2024 Endorsements
Important Disclaimer
Hello friends in Devilry!
As you may know, it’s that time of year again where you make your voice heard by casting a ballot. While Stella is hard at work getting out the vote and facilitating voter turnout, they of course have an opinion on local candidates.
The 2024 General Election is just a few short weeks away and your ballots drop THIS WEEK. Remember to vote early. This will help volunteers as your county parties are notified of ballots being thrown out. It’s also important to make sure that you are registered to vote.
In Washington state you now have until election day to register, but you have to do it in person at a polling location. You should also check your registration status now at votewa.gov to make sure your address is correct. Your window to change it has passed, but you can request a replacement ballot at your county Auditor’s office.
Over the next week we will be releasing our endorsements for “best in show” aka the local elections that directly affect our community. We don’t weigh in on Statewide or national elections, this will just be who we think poses the least danger to our community.
Many of these choices will be obvious and some have already been echoed by Rural People’s Voice, the local democratic party, and other organizations that want to make progress.
Not all of these candidates are perfectly progressive, or progressive at all. BUT they are the best option when compared to who they are running against. So if you choose to support these candidates, think of it more as a vote against the other candidate.
As always, your voice is your choice and we are just sharing our opinions on who we are voting for with a community mindset.
In addition to full transparency, we also want to remind everyone that Stella has been working with the 2024 Coordinated Campaigns to help elect Democrats across Eastern Washington. However, this page does not accept money from any party at any time. All of the opinions expressed here are those of that work on the page including Stella themselves. No one who works on this page accepts money from campaigns or is paid for an endorsement.
WA State Representative Position #1
Mayhew v Goehner
Jim Mayhew(D) is currently on the Snoqualmie City Council. His background is in accounting. He was a CFO for a fortune 1000 company. His priorities stem from his own experience with housing insecurity and his own experience in the foster care system.
You can find more about Jim and his priorities here: https://jimmayhew.com/priorities/
You’ll also find that Mayhew is endorsed by local community leader Alma Chacon.
Keith Goehner(R), while not the incumbent for this position, has been an elected official in our are for a long time so you may recognize his name. I’ve had some democrats say that they like Keith because he listens to them.
The problem is, while he is polite, he is not listening. That is evident by his voting record, as recent as this year he voted no against State Legislative Staffers from forming a collective bargaining agreement. He voted no against his own staffers forming a union to protect themselves.
Goehner voted no to require gun dealers to have cameras.
No against the requirement of people to report a firearm theft to authorities within 24 hours.
No against amending state learning standards to include education on the LGBTQIA2s+ community.
No to establish a state wide hate crimes hotline within the attorney generals office.
No against prohibiting open carry at zoos, libraries, and transit centers.
No against the adult entertainment bill of rights.
No against unemployment for striking workers.
No against a 7% cap for rent increases per year.
No against the repeal of citizenship requirements for immigrants who are seeking professional licenses.
No against clean energy incentives.
No against local governments ability to change their own general elections to even number years to capture higher voter turn outs…
No to prohibiting the NONCONSENSUAL REMOVAL or TAMPERING of a condom or other sexually protective device.
No against establishing the state prosecution office with the authority to charge police for DEADLY USE OF FORCE.
No against appropriating 80 million dollars from the climate commitment act to purchase electric buses for schools…
And all of this is just this year.
You can find his entire voting record here: https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/94643/keith-goehner#collapse0
We have had the pleasure of speaking to Jim who is a fiscally minded candidate, but he also leads with empathy when it comes to social issues and protecting marginalized communities.
So for all of the reasons above Progressive Devilry is endorsing Jim Mayhew.
Keith Goehner does not listen to you, and he never will. He is not good for Chelan County, schools, women, and marginalized communities.
It’s time to revoke his access to speaking for us on issues he will never understand, like consent.
If you have any questions, something to add, or anything you think would change our mind: send us an email to info@progressivedevilry.com
Chelan County District Judge
District Court Judge:
Jay Eyestone v Allen Blackmon
For the 3rd time Allen Blackmon is running for Judge here in Chelan county. He’s probably thinking that third time’s the charm right?
Nothing has changed from our opinion from last time. Blackmon was appointed after his last attempt and at least has some experience as a judge now: BUT he still has no defense experience. Which means his perspective is still one sided which in our opinion could be problematic for a judge.
Blackmon also attended Wenatchee Pride this year, taking to heart the criticisms he received last election when he refused to attend, and his supporters made fun of (his then opponent)John Volyn for attending while wearing pink converse.
Blackmon’s opponent this time is Jay Eyestone. An up-and-coming lawyer who has extensive wide ranging experience from being a veteran, an attorney, a public defender, AND a prosecutor. Eyestone has worked for non-profit organizations as well as for-profit practices.
Eyestone has been diligently non-partisan by attending all GOP and Democratic events he can, while Blackmon leans heavier in his GOP attendances.
Stella has met with Eyestone a number of times as he pops in and attends Democratic coffee breaks when he has time, and talks about the other party events he has attended evenly. While Stella has heard that Blackmon has stopped by the local Dem office once or twice, and attended the ice cream social over the summer, it’s barely more than the last election.
