Brett Borden
From Ballotpedia
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Brett Borden (Libertarian Party) ran for election to the Washington House of Representatives to represent District 9-Position 1. He lost in the general election on November 3, 2020.
Borden completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Brett Borden was born in Spokane, Washington. He pursued his undergraduate education at Eastern Washington University. Borden's career experience includes working as a bookkeeper, small business owner, and in the manufacturing industry. He has served as the treasurer of the Classical Liberal Caucus PAC.[1][2]
Elections
2020
See also: Washington House of Representatives elections, 2020
General election
General election for Washington House of Representatives District 9-Position 1
Incumbent Mary Dye defeated Brett Borden in the general election for Washington House of Representatives District 9-Position 1 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Mary Dye (R) | 74.2 | 48,408 |
 | Brett Borden (L)  | 24.7 | 16,091 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 1.1 | 716 | ||
| Total votes: 65,215 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for Washington House of Representatives District 9-Position 1
Incumbent Mary Dye and Brett Borden advanced from the primary for Washington House of Representatives District 9-Position 1 on August 4, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Mary Dye (R) | 77.4 | 29,082 |
| ✔ | | Brett Borden (L) | 21.0 | 7,889 |
| Other/Write-in votes | 1.6 | 599 | ||
| Total votes: 37,570 | |||
| = 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
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Brett Borden completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Borden's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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Originally from Spokane Valley, Brett has lived in the 9th district the past 14 years, with roots in Tri-Cities and the Palouse. He has experience as a small business owner of a book and record store as well as in bookkeeping and as a blue collar manufacturing worker. Brett also serves on the State Executive Committee of the Libertarian Party of Washington as its treasurer.
- I stand for the civil liberties and individual freedoms of all individuals, no exceptions.
- I will be a firm supporter of broad criminal justice reform measures to make our justice system more just, effective, and cheaper.
- I support election reforms to maximize voter choice and allow us all to get what we want out of our leaders and hold them accountable.
As a general rule, the issues on which I have chosen to run were chosen specifically because I feel passionately about them. The most critical issue among them would have to be the broad and complex areas of criminal justice reform. Because our justice system is not working for our people, we see unjust outcomes and outright abuses perpetrated by the State upon vulnerable citizens on a daily basis. This needs to stop and we must address each area of failure and fix it to serve the people's interest first.
I hold a great appreciation for rugged individualists. Whether figures of political history or the arts, I value those who were their own person and were willing to remain true to themselves, even at great personal risk. In this vein, I think Marlene Dietrich represents this as much as anybody. Whether coming up from humble beginnings, not being afraid to embrace her less than orthodox romantic feelings, becoming an icon of film and music and fashion, or standing up in the face of fascism and denouncing it, I find her to be utterly bad-ass. She also shares a name with my late grandmother, for whom I hold great admiration and believe embodied the same sort of personal strength.
I would simply suggest people sincerely read the platform of the Libertarian Party at lp.org and make their own judgment.
Honesty, so we have leaders for whom we can trust their motives; and vision, so our leaders are able to recognize future challenges and address them with society's best interest at heart.
I'm an open-minded and reasonable person who will admit when I've been wrong and will be upfront with where my beliefs lie.
A legislator should be upfront with their motives and why they would best represent the citizens of their district. They should also represent all citizens of their district rather than simply their political base.
I'd like to foster a regional presence for the Libertarian Party and make a real difference for freedom in southeast Washington in the future.
I became aware of the fall of the Soviet Union while I was in elementary school. While too young to fully understand what was happening, I had always been interested in history and other cultures, and did realize that it was a major change for the world. What I remember most of that time was the great hope for the future and a feeling of deep kinship with all people. While I think it's fair to say that modern society has strayed a great distance from those positive moments, I feel as though those in my generation have not fully lost that idealistic view for our world and our fellow man.
I started bagging groceries at 16 and worked there for four years, moving to stocking shelves and cooking in the deli after that first year. One valued skill I learned in that time was when I learned the skills of wok cookery from my immigrant colleagues. While many of the other tasks from that first job have since become less relevant, I have enjoyed cooking and learning about exotic food cultures ever since.
Ever since reading it in high school I've loved The Catcher in the Rye and have re-read it a couple times since. I suppose as a teenager I understood Holden's nihilistic tendencies, but on subsequent reads have come to value him as an odd misfit who feels his emotions very strongly and, however clumsily, follows what he understands to be the just course. It also appeals to me in that it's written in first-person narrative, which I've always been naturally drawn towards but to that point had always been dissuaded from in school.
It seems to me that Mr. Humphries from Are You Being Served lived a rather upbeat and charmed life despite constantly being surrounded by uptight jerks. I think perhaps there is a lesson in that.
