Jessyn Farrell

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Jessyn Farrell
Image of Jessyn Farrell

Democratic Party

Prior offices
Washington House of Representatives District 46-Position 2
Elections and appointments
Last election

August 3, 2021

Education

High school

Lake Forest Park and Shoreline public schools

Bachelor's

University of Washington

Law

Boston College Law School

Personal
Profession
Transit advocacy
Contact

Campaign website

Campaign Facebook

Campaign Twitter

Campaign Instagram

Personal Facebook

Jessyn Farrell (Democratic Party) was a member of the Washington House of Representatives, representing District 46-Position 2. She assumed office in 2013. She left office on June 1, 2017.

Farrell ran for election for Mayor of Seattle in Washington. She lost in the primary on August 3, 2021.

Farrell was a candidate for mayor of Seattle in Washington. Farrell was defeated in the primary election on August 1, 2017.

Elections

2021

See also: Mayoral election in Seattle, Washington (2021)

General election

General election for Mayor of Seattle

Bruce Harrell defeated M. Lorena Gonzalez in the general election for Mayor of Seattle on November 2, 2021.

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Bruce Harrell
Bruce Harrell (Nonpartisan)
 
58.6
 
155,294
Image of M. Lorena Gonzalez
M. Lorena Gonzalez (Nonpartisan)
 
41.2
 
109,132
 Other/Write-in votes
 
0.3
 
777

There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 265,203
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for Mayor of Seattle

The following candidates ran in the primary for Mayor of Seattle on August 3, 2021.

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Bruce Harrell
Bruce Harrell (Nonpartisan)
 
34.0
 
69,612
✔
Image of M. Lorena Gonzalez
M. Lorena Gonzalez (Nonpartisan)
 
32.1
 
65,750
Image of Colleen Echohawk
Colleen Echohawk (Nonpartisan)
 
10.3
 
21,042
Image of Jessyn Farrell
Jessyn Farrell (Nonpartisan)
 
7.3
 
14,931
Silhouette Placeholder Image.png
Submit photo
Arthur Langlie (Nonpartisan)
 
5.6
 
11,372
Image of Casey Sixkiller
Casey Sixkiller (Nonpartisan)
 
3.4
 
6,918
Image of Andrew Grant Houston
Andrew Grant Houston (Nonpartisan)
 
2.7
 
5,485
Silhouette Placeholder Image.png
Submit photo
James Donaldson (Nonpartisan)
 
1.6
 
3,219
Silhouette Placeholder Image.png
Submit photo
Lance Randall (Nonpartisan)
 
1.4
 
2,804
Image of Clinton Bliss
Clinton Bliss (Nonpartisan) Candidate Connection
 
0.8
 
1,618
Silhouette Placeholder Image.png
Submit photo
Omari Tahir-Garrett (Nonpartisan)
 
0.2
 
391
Silhouette Placeholder Image.png
Submit photo
Bobby Tucker (Nonpartisan)
 
0.2
 
377
Image of Henry Dennison
Henry Dennison (Nonpartisan)
 
0.2
 
347
Image of Stan Lippmann
Stan Lippmann (Nonpartisan)
 
0.2
 
323
Image of Don Rivers
Don Rivers (Nonpartisan)
 
0.1
 
189
 Other/Write-in votes
 
0.2
 
386

There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 204,764
Candidate Connection = 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.


2017

See also: Municipal elections in Seattle, Washington (2017)

The following candidates ran in the primary election for mayor of Seattle.[1]

Mayor of Seattle, Primary Election, 2017
Candidate Vote % Votes
Green check mark transparent.png Jenny Durkan 27.90% 51,529
Green check mark transparent.png Cary Moon 17.62% 32,536
Nikkita Oliver 16.99% 31,366
Jessyn Farrell 12.54% 23,160
Bob Hasegawa 8.39% 15,500
Mike McGinn 6.50% 12,001
Gary Brose 2.16% 3,987
Harley Lever 1.81% 3,340
Larry Oberto 1.67% 3,089
Greg Hamilton 0.92% 1,706
Michael Harris 0.76% 1,401
Casey Carlisle 0.71% 1,309
James Norton Jr. 0.54% 988
Thom Gunn 0.25% 455
Mary Martin 0.23% 422
Jason Roberts 0.22% 405
Lewis Jones 0.19% 344
Alex Tsimerman 0.14% 253
Keith Whiteman 0.09% 174
Tiniell Cato 0.09% 170
Dave Kane 0.06% 114
Write-in votes 0.23% 418
Total Votes 184,667
Source: King County, "2017 election results," accessed August 15, 2017


Endorsements

General election

The following table displays group endorsements issued in Seattle's 2017 general election. Click [show] on the box below to view endorsements.

Primary election

The following table displays group endorsements issued in Seattle's 2017 primary election. Click [show] on the box below to view endorsements.

2016

See also: Washington House of Representatives elections, 2016

Elections for the Washington House of Representatives took place in 2016. The primary election was held on August 2, 2016, and the general election was held on November 8, 2016. The candidate filing deadline was May 20, 2016.

Incumbent Jessyn Farrell ran unopposed in the Washington House of Representatives, District 46-Position 2 general election.[36]

Washington House of Representatives, District 46-Position 2 General Election, 2016
Party Candidate
    Democratic Green check mark transparent.png Jessyn Farrell Incumbent (unopposed)
Source: Washington Secretary of State


Incumbent Jessyn Farrell ran unopposed in the Washington House of Representatives District 46-Position 2 top two primary.[37][38]

Washington House of Representatives, District 46-Position 2 Top Two Primary, 2016
Party Candidate
    Democratic Green check mark transparent.png Jessyn Farrell Incumbent (unopposed)
Source: Washington Secretary of State

2014

See also: Washington House of Representatives elections, 2014

Elections for the Washington House of Representatives took place in 2014. A blanket primary election took place on August 5, 2014. The general election was held on November 4, 2014. The signature filing deadline for candidates wishing to run in this election was May 17, 2014. Incumbent Jessyn Farrell (D) and Branden Curtis (R) were unopposed in the primary. Farrell defeated Curtis in the general election.[39][40][41]

Washington House of Representatives, District 46-Position 2 General Election, 2014
Party Candidate Vote % Votes
     Democratic Green check mark transparent.pngJessyn Farrell Incumbent 82.3% 42,004
     Republican Branden Curtis 17.7% 9,012
Total Votes 51,016

2012

See also: Washington House of Representatives elections, 2012

Farrell won election in the 2012 election for Washington House of Representatives, District 46-Position 2. Farrell advanced past the August 7 blanket primary election and defeated Sarajane Siegfriedt (D) in the general election, which took place on November 6, 2012.[42][43]

Washington House of Representatives, District 46-Position 2, General Election, 2012
Party Candidate Vote % Votes
     Democratic Green check mark transparent.pngJessyn Farrell 63.8% 40,228
     Democratic Sarajane Siegfriedt 36.2% 22,838
Total Votes 63,066
Washington State House of Representatives, District 46-Position 2 Blanket Primary, 2012
Party Candidate Vote % Votes
     Democratic Green check mark transparent.pngJessyn Farrell 30% 10,560
     Democratic Green check mark transparent.pngSarajane Siegfriedt 22.2% 7,823
     Republican Scott M. Hodges 17.8% 6,271
     Democratic Shelly Crocker 15.8% 5,571
     Democratic Dusty Hoerler 12.3% 4,350
     Independent Stan Lippman 1.9% 656
Total Votes 35,231

Campaign themes

2021

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Jessyn Farrell did not complete Ballotpedia's 2021 Candidate Connection survey.

Campaign website

Farrell's campaign website stated the following themes.

“

Pre-pandemic, two-thirds of new jobs created in Washington were in Seattle. But not enough of our community shared in that prosperity. In one of the most prosperous cities in America before the pandemic, why were so many — renters and homeowners, young families and seniors, and vulnerable communities — struggling to live with dignity in our city?

To answer that question, look no further than the impending collapse of the West Seattle bridge. After years of neglecting to fix it, the bridge has become emblematic of the city’s approach to most every problem: filling cracks with no real foresight or oversight to solve the underlying problem.

We can do better. As we all come together again in the wake of this pandemic, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a more just and equitable city where we all share in Seattle’s wealth and opportunity — but only if we have the bold leadership needed to truly tackle the root causes of the inequities plaguing our city.

As mayor, Jessyn will enact the progressive policies we know will grow our economy, create broad prosperity, and give Seattle an unbeatable competitive advantage in attracting family-wage jobs post-pandemic — not resort to the austerity that prolonged the Great Recession for so many of us.

Jessyn will work to put more money in people’s pockets and create portable benefits like retirement savings, affordable health care, and paid family & medical leave for gig workers, artists, domestic workers, and small business owners. And she’ll do so while re-imagining the relationship the mayor builds with her constituents by developing those policies in true partnership with community advocates.

She will accomplish all of this because she isn’t new to the problems we’ve battled as a city, both during and before this pandemic.

#FreshStart for Families

Free Universal, Birth-to-Five Childcare is Essential Infrastructure

We know that strong and reliable infrastructure like roads, transit systems, and internet access is essential for Seattleites to be successful in our daily lives. Without these elements, everything from running errands, to commuting, to visiting loved ones is far more difficult.

The pandemic has proven that childcare is also basic infrastructure and a necessity for parents to be able to work. Families in Seattle have long struggled with the high cost of childcare in Seattle – approximately $20,160 annually – and the lack of available slots. As a working mom, I know this firsthand. Childcare workers have also struggled to make ends meet with low wages and few benefits. Investing in childcare infrastructure will help working parents, especially women, get back to work, and will create economic security for those working in the industry.

Establishing free, universal, publicly-funded education for the first five years of childrens’ lives will require a significant investment. But the long-term costs of failing millions of our children and their families year after year are much, much higher. In fact, children who attend Head Start or other pre-kindergarten programs are less likely to be arrested or abuse substances later in life, and are more likely to attend and complete college. For every dollar the government spends on high-quality preschool programs it saves at least $7 in future spending on social services, remedial education, public safety and juvenile justice.

If we can build childcare infrastructure such that families have access in every single neighborhood, in the way we have neighborhood schools in our K-12 system, Seattle will continue to advance our competitive edge, attracting new inhabitants, encouraging businesses to stay and locate here, and enhancing our economy.

Our plan to create free, universal birth-to-five childcare includes three components:

Pillar 1: Build Childcare in Every Neighborhood: Build new or upgrading existing childcare facilities with fully subsidized rent for childcare operators.

Pillar 2: Ensure Childcare Is Affordable for Every Family: : Match the Biden Administration’s $300 payments per child for childcare costs.

Pillar 3: Economic Stability for Childcare Workers: Create portable benefits for childcare workers.

PILLAR 1: BUILD CHILDCARE FACILITIES IN EVERY NEIGHBORHOOD:

Free Childcare Facilities in Every Neighborhood through the FreshStart for Families Plan: For years, our city’s childcare providers have endured high rental expenses due to a lack of space. Just as we do with public schools, we must ensure that every neighborhood has the childcare capacity families need. To support that major, badly-needed investment, in my first year I will transmit my FreshStart for Families plan that calls for a city-wide bond to fund new facilities and upgrades for existing facilities and family childcare.

  • These spaces will be available rent-free to providers
  • We will require that the cost-savings for using fully subsidized space go into employee wages and benefits.
  • The bond measure will ensure that no family in Seattle lives in a childcare desert.
  • We must require our next comprehensive plan update, which lays out how Seattle will grow, to include childcare facilities in every neighborhood.

PILLAR 2: ENSURING CHILDCARE IS AFFORDABLE FOR EVERY FAMILY

1. Giving Families Monthly Payments: Currently, both Washington state and the City of Seattle assist low-income and middle-income families in need by paying for portions of their childcare costs. But statewide, the subsidy program only assists roughly one-third of the families that use licensed childcare. To close this gap, we must subsidize the cost of childcare by delivering monthly payments to all families. These payments will match existing child tax credits in President Biden’s plan for $300/month per child under 6 and $250/month per child 6 and older. Benefits will adjust on a sliding scale for single parent households who make more than $75,000 and for two-parent households who make more than $150,000 to ensure the families who need the most assistance are receiving the majority of benefits.

2. Cutting Red Tape to Access Existing Programs: In Washington, eligible residents can get access to childcare assistance through subsidy programs. However, childcare facilities must opt in to participating programs and often do not due to low reimbursement rates and administrative burdens. Together, we must build a childcare infrastructure that simultaneously guarantees widespread access via universal acceptance of subsidized care and delivers a simplified, revenue-positive process of accepting subsidized care for our providers. First, we must increase the amount of subsidies that childcare facilities receive so that they are properly compensated for their services and time. Next, the City of Seattle must assist our childcare facilities by hiring a robust pool of shared administrative staff who will be dedicated to efficiently processing applications and paperwork so that families get care faster and facilities are freed up to focus on what matters: caring for our city’s future leaders.

3. Pass a Wealth Tax via Ballot Measure: To make universal birth-to-five childcare a reality and level the playing field for hardworking Seattle families, we need a comprehensive and robust influx of funding. The city must set a tax floor via ballot measure for wealthy households so these households contribute an annual tax based on their net worth. This will build on the work done in Olympia this session to fund early childhood education with a wealth tax on extraordinary profits while complying with Washington’s constitutional requirement that all individuals are taxed at uniform rates.

PILLAR 3: SUPPORTING SEATTLE’S CHILDCARE WORKERS

Working in the childcare industry requires investing time and energy into the education and training needed, as well as a commitment to serving one’s community. As such, it is long past time our city streamline giving childcare workers the wages, benefits, respect, and flexibility that they deserve.

According to MomsRising.org, childcare workers are compensated so poorly in the state of Washington that they are paid less than dog groomers. As of 2018, a childcare center worker in King County made an average annual income of just $24,552. These low wages only magnify the gender and racial disparities with respect to income for our city’s childcare workers, who are disproportionately women and more than 50 percent people of color. Without higher wages, more access to benefits, and intentional policy decisions to address gender and racial disparities, the childcare workforce will continue to struggle with financial security, stable employment, and the desire to continue working in the essential profession of childcare.

1. Portable Benefits Pilot Project for Childcare Workers: In order to increase talent within and stabilize the childcare industry as a whole, the city will pioneer a pilot project to subsidize the cost of workers’ benefits and enable employees to retain those benefits across providers. These benefits will include health insurance and retirement programs. Under this pilot project, employees will also be eligible for profit-sharing.

2. Unionization of the Childcare Workforce: Washington is a proud union-supporting state. By ensuring that the childcare workforce can also take part in unionization and collective bargaining, we can make sure that this essential workforce secures their rights, fair pay, and equitable employment practices.

3. Ensuring Childcare Workers Can Live in the Communities They Serve: Through ST3 for Housing, we’ll build the tens of thousands of affordable housing units we need to solve our affordability crisis. That will allow the talented professionals who devote themselves to a career caring for our children to live in the communities their service supports.

#FreshStart on Climate Action Plan

Seattle Needs a #FreshStart on Climate

The climate crisis is no longer something we have the luxury of trying to avoid in the future; it is already upon us. Wildfire smoke chokes our skies and our lungs, torrential rains in the winter flood our homes, and the pollution from dirty energy production ravages the health of people of all ages in our frontline communities.

We can address and prevent an immense amount of tragedy, and every day presents a new chance to make progress in this fight. We can build a more just, equitable, and sustainable city where we all prosper from the investments needed to decarbonize our economy and avert the worst of this crisis.

But with Seattle’s emissions currently rising, the last ten years of city leadership on this issue represent a real failure that we cannot afford to repeat any longer. Our leaders have received no shortage of credible warnings about these consequences from scientists, community activists, and policy experts.

It’s time for a #FreshStart on Climate and a renewed sense of urgency to enact transformative policies and build the critical infrastructure equal to the scale of the crisis we face. The stakes could not be higher, but we know what it takes to reduce climate emissions: thriving, walkable neighborhoods centered around transit, investments in vulnerable communities who have borne the brunt of the health and economic impacts of a changing climate, clean zero-emission buildings, and a decarbonized energy sector.

As mayor, I’ll provide the leadership necessary to get Seattle back on track to meet our climate goals and put in place policies to reach zero net emissions by 2030. But I will not be able to solve this problem single-handedly – just as this policy agenda was developed in collaboration with community activists and civic leaders, we will need the entire city of Seattle to come together in a shared commitment to decarbonizing our economy. It is my commitment to work collaboratively with the diversity of communities across the city, Tribes, large and small businesses, unions, financial institutions, academia, philanthropies, the nonprofit sector, and regional, state and federal partners to implement this plan. Our history in this city shows that with a sense of common purpose we can successfully tackle our biggest obstacles.

The policy agenda outlined below is ambitious, but it is more than simple aspiration — it represents a commitment to enact comprehensive solutions that will actually solve the problems we face. I believe we can accomplish this agenda, because I’ve spent my entire career working on enormous challenges. As Executive Director of Transportation Choices Coalition, as a state legislator and at Civic Ventures I’ve fought successfully to get in place billions in public investments that will truly allow us to reduce climate emissions – transit, walking, biking and trip reduction, housing around transit, and habitat preservation.

Let’s dedicate ourselves to meeting our climate goals so that our kids will grow up and live in a world with a climate that still works – where food production is still reliable, weather patterns are reasonably predictable, and major sea level rise is held at bay. We can do this, but more importantly we must do this. Continued failure is simply no longer an option.

Sections of Jessyn’s #FreshStart on Climate Action Plan:

Environmental Justice

Transportation

ST3 for Housing

Building for the Future

Healthy Economy

Climate Resilience

#FreshStart on Gun Violence Prevention

A Seattle Without Gun Violence is Possible

2020 was the worst year for gun violence in decades. Nearly 20,000 people lost their lives and another nearly 40,000 were injured because of guns. In between headlines of devastating mass shootings, our communities have been gripped by a surge in domestic violence, suicide, and street shootings. Gun violence is a pandemic that has been ravaging our city long before COVID–19, and like many crises it has only been made worse by the economic collapse, social isolation, and instability of the last year. When we say, gun violence is a public health crisis, it is more than just a slogan. It means that we must bring the same relentless focus on data, public education, and execution that it takes to overcome any other pandemic. Just like with COVID–19, there are tools and strategies that must be expanded for all of us to do our part to reduce gun violence.

Ultimately, no matter who you are or where you live– you deserve to feel safe. No one should live in fear that at any moment a person with a gun might shoot you. In Seattle, we have witnessed weekly and sometimes daily shootings: at our malls like the recent Southcenter shooting, in our own homes in the case of a 16 year old killed in Rainier Beach last week, or on our streets two weeks ago in the Central District on 23rd and Jackson.

As Mayor, I would commit to a serious and comprehensive vision for zero shootings in our community. This goal is achievable because we know that gun violence IS preventable. We know what works, we just need the conviction to do it.

There is incredible work happening right now in our city to prevent gun violence. Whether it is the gains we’ve made in implementing Extreme Risk Protection Orders, the efforts of the Regional Domestic Violence Firearms Enforcement Unit to get guns off our streets, or the work of innovative violence prevention organizations like Community Passageways, there is cause for hope and renewed commitment to end gun violence.

However, the urgency of this crisis requires a #FreshStart on Gun Violence Prevention. We know that our efforts have not yet been enough to eradicate this epidemic. To finally end gun violence, we must build the social, cultural, and economic supports that create healthy and thriving communities for everyone in our city while tearing down systems of oppression, white supremacy, and hate.

If we invest in helping communities thrive, treat gun violence as a public health crisis, and bring a renewed and relentless focus on removing dangerous access to firearms– we can and will live in a city with zero shootings.

Sections of Jessyn’s #FreshStart on Gun Violence Prevention Plan:

Helping Communities Thrive

Gun Violence is a Public Health Crisis

Safe Schools and Safe Communities

Making Sure Everyone in Seattle Has a Safe Place to Call Home

Like you, I am frustrated by our city’s lack of progress on ending homelessness. Current and past city leaders have simply failed to address this humanitarian crisis, find supportive housing for those in need, and keep our streets and parks available for all to use. It’s time to finally deliver the help people experiencing homelessness need so they can get housing, access to services, and end the cycle of homelessness. Period. No more excuses or passing the buck. My plan is simple: housing, services, caseworkers, and taxpayer accountability. As Mayor, I commit to:

Secure and Build More Short- and Long-Term Housing

We’ve known for the duration of this crisis that solving homelessness in Seattle at its core will require getting services to people currently experiencing homelessness while investing in stable, long-term housing options. However, we do not currently have the housing stock to accommodate the population of people experiencing homelessness, which has only grown during the pandemic. In collaboration with the Regional Homelessness Authority, my administration will explore every available solution to secure reliable housing for people experiencing homelessness as quickly as possible, including acquiring properties like hotels to speed up our efforts to get every person a safe place to call home.

  • In One Year – We will provide over 2,000 interim housing options, including hotel rooms, tiny homes, and FEMA emergency housing.
  • In Four Years – We will expand access to supportive housing options, including 3,500 units of permanent supportive housing.
  • In Eight Years – We will build or buy over 70,000 units of affordable housing across the city in every neighborhood.

Better Services: Healthcare, Drug Treatment, and Sanitation

We will provide critical healthcare, drug treatment, and sanitation for people experiencing homelessness by deploying caseworkers and medical professionals across the city.

  • One-to-One Support: In partnership with the Regional Homelessness Authority, we will invest in 350 case workers and community liaisons who will be tasked with developing relationships with each person living outside and who can connect them to needed services and housing.
  • New 911 Response for Emergency and Non-Emergency Responses: We will scale up programs like Seattle Fire’s Health One program to get trained healthcare professionals to people in crisis for both emergency and non-emergency calls. We also must invest in training programs so that our first responders are equipped to provide the appropriate support to people in need.
  • Opioid Response: We must rapidly scale up low-barrier mechanisms for delivery of medications for opioid use disorder and work with experts to develop solutions that will prevent the use of opioids in our communities, neighborhoods, alleys, yards, and parks. This includes “upstream” approaches like working with the medical community and state partners to promote alternate pain management strategies, prescription monitoring programs, safe storage and disposal of prescriptions, and training for medical professionals to identify disuse early.
  • Sanitation: The conditions within homelessness encampments are inhumane and unsafe. In order for our social service providers and first-responders to assist these populations, we must provide necessary sanitation services. We will provide access to showers and other sanitation options regularly, including through mobile sanitation units and portable restrooms.

Bringing Housing, Caseworkers, and Services to People Living in Parks and on Sidewalks

Parks and sidewalks where people of all ages and abilities can recreate are integral to a thriving Seattle – and they are not safe places for people to sleep. That’s why I will commit to bringing housing, services, and caseworkers to people living in specific parks and streets – so that you know whether your city government is effectively deploying taxpayer resources to address this humanitarian crisis.

Year One locations include: Jefferson Park, Lake City Park, Occidental Square, Haller Lake, Ballard Commons, North Aurora, and any Seattle Public Schools property with unsheltered people.

Regional, State, and Federal Coordination

The City cannot address this alone, and that’s why I will also work with the Regional Homelessness Authority, King County government, the state legislature, the Governor, and our Congressional delegation to assist in funding this critical effort. Study after study has told us that truly ending this humanitarian crisis will take up to a billion dollars of additional public investment each year for the next ten years. Seattle needs a mayor who can deliver results on that scale, and I’m the only candidate in the race with a proven track record of actually securing billions of dollars for investments in our region.

Making Seattle Safer by Transforming Public Safety

My north star is that no one in our community should feel unsafe going about their daily lives, and I believe our strategies and budgets must reflect our values.

Our system of public safety is broken because our leaders have failed us. In response to last summer’s protests, they teetered incompetently between two extreme options: allowing unacceptable escalation of police violence, and abandoning a police station and the people it served. We have allowed Black and brown residents to disproportionately bear the brunt of policing and police violence. We ask armed officers to respond to mental health crises and traffic stops. We suffer a financial and moral loss by taking the high-cost, unjust approach of criminalizing addiction rather than the lower-cost, values-aligned approach of investing in treatment. We have watched gun violence grow.

Everyone in Seattle deserves to feel safe. To ensure this ideal becomes Seattleites’ lived experience, we must build a public safety budget grounded in what research shows keeps people safe. We know that true public safety means more than just a traditional policing response. We can achieve safe, thriving communities by making strategic investments to address the root causes of the issues that spread fear, anger, and hopelessness in our city. We need to reimagine how we police communities and how we invest in community resources that will have the largest impact on public safety in our neighborhoods. We need to develop both short-term and long-term strategies and set clear, achievable goals to measure the return on our investments.

As mayor, these are the beliefs I’ll stand for.

  • We’re asking police—especially armed officers—to do far too much. Armed officers are not the answer to jaywalking, directing traffic, fare enforcement, drug possession, or mental health crises. Police should be able to focus on preventing and responding to violent crime, property crime, drug distribution, and similar issues. They should provide this focus across all of Seattle, without over-policing BIPOC neighborhoods.
  • Solutions should fit the problem. We need to invest in mental health professionals as our first responders to mental health crises. We need to invest in community-based organizations as our first responders to crimes of poverty, addiction, or trauma.
  • Keeping Seattle safe requires addressing our basic needs. Everyone deserves a safe place to sleep. We need safe places for children to play outside. We need to offer mental health services to those in crisis and treatment to those suffering from addiction. We need a strong, inclusive economy that addresses the rapidly growing racial wealth gap. We need food justice.

While overhauling our system of public safety will require substantial investments of both time and resources to scale up alternatives to traditional policing, City Hall can take immediate action on several issues to make a real difference in people’s lives. In the first year of my administration, here are my priorities:

1. Safe and Effective Crisis Response: As we saw in Charleena Lyles’ case, getting someone the support they need the first time they call for help is absolutely critical. Charleena called for emergency assistance 17 times before SPD officers killed her when responding to a reported burglary at her home, demonstrating just how broken our current crisis response system is. We must reallocate responsibilities for responding to people in crisis away from armed police officers and expand our investments in alternatives like Seattle Fire’s Health One program to get trained health care professionals to people in crisis across the entire city. We also must invest in training programs so that our first responders are equipped to provide the appropriate support to people in need. Finally, we must scale up investments in social services so that caseworkers with the appropriate expertise can work with individuals both during and after the immediate crisis is resolved to address the underlying cause of the emergency.


2. Building Safety into Transportation Systems: More than 1 in 10 fatal shootings by police occur during traffic stops. There are many alternatives to armed police officers to promote transportation safety. As Mayor, I will prioritize building safety measures into our transportation systems instead of solely relying on interactions with armed police officers. Going further, we can minimize the role of police in traffic enforcement altogether. We can redesign our streets to include natural barriers to regulate traffic. We can improve infrastructure for cycling and walking. We can solve for the unacceptably discriminatory way fare enforcement is conducted on our city’s public transportation by simply removing fares entirely. We can, and will, find alternative means of funding public transit that do not expose people to potentially violent interactions with the police.

3. Detective Work Around Property Crime: Property crime happens in hot spots, and SPD should be focusing its efforts on interrupting that cycle. But too often these types of criminal activity are not addressed with urgency, due to lack of resources and lack of personnel available. Without addressing these hotspots of crime, we let the cycle continue and often escalate further. As Mayor, I will prioritize funding programs that investigate these kinds of crimes before they escalate to more major criminal acts.

4. Modernizing Seattle’s Criminal Code: The easiest and fastest way to reduce opportunities for violent interactions with law enforcement is to stop treating minor offenses as crimes that require enforcement by an armed police officer. In my administration, SPD will no longer be responsible for enforcing laws where we have clear evidence that the department’s enforcement has been discriminatory against people of color and that pose little to no risk to our city’s public safety. Jaywalking and failure to follow bike helmet requirements should not be considered criminal offenses. I’ll also shift the focus of SPD’s drug law enforcement to prioritize individuals and organizations distributing and selling illicit substances. For people struggling with substance abuse, we will decriminalize simple possession and follow a caseworker model to get people the medical treatment they need instead of ensnaring them in the criminal legal system.

5. Rebuilding Community Trust Through Transparency and Accountability: We will never be able to heal as a city and build trust in our civic institutions if there isn’t full transparency and accountability for those in the current administration who participated in the wanton violation of people’s civil rights during the protests following George Floyd’s murder. If the King County Prosecuting Attorney or the Attorney General have not investigated the failure of Mayor Durkan’s administration to produce records demonstrating who was responsible for authorizing the use of tear gas in Capitol Hill last summer, I will. That means turning over any and all records or correspondence from that period available to my administration, and working with an independent investigation to recover any records the current administration has failed to produce on this issue.

6. Refusing to Negotiate Away Accountability: We must take accountability off the negotiation table. We simply cannot compromise on the demand that SPD be held responsible for ensuring its officers do their jobs while respecting the humanity and constitutional rights of everyone in our city. Mayor Durkan and the City Council approved a SPOG contract in 2018 that unacceptably undermined the mechanisms for officer accountability that community advocates fought to pass in I-940 and have codified in city law. I will not accept a contract that attempts to bargain away accountability, period.

Specifically, we must return to the preponderance of evidence standard for evaluating officer misconduct that was undermined in the last contract, negotiate reasonable constraints to officer overtime hours, and prevent officers from avoiding discipline and decertification through early retirement. Furthermore, we must ensure that the new SPOG contract no longer hamstrings the Office of Police Accountability by unacceptably limiting staffing levels for investigators, improperly preventing community stakeholders from collecting or providing evidence during investigations, removing transparency for families, the public or tribal representatives, and imposing unreasonable time limits on investigations. SPD’s response to the protest movement last summer was wholly unacceptable, and the inability of OPA to adequately investigate and hold officers accountable is a direct result of city leadership ceding ground on accountability during the last SPOG contract negotiation.

7. Community-based Programs: Violence prevention organizations like Community Passageways are working every day to heal the wounds created by centuries of systemic oppression. Communities on the front lines have simultaneously borne the brunt of the gun violence epidemic and been left on their own to solve it. Whether through youth diversion, re-entry assistance, or other interventions to prevent violence, these organizations have been working for decades to keep our community safe. Our city must recognize them as some of the most effective tools to interrupt cycles of violence and fund them accordingly. These groups need the resources necessary to meet the scale of the demand for their services, and as Mayor I’ll make sure they get the support they need. Our leaders must listen, and engage deeply in participatory budgeting to divert funds from traditional public safety systems that are not working to keep us safe, and invest in the diverse network of alternatives that will create true safety in our community.

8. Gun Violence Prevention: Eliminating gun violence requires investments in healthcare, education, economic justice and trauma-informed intervention. It requires prioritizing policing resources for programs like the Regional Domestic Violence Firearms Enforcement unit and extreme risk protection order implementation that have measurable impacts on reducing and preventing violence in our communities. We’ve already seen City Hall’s promise to allocate $30 million through participatory budgeting get bogged down by infighting between the Mayor’s Office and City Council, sowing distrust in the city’s ability to deliver on its promises. I’ll cut through the existing Seattle Process by establishing a city-wide Office of Violence Prevention whose goal is to reduce gun violence in Seattle, be accountable to the community, and operate with full transparency. This new city office would invest in year-round public education, act as a grant-making authority to effective community violence prevention programs, and oversee implementation of gun safety initiatives across city, state, and regional boundaries. I’ll prioritize staffing this new office with community leaders who have spent years working on these issues, and work with trusted community-based organizations to set measurable, achievable goals to hold my administration accountable for making progress. All of these policy measures would help our city save lives and reduce gun violence. For more detail on how we can achieve a Seattle without gun violence, read our full plan here.

9. Treating Addiction: To start, we need to partner with the State’s Department of Health to scale up treatment solutions called for in DOH’s Opioid Response Plan. We must rapidly scale up low-barrier mechanisms for delivery of medications for opioid use disorder and work with experts to develop solutions that will prevent the use of opioids in our communities, neighborhoods, alleys, yards, and parks. This includes “upstream” approaches like working with the medical community and state partners to promote alternate pain management strategies, prescription monitoring programs, safe storage and disposal of prescriptions, and training for medical professionals to identify misuse early in a patient’s course of treatment. These efforts must be designed to scale to all forms of chemical dependency.

Safe and Sustainable Transportation for All

For far too long, Seattle has played catch-up on transportation instead of leading the way. We need a transportation system that provides people with equitable, safe, reliable, affordable and climate-friendly travel choices. Whether it be by foot, transit, bike, or car, we should spend less time traveling and more time where we want to be. While in recent years Seattle has successfully reduced single-occupancy vehicle travel, we can do better. We will connect communities to each other and to more educational and employment opportunities with clean, reliable and convenient buses and trains, and safe walking, biking, and rolling options. This starts with integrating transportation and land-use, recognizing the best and most sustainable transportation system is one where you live close to where you need to go.

A world class city with a high quality of life requires a safe and equitable transportation system. A robust array of sustainable choices is a hallmark of such a system. As mayor, I intend for Seattle to be that world class city—that is world class no matter your age, ability, or mobility needs.

Putting Safety First

I believe every transportation death is a preventable death. In 2019, Oslo and Helsinki became the first major cities to demonstrate that all traffic deaths can be prevented, and also showed how their efforts led to improved sustainability and quality of life as well. In Seattle, we have experienced 15-25 tragic deaths on our roads per year over the past decade. For pedestrians, it has gotten much less safe. We only had two pedestrian deaths on our roadways in 2011, but by 2019, that had increased 650 percent to 15 deaths. We know the solutions to prevent this; Oslo and Helsinki point the way. We need leadership with the will to take the steps necessary to achieve success for a safer city.

Unsafe streets put our most vulnerable at risk, including children, older adults, and people with disabilities, and have a disproportionate impact on BIPOC communities. We are blessed to be situated in a beautiful environment. A city that is safe and enjoyable for people to experience outside, without their cars, will be a healthier and more sustainable city with a higher quality of life for all Seattleites. Twenty deaths per year and 150 serious injuries on Seattle streets are unacceptable, preventable tragedies. We have the solution; now we must act.

What we will do:

  • Create Safe Routes to Every School, Park and Grocery Store – When life’s essentials are easy to reach without a car, we reduce traffic and improve health. We will build 100 blocks of sidewalks, install 100 miles of protected bike lanes, improve 100 crossings, and create 100 miles of Stay Healthy Streets, resulting in safe routes to every school, park and grocery store in the city. A vibrant and safe Seattle enables our children to walk or bike to school, eradicates food deserts, and enables people in all communities to walk, bike, roll or take transit for convenient connections to essential services.
  • Ensure Safety by Design – Poor street design encourages high speeds. Lowering speed limits is a start, but we should create spaces where safety is by design. We will engage our neighbors in context sensitive design to redesign the most dangerous streets in every neighborhood, including the 10 streets with the most crashes citywide. For example, we will bring special emphasis to projects in South Seattle around Martin Luther King Jr Way S, Rainier Avenue, and Beacon Avenue where communities of color have been asking for safe transportation routes due to disproportionately high fatalities and injuries.
  • Reduce Reliance on Armed Officers for Traffic Enforcement – Design solutions can also reduce bias from policing while better controlling unsafe auto use. Focusing on equity, I will use my experience in the state legislature to finally win authority to expand Seattle’s use of cameras for speed, red-light and intersection or “block the box” enforcement to reduce our reliance on armed police officers for enforcing simple traffic laws. Cameras are not biased as long as we are fair and equitable in their distribution through the city, and they reduce police interactions which too often become violent.

Investing in an Equitable Transit System

In the history of our cities, including Seattle, transportation equity and racial equity are inextricably tied. Transportation has been used as a tool to both create and support inequality. The Federal and local government build highways by destroying Black neighborhoods. Highways were also used as a way to segregate Black Americans from white Americans. Buses themselves were sites of segregation. Rosa Parks’ famous refusal to accept that injustice served as a pivotal moment for the Civil Rights movement, demonstrating that public transportation also presents us with opportunities to address past wrongs and achieve a more equitable future.

We have yet to fully seize this opportunity. Our current commuter-centric transit network is not designed to serve the needs of the majority of low-wage workers, BIPOC communities, and people with disabilities. Transit is not affordable for many people in these communities, and even when people in these communities live near transit, they do not feel that it consistently got them to where they needed to be on time. I will ensure that everybody benefits from transit investments, in particular people from marginalized communities. Research also shows a disproportionate amount of transportation investments have been made in white neighborhoods, leaving communities of color with broken sidewalks, broken sidewalk lamps, arterials that are deadly to cross, and few options for biking and walking.

What we will do:

  • Prioritize Investments and Expansion According to Community Needs – There is a mismatch between our current transportation investments and the needs of low-wage workers, BIPOC communities, and people with disabilities. As I did when leading Pierce Transit’s effort to preserve critical transit service for marginalized communities in the face of a 30% service reduction, I will work with communities who have been neglected by City Hall to prioritize our transit investments to meet their needs. We will rely on community organizations who have the relationships with and trust of these communities to tell us where and how to best reconcile that mismatch, empowering those most in need of more reliable public transit to shape the City’s transit policy.
  • Institute an Equity-first Priority Policy for Transportation Investment – We will prioritize transportation investments for those communities who have been actually harmed by prior transportation investments like I-5 cutting through the International District, or those communities who have not received enough investment in the past like Southeast Seattle’s lack of bike infrastructure. Furthermore, as King County Metro is assessing how it prioritizes its routes, we need to ensure that equity is its first criteria, while recognizing productivity and geographic value as other important criteria to consider.
  • Build Affordable Housing around Transit Hubs – A more diverse and inclusive city is one where families of every income level are able to raise their kids and older households are able to age in place in housing that is affordable with easy access to fast, reliable transit. I’ll build the 70,000 additional affordable housing units we need across the city centered on our 54 transit hubs, with robust anti-displacement policies and programs to create alternative pathways to homeownership.
  • Create Affordable Alternatives to Car Ownership – Cars are often the second highest cost for many households after housing, and yet the bus or train may not work for all trips, and not everyone is able to ride a traditional bike in our hilly city. With this in mind, I will ensure everyone in Seattle has convenient and affordable access to an electric bike or scooter to make it easier to safely travel around our city without the high cost of owning a car.

Ensuring People Can Easily Access Everything Needed for a Healthy Life

Living in a city is about having access to all the amenities we need, including housing, medical care, and fresh food. A great city ensures everyone can access those needs no matter their mode preference or mobility needs. We will bring amenities closer to housing, bring new housing closer to transit, and ensure we have an array of safe and usable transportation choices for all community members. Trips that are easy for an able-bodied person can be filled with impediments for people with disabilities. This creates huge barriers to access schools, medical care, groceries, work, and fully participating in the community. We will make our city more accessible so everyone can safely and conveniently reach their destination with dignity.

What we will do:

  • Improve Walkability – More than 25% of all trips are less than a mile. We will ensure short trips are easy, safe and enjoyable with non-vehicle travel by improving sidewalks, building new crosswalks, and expanding Stay Healthy streets.
  • Build Transit-oriented Housing – With ST3 for Housing, we will ensure new homes are affordable and near transit and amenities, so they do not create new car trips and allow people of all income levels to live in our city.
  • Increase Accessible Transit – Many people with disabilities rely on transit to get around but have difficulties standing for long periods of time at bus stops or difficulties getting to stations safely and easily. We will make our bus stops more accessible with bus shelters, benches, and loading platforms. We will ensure elevators are operating at light rail stops and that people can get to the stations safely through sidewalks, crosswalks, and other transit. Transit isn’t truly accessible unless our paratransit options enable everyone in Seattle to conveniently get where they need to go, and our investments in making Seattle’s transit system more accessible must necessarily include making paratransit options more accessible as well.
  • Build and Maintain Accessible Sidewalks – People with disabilities should be able to get around their neighborhood safely without having to roll into the street to avoid broken sidewalks, or get stuck on a street with no ramp. We will build more curb ramps, more crosswalks, and fix broken sidewalks. We will expand government programs to clean debris, and in the event of another snow storm we will institute emergency measures to assist Seattleites with disabilities in clearing snow and ice from their sidewalks.

Expanding Transit to Support an Equitable Economy

Transit is the backbone of any great city. As Seattle continues to grow, we need to make sure the infrastructure is in place for the city to continue to thrive in an equitable and sustainable way. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted everyone’s lives but it has disproportionately impacted people of color and low-income communities. Transit is a lifeline in those communities for access to work, school, family, and essential services. During the pandemic, our public transit system transported essential workers who keep our city functioning. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity for a fresh start on transit expansion by focusing on those that need it most to provide a safe, equitable and efficient transportation system in Seattle. To support the equitable development of communities neglected by public investments from City Hall for decades, our transit system must efficiently serve needs beyond downtown-centric trips.

What we will do:

  • Build out ST3 and Plan for Expansion – The speed and reliability of light rail is transformational. Seattle needs a light rail plan that connects more of our city faster. We will pursue a plan to fully connect our city, and focus on speeding up ST3 to connect West Seattle, Ballard, Uptown and South Lake Union. We’ll do this in partnership with community organizations working to ensure the economic development that accompanies light rail expansion doesn’t lead to more displacement and gentrification, and includes design that focuses on physical improvements that will serve the people with deep roots in these neighborhoods.
  • Build an Inclusive and Accessible Network – We will implement a comprehensive network that provides services for all neighborhoods with accessible connections to frequent transit and the light rail spine. We will create 100 miles of bus-only lanes, with an emphasis on east/west routes across our city, making bus rides faster and more reliable. We will create a transit system that fully accommodates people with disabilities, elderly, children, women and families.
  • Develop a Citywide Transportation Master Plan – We will develop a new master plan that provides a vision of what equitable and inclusive transportation looks like in Seattle. This plan will include all transit modes: light rail, BRT, local bus, streetcar, pedestrian, bike and micro-mobility options to ensure people who rely on multiple modes of transit for a single trip experience fewer delays transferring between modes.
  • Implement Fare-Free Transit for All – We will move towards free transit for all trips in the city, funded through a collaboration with regional, state, and federal partners. I’ll use my experience delivering billions in funding for transit to build the coalition needed to make this a reality, and pursue every possible intermediary policy to expand programs that currently subsidize fares while decriminalizing failure to pay fares on transit.
  • Provide Low-income Programs for Shared Mobility Options – Under my leadership, the City will provide affordable programs to expand mobility options for low income households such as carshare, rideshare and bike- or scooter-share.
  • Create a Connected City at the Center of a Connected Region – Building high speed rail to connect our region and create better access to jobs and housing is a high priority. Connecting Seattle to Portland and Vancouver B.C. with high speed trains also means connecting Seattle to Tacoma, Olympia, Everett, Bellingham and other communities. For essential workers outside of Seattle, a 15 minute commute will be a vast improvement over a 90-minute one, powering our economy while improving quality of life and reducing both carbon emissions and traffic.