We at Progressive Devilry also find Blackmon’s campaign signs deeply misleading. They state “Retain Judge Blackmon”, leading voters and constituents to believe that he was elected previously. He was not. While “retain” means “to keep” and technically that does fit the definition, it does not(in our opinion) meet the spirit of the meaning. The spirit of the inference that he was elected to the position and is having to re-run to retain it.
That is not the case.
Blackmon has failed twice to win an election. Chelan County has said no to him two times now.
We need a fair and balanced individual in a district court judge, not someone who courts conservatives and wouldn’t know the perspective or experience of the defense council. Let alone be able to prepare a defense himself.
If you are unprepared or unfamiliar with an entire side of the law, that leads to biases you may not even realize you have.
For all of these reasons and more, we are endorsing Jay Eyestone for District Judge in Chelan County.
Sources:
Link to our previous opinion piece on Blackmon: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/gmk3tMFnQJPJZFW4/
Eyestone’s campaign website: https://eyestoneforjudge.com/
Blackmon’s campaign website: https://retainjudgeblackmon.com/
Chelan County Commissioner : District #3
Chelan County Commissioner District 3:
Brad Hawkins v Flint Hartwig
This one is going to be comically simple:
We don’t like either candidate – BUT one poses a direct threat with open bigotry.
Flint Hartwig has made open promises to allow people to break the law if he agrees with it by suggesting that the position he is running for could give them a pass:
Flint openly displayed some hateful bigotry by saying that unhoused people choose their lifestyle, as if he is an authority on the subject (He is not):
Openly affiliates with Grace City Cult by going on a podcast with Josh McPherson, which Hawkins had the good sense to never share. But Hartwig was super proud of it, thanking McPherson:
There’s also a question I have about who produced Hartwig’s “Homelessness situation” video. It shares some very similar production style to Grace City Church’s in house production team… He also failed to do state who paid for it, which could be a campaign finance violation that Brian Burnett almost found himself in during the 2022 Election. (For the same reason: using GCC affiliated production crews)
And is endorsed/supported by bigots and anti-vaxxers:
Brad Hawkins is problematic in a lot of ways… but he isn’t Flint Hartwig problematic.
For this reason and more we are not endorsing Hawkins, but we are suggesting him.
Out of the two trash fires we have running, his at least isn’t as toxic and the one we know. So please don’t skip this one on your ballot. Vote for Brad Hawkins who at least hasn’t said out loud that he would like certain people to get a pass for breaking the law.
Douglas County Commissioner
Douglas County Commissioner:
Paula Lamanna(I) v Randy Agnew(R)
Independent candidate Paula Lamanna has a background in agriculture, exercise with a specialization in neuro-care, and has a Bachelors of Business Administration (BBA) specializing in Sustainable Enterprise Management.
Republican Rock Island Mayor Randy Agnew is running for Douglas County Commissioner. He’s most recently well known for being accused of using the Town Toyota center as a piggy bank, wanting to defund link transit, being besties with Kyle (called a McDonald’s Service worker Fat B*tch) Steinberg, and being a conspiracy theorist.
Agnew believes that the pandemic was planned by Democrats to get people in line and the COVID was no big deal. He thinks the LGBTQIA2s+ community wants to confuse kindergartners, you’re stupid if you took precautions against spreading COVID, and taxes drive Boeing out of Washington.
A lot of progressive people have been blinded by Agnew in person, because he will tell you what he thinks you want to hear. But the truth is, he is a dangerous, uncritical thinker, who will believe what anyone tells him as long as it fits his already formed worldview filled with biases that scratch that bigotry itch.
Just because he’s in a band and sings karaoke does not mean he’s a good person.
He believes all of these things so deeply that he wrote an opinion article for the Wenatchee Business Journal and laid out his entire thoughts about people who took the pandemic seriously, calling them “sheeple”. And the pandemic an “IQ test”.
Agnew used inaccurate and cherry picked statistics to try and prove a point that just made him look like a jackass.
Because of all this and more we are supporting Paula Lamanna who has the education and empathy to help lead Douglas County. She listens to farmers, isn’t swayed by fake news, and wants to help her community, not further misinformation.
WA State Representative Position #2
State Rep Pos 2:
Koellen v Burnett
This one should be obvious so we left it for the end.
Heather Koellen (D) is a nurse who is still working while campaigning. She is level headed, not the best public speaker, but she tries because she cares.
While Burnett can be polished (sometimes) in his bureaucratic answers, he is a failure. He failed our county by losing more than 7 million dollars in tax payer money from wrongful terminations either from his ineptitude or direct orders with some still pending. He facilitated the bullying of his own deputies and sergeants unless they were in his culty inner circle. He condoned bad behavior by allowing it to continue with no repercussions. His administration LOST AN M16, and instead of owning it: he fired the person who discovered it was missing… He is directly responsible for so much negative sh*t that we dedicated NEARLY TWO HOURS to document the largest portion (But that doesn’t even cover all of it).
Because of all of these reasons and more we are endorsing Heather Koellen. She is the only option for Chelan County, and while she may not be a polished politician, I’d say that Olympia needs more of that. Real people without an agenda. People who just want to do the right thing and keep people like Brian Burnett out of office.
Chelan County fired Brian Burnett in 2022. Let’s make sure he never tries to represent us with his twisted agenda again. Vote for Heather, and keep asking Burnett: #WhereIsTheGunBrian?