La Bionda - I Wanna Be Your Lover. I found it a few months ago as an old electronic oddity and every time I come back it sticks around for days.
As a late bloomer it took me quite a while to find myself and what makes me happy in life. I've had support from family and friends over the years but had been a journey I needed to take on my own, and compared to the person I have been in the past am finding a much more natural and fulfilling life in my 30s.
While I recognize the traditional role of each chamber within the separation of powers, I don't personally see much difference between them. Both chambers can introduce legislation and both need to sign off on the same bills as amended before the governor can sign. Other than that a different set of people have to come to the same conclusion before moving on, it isn't that different from if it were unicameral.
Not particularly. I believe in the Jeffersonian ideal of regular folks called to service for a brief period and then returning to their life as normal. Career politicians tend to just get entrenched with their taxpayer-financed paycheck and are incentivized to make policy more unnecessarily complex as a mechanism to keep out the common person.
Civil liberties have been increasingly curtailed by federal policy and their willingness to embrace new technologies that invade an individual's right to privacy. There is no voice in government that is unabashedly in favor of our Constitutional rights, because each of the major parties may be committed to some but for reasons that are less than philosophically pure. Electing Libertarians to office will give all people someone in Olympia who will fight for their individual rights no matter what, and that is what I represent.
Perhaps adversarial is too strong, but I'm leery of legislators working in tandem with the executive, or worse yet, at their literal behest. As part of separation of powers, the Legislature needs to be its own animal and represent the will of the People without concern as to what the governor thinks or wants.
Absolutely. Coming from outside the system, folks like me don't have the luxury of playing stupid partisan bickering games. We have to live our lives and fight for our causes without much more power than a rag-tag batch of weirdos would collectively have. In this way, building relationships on a case-by-case, issue-by-issue basis is how we ever get anything accomplished! I believe all people should cast off any prejudices and be willing to work with others in good faith as opportunities present themselves. I rather expect that would also result in a more effective and responsive government.
I think Washington has it a bit better than other states on redistricting, as our independent commission format has seemed to operate mostly nonpartisan despite being appointees of major party legislative caucus leadership. While this can result in agreeing to carve out safe districts for each other, Washington has not seemed to succumb to that urge as much as some other states have. I support leaving the commission in place, though would like to see a seat at the table for those outside the system as well.
In addition to this, I would like to explore shifting to a mixed-member proportional system for the legislature, which would render much of the issue of potential gerrymandering moot. MMP systems are far more representative because of the proportional seats being added to balance the partisan make-up to actually fit the overall vote totals. It also allows voters who support minor parties and never have representation in government to actually have a voice in the Legislature.
In addition to this, I would like to explore shifting to a mixed-member proportional system for the legislature, which would render much of the issue of potential gerrymandering moot. MMP systems are far more representative because of the proportional seats being added to balance the partisan make-up to actually fit the overall vote totals. It also allows voters who support minor parties and never have representation in government to actually have a voice in the Legislature.
Based on my chief issue focuses, I think the most natural fits for me would be Civil Rights & Judiciary, Commerce & Gaming, and Consumer Protection & Business. Each of these oversee areas where the State regularly gets in the way of people's lives and liberty and being on these committees could be most effective in making sure poor policy doesn't make it to a floor vote.
There are a small number of legislators who currently serve that have a predisposition towards liberty, and while each has their blind spots (else they would be Libertarians themselves!), I would be happy to forge relationships with them to further shared policy interests. Of these, I probably most respect Senator Hasegawa for his commitment to civil liberties and willingness to stand up for them even against his own caucus. I also respected former Rep. Skip Priest for his ability to operate in a very nonpartisan manner in Olympia and found him to be an honorable public servant when I lived in his district.
I'd never say never, but do not really have ambitions like those. Because of my focus on election policy, I could see aiming for Secretary of State as a means to further election reform issues.
In less than a month of being a candidate and dealing with COVID Madness, I have not had much contact except for the occasional media encounter. As an empathetic type, I look forward to hearing of my neighbors' experiences as society starts to open back up.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2020 Elections
External links
Footnotes
Current members of the Washington House of Representatives
Leadership
Speaker of the House:Laurie Jinkins
Majority Leader:Joe Fitzgibbon
Minority Leader:Drew Stokesbary
Representatives
District 1-Position 1
Davina Duerr (D)
District 1-Position 2
Shelley Kloba (D)
District 2-Position 1
Andrew Barkis (R)
District 2-Position 2
Matt Marshall (R)
District 3-Position 1
Natasha Hill (D)
District 3-Position 2
Timm Ormsby (D)
District 4-Position 1
Suzanne Schmidt (R)
District 4-Position 2
Rob Chase (R)
District 5-Position 1
Zach Hall (D)
District 5-Position 2
Lisa Callan (D)
District 6-Position 1
Mike Volz (R)
District 6-Position 2
Jenny Graham (R)
District 7-Position 1
David Engell (R)
District 7-Position 2
Hunter Abell (R)
District 8-Position 1
District 8-Position 2
April Connors (R)
District 9-Position 1
Mary Dye (R)
District 9-Position 2
Joe Schmick (R)
District 10-Position 1
Clyde Shavers (D)
District 10-Position 2
Dave Paul (D)
District 11-Position 1
David Hackney (D)
District 11-Position 2
Steve Bergquist (D)
District 12-Position 1
Brian Burnett (R)
District 12-Position 2
Mike Steele (R)
District 13-Position 1
Tom Dent (R)
District 13-Position 2
Alex Ybarra (R)
District 14-Position 1
Gloria Mendoza (R)
District 14-Position 2
Deb Manjarrez (R)
District 15-Position 1
Chris Corry (R)
District 15-Position 2
Jeremie Dufault (R)
District 16-Position 1
Mark Klicker (R)
District 16-Position 2
Skyler Rude (R)
District 17-Position 1
Kevin Waters (R)
District 17-Position 2
David Stuebe (R)
District 18-Position 1
District 18-Position 2
John Ley (R)
District 19-Position 1
Jim Walsh (R)
District 19-Position 2
Joel McEntire (R)
District 20-Position 1
Peter Abbarno (R)
District 20-Position 2
Ed Orcutt (R)
District 21-Position 1
Strom Peterson (D)
District 21-Position 2
District 22-Position 1
Beth Doglio (D)
District 22-Position 2
Lisa Parshley (D)
District 23-Position 1
Tarra Simmons (D)
District 23-Position 2
Greg Nance (D)
District 24-Position 1
Adam Bernbaum (D)
District 24-Position 2
Steve Tharinger (D)
District 25-Position 1
Michael Keaton (R)
District 25-Position 2
Cyndy Jacobsen (R)
District 26-Position 1
Adison Richards (D)
District 26-Position 2
Michelle Caldier (R)
District 27-Position 1
Laurie Jinkins (D)
District 27-Position 2
Jake Fey (D)
District 28-Position 1
Mari Leavitt (D)
District 28-Position 2
Dan Bronoske (D)
District 29-Position 1
Melanie Morgan (D)
District 29-Position 2
Sharlett Mena (D)
District 30-Position 1
Jamila Taylor (D)
District 30-Position 2
Kristine Reeves (D)
District 31-Position 1
Drew Stokesbary (R)
District 31-Position 2
Josh Penner (R)
District 32-Position 1
Cindy Ryu (D)
District 32-Position 2
Lauren Davis (D)
District 33-Position 1
Edwin Obras (D)
District 33-Position 2
Mia Gregerson (D)
District 34-Position 1
Brianna Thomas (D)
District 34-Position 2
Joe Fitzgibbon (D)
District 35-Position 1
Dan Griffey (R)
District 35-Position 2
Travis Couture (R)
District 36-Position 1
Julia Reed (D)
District 36-Position 2
Liz Berry (D)
District 37-Position 1
Sharon Santos (D)
District 37-Position 2
Chipalo Street (D)
District 38-Position 1
Julio Cortes (D)
District 38-Position 2
Mary Fosse (D)
District 39-Position 1
Sam Low (R)
District 39-Position 2
Carolyn Eslick (R)
District 40-Position 1
Debra Lekanoff (D)
District 40-Position 2
Alex Ramel (D)
District 41-Position 1
Janice Zahn (D)
District 41-Position 2
My-Linh Thai (D)
District 42-Position 1
Alicia Rule (D)
District 42-Position 2
Joe Timmons (D)
District 43-Position 1
Nicole Macri (D)
District 43-Position 2
Shaun Scott (D)
District 44-Position 1
Brandy Donaghy (D)
District 44-Position 2
April Berg (D)
District 45-Position 1
Roger Goodman (D)
District 45-Position 2
Larry Springer (D)
District 46-Position 1
Gerry Pollet (D)
District 46-Position 2
Darya Farivar (D)
District 47-Position 1
Debra Entenman (D)
District 47-Position 2
Chris Stearns (D)
District 48-Position 1
Osman Salahuddin (D)
District 48-Position 2
Amy Walen (D)
District 49-Position 1
Sharon Wylie (D)
District 49-Position 2
Monica Stonier (D)
Democratic Party (59)
Republican Party (39)
