legislature, respond to comments and questions from constituents, gather feedback on that work, explain sometimes dry or complex issues to the media, talk to civic and advocacy groups to ask for their help, and effectively make their case when others disagree.
4. Constituent Service. As elected state officials, legislators have a responsibility to listen to constituents, and to help them, particularly with agencies of state government and particularly where those constituents are powerless. |
EDUCATION BACKGROUND SUMMARY
FOR PUBLICATION IN CANDIDATE EVALUATION REPORT
The Municipal League’s Candidate Evaluation Report is distributed to voters in print and/or on our website. It includes a summary of the candidate’s education. Please summarize your education in 120 characters (letters, punctuation, and space all combined). The League will delete material that exceeds the space limit by beginning with the last entry. Suggested order is (degree) (subject) (school) (year, if desired).
Note: If this question is left blank the League will not include education information in your candidate profile.
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J.D. Yale Law School, 1994. Moscow State Univ. (USSR), 1990-91. B.A. Yale College, 1990: Summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa.
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CIVIC INVOLVEMENT SUMMARY
FOR PUBLICATION IN CANDIDATE EVALUATION REPORT
The Municipal League’s Candidate Evaluation Report also includes a summary of each candidate’s civic involvement. Please summarize your civic involvement in the space below. We will make every attempt to include the information in the Candidate Evaluation Report as submitted. Due to space restrictions in the Report, your response is limited to 500 characters (letters, punctuation, and spaces all combined). It is important that you list your involvement beginning with the most important and ending with the least important. If you exceed the length of response permitted, or if the League should find it necessary to shorten responses for publication purposes, deletions will be made beginning with the last item listed.
Note: This information will appear verbatim on the League’s Candidate Evaluation Report. If this question is left blank, the Municipal League will not include information on your civic involvement in the Report.
Check here if you would like the Municipal League to copy the first 500 characters from Question 4 to paste into this section.
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Lambda Legal Board Co-Chair National Board of Directors National Leadership Council Chair Lead Cooperating Attorney: Carvin v. Britain (de facto parent rights) Andersen v. King County (marriage equality) Central Lutheran Church Congregation President Treasurer Church Council Seattle Men’s Chorus Pro Bono Legal Counsel to: Northwest Immigrant Rights Project/political refugees Flying House Productions Social Venture Partners Pups for Peace Puyallup River Watershed Council Pride Foundation
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Finished!
If at all possible, send your response to the Municipal League electronically as an attachment, or insert it into an e-mail message (cec@munileague.org). Mail and fax numbers are listed below. If the League has not contacted you to schedule an interview, please call the League office at your earliest convenience.
Don’t forget to send the following to the Municipal League: a resume, a photo, campaign literature, and, if you are an incumbent, constituent newsletter and other materials. Please use the check-off list on the cover sheet of this packet to indicate which items you have sent.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION AND GOOD LUCK IN YOUR CAMPAIGN!
THE MUNICIPAL LEAGUE OF KING COUNTY
Candidate Evaluation Coordinator: Jennifer DiGiacomo
Seattle, WA 98104-1614 Fax: 425-671-0506 Website: www.munileague.org