Boris Joffe
Boris Joffe (independent) ran for election to the Washington House of Representatives to represent District 43-Position 2. He lost in the primary on August 7, 2018.
Joffe completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2018. Click here to read the survey answers.
Elections
2018
General election
Incumbent Frank Chopp defeated Claire Torstenbo in the general election for Washington House of Representatives District 43-Position 2 on November 6, 2018.
General election
General election for Washington House of Representatives District 43-Position 2
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Frank Chopp (D) | 89.4 | 74,155 |
 | Claire Torstenbo (R) | 10.6 | 8,828 | |
| Total votes: 82,983 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Top-two primary
Incumbent Frank Chopp and Claire Torstenbo defeated Boris Joffe in the primary for Washington House of Representatives District 43-Position 2 on August 7, 2018.
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for Washington House of Representatives District 43-Position 2
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Frank Chopp (D) | 87.6 | 41,067 |
| ✔ | | Claire Torstenbo (R) | 8.9 | 4,169 |
 | Boris Joffe (Independent) | 3.5 | 1,625 | |
| Total votes: 46,861 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign themes
2018
Ballotpedia biographical submission form
The candidate completed Ballotpedia's biographical information submission form:
| “ | What is your political philosophy?
I'm running to improve public safety, reduce the tax burden, and improve government accountability especially with respect to homelessness, addiction, and mental health. [1] |
” |
| —Boris Joffe[2] | ||
Ballotpedia survey responses
- See also: Ballotpedia's candidate surveys
Boris Joffe participated in Ballotpedia's candidate survey on August 8, 2018. The survey questions appear in bold, and Boris Joffe's responses follow below.[3]
What would be your top three priorities, if elected?
| “ | My top 3 priorities are improving public safety, reducing the tax burden, and improving government accountability especially with respect to homelessness, addiction, and mental health.
Seattle and other cities in our state are rapidly becoming unlivable due to increasing crime and taxes. The government keeps taking more of our money every year and squandering it on programs that make us less safe as well as increase homelessness. I'm running to change that.[4][1] |
” |
What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about? Why?
| “ | I'm passionate about liberty. I believe that the government should be involved in public policy as little as possible especially at the higher levels like federal government. Decisions should be local and made without the use of legislation or administrative agencies whenever possible. They should be made through community consensus and by community funding of nonprofits. Because of the high potential for abuse and corruption, the role of government should be minimal and its main purpose should be preventing people from directly hurting others or their property.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; invalid names, e.g. too many[1]
|
” |
Ballotpedia also asked the candidate a series of optional questions. Boris Joffe answered the following:
Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow and why?
| “ | I look up to Justin Amash for being an excellent example of a congressman that takes the time to carefully read every proposed bill, votes according to the Constitution even when it's unpopular with his party, and explains all of his votes to his constituents.[1] | ” |
| “ | I think fairness is the most important principle for an elected official. I believe in equal justice under the law, and never using the law to play favorites with certain corporations, groups of people, or individuals.
I also believe that different people may want to live their life in different ways, and that in order to be fair, the law should never be used as a tool to impose your lifestyle on others.[1] |
” |
| “ | The core responsibilities of a state legislator are to make sure the existing state laws are just and that the law protects people's fundamental rights.
Unlike most politicians, I do not believe that the legislature should pass more and more new laws every year and respond to one-off occurrences or accidents with reactionary legislation.
Society is never going to be perfect and bad things will happen, but criminalizing every single behavior that *might* lead to an accident or that is "mean" is absurd and will only end up destroying people's freedom and putting innocent people in jail.[1] |
” |
| “ | I would like to leave behind a state where people are able to freely live their lives in a low-crime environment with clear and simple laws, keep more of their paychecks, help others, and do what they love.[1] | ” |
| “ | Our state's greatest challenges over the next decade are crime, taxes, and accountability which are the main issues I'm running on.
Our incumbents at the local and state levels seem to constantly work to make these issues worse than they already are. They want to reduce enforcement of the law, increase taxes, and not be held accountable for the money they take from us. These positions have been implemented during their tenure in office and have only made our current problems worse.
I seek to do the opposite and to fix these issues. Basic law enforcement of crimes against people and property is essential and is the fundamental role of government. Second of all, our homelessness programs need to be audited and the ones that don't work need to be cut. The large amount of funds cut from ineffective programs should be redirected to ones that work - we can use the Poppe report, other cities' approaches, and performance tracking to allocate funding to effective programs. These funds should also be used for directing individuals with addiction and mental illness to the appropriate treatment programs.[1] |
” |
| “ | The state legislature should create legislation (possibly with input from the governor). If the governor thinks the bill isn't good, he has the option to veto it. And once the bill becomes law, the governor must enforce it as long as that law is constitutional.[1] | ” |
| “ | Yes, building relationships with other legislators is critical to getting good bills passed and bad bills dropped, so that's a very important part of the job.[1] | ” |
| “ | I think Washington state's independent redistricting commission is a fair way of doing things.[1] | ” |
| “ | Many of the committees interest me, and I would want to be part of the ones where I could get the most positive work done for the people.[1] | ” |
See also
- State legislative elections, 2018
- Washington House of Representatives elections, 2018
- Washington House of Representatives
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Information submitted on Ballotpedia's biographical information submission form on August 11, 2018
- ↑ Note: The candidate's answers have been reproduced here verbatim without edits or corrections by Ballotpedia.
- ↑ Ballotpedia's candidate survey, "Boris Joffe's responses," August 8, 2018