Getting Back to Basics: Bridges and Infrastructure

In the past few years, the Mayor and City Council have not prioritized identifying long-term, reliable and equitable solutions to maintaining our streets, bridges and sidewalks. We are losing ground on basic safety and maintenance work, and now face a backlog totaling nearly $2 billion. We must reaffirm our commitment to maintaining and improving our existing transportation system, while continuing to create a system that gives people safe and reliable choices to get where they need to go. Seattle continues to fall behind on maintaining our core system and we’re lagging behind other major cities in making our transportation system safer for all users.

I will be a Mayor who isn’t afraid of making tough decisions. It is unacceptable that more than a year has passed since the West Seattle Bridge unexpectedly closed, cutting off reliable access to 20 percent of the households in our city. The communities in West Seattle have struggled with longer travel times, challenges getting to necessary medical appointments, and more difficult commutes. Surrounding communities, including South Park are bearing the brunt of the diverted traffic congestion funneled through their neighborhood. With quicker decision-making the bridge could have re-opened by now.

What we will do:

  • Identify a Funding Strategy – We will work with partners and community stakeholders to identify a long-term strategy to adequately fund and maintain our bridges and other infrastructure. We will be able to plan for the future replacement needs of bridges now so we don’t wait until they fail. We will look toward the future transportation levy renewal and consider a broader range of funding solutions that can more adequately meet our bridge maintenance and replacement needs.
  • Maintain Sidewalks – In addition to being a critical safety concern for people with disabilities, we must focus available resources on sustainably growing the maintenance investments for important needs like sidewalk maintenance and crosswalk markings to ensure our city’s most basic infrastructure serves everyone’s needs.
  • Make Quick, Data-informed Decisions – A failure to identify reliable funding for infrastructure maintenance isn’t the only West Seattle Bridge-related delay we cannot afford to repeat. We’ll prevent another situation like the ongoing West Seattle Bridge closure with quicker decision-making and action rooted in data to ensure maintenance occurs with as little disruption in service as possible.
  • Explore New, Equitable Funding Sources – As Mayor, I will support the concept of studying equitable mobility pricing to not only help fund future bridge replacement, but also create a more equitable transportation system with investments in transit and neighborhood safety in disadvantaged communities

Building a City of Mobility Innovation

Seattle, a hub for so much of the world’s innovation, should be the center for “innovation done right.” We need innovation that promotes the values of our city and its communities and doesn’t distract us from our laser focus on the nuts and bolts which are critical to making our city vibrant, livable, and well-functioning. We can spend our time setting “targets” or we can get real about implementing policy. Seattle should know how much of a carbon reduction we would get from red-bus-only lanes on major arterials, and how much carbon reduction would come from a fully built out bicycle network, and what benefit we would see from densifying near transit. Understanding the baseline, we should implement the policies, knowing that there is not one silver-bullet to reducing greenhouse gases in transportation. After the policies are implemented, we should continue measuring the results and seek new innovations until the standing targets are met.

What we will do:

  • Focus on Meeting Community Needs – We will track what is important to communities and create accountability – not just what is easily measured. We will expand on the metrics developed in the 2017 Moving the Needle report and updates process to add context-appropriate goals developed by specific communities and measure things *people* care about rather than just the *systems* that support them.
  • Ask and Listen to Residents’ Needs and Concerns – We will develop tools and mechanisms so the city can learn from residents and businesses where the issues are as people experience them. Seattleite’s experiences, sentiments, concerns, and ideas are important pieces of data which we should reach out to learn from rather than expect it to show up at meetings. We will leverage technology and direct outreach to provide low-barrier points of feedback to overall quality of life as well as specific feedback questions.
  • Not Just Open Data, but Equitably Accessible Data – Insights provided by open data shouldn’t require knowledge in computer programming. We will work to make the insights from open data more accessible across all abilities and technologies.
  • Nuts and Bolts that Make it All Work – We will develop internal skills, procurement mechanisms, and organizational structures for managing technology projects throughout the city rather than localizing in siloed departments which often aren’t well-integrated with other teams or awarding mega-projects to large contractors.
  • Work with Local Data and Technology Experts – There is no shortage of experts in data and technology in Seattle. We should leverage existing partnerships with the UW, the MetroLab Network, West Coast Big Data Innovation Hub, and Pacific Northwest National Lab to prioritize research and development needs based on true Seattle community needs, not just shiny objects which will publish a lot of papers. We will establish regular coordination with community technology groups like Open Seattle to leverage their expertise and feedback and create mutual goals.
  • Be a City of Mobility Innovation – Seattle will be a city that not only pilots and tests new ideas, but actively advances ideas we know work such as electric vehicles. Our innovations will focus on people and equity with the goals of improving safety, access and affordability.[44]
 ”
—Jessyn Farrell’s campaign website (2021)[45]

2017

Farrell's campaign website listed the following themes for 2017:

“

TRANSPORTATION
Being stuck in traffic is the worst. It harms our quality of life, our health, our economy, and our environment. A recent study showed the average Seattle commuter wasted 55 hours stuck in traffic in 2016, ranking us in the top ten nationally for worst gridlock. It wastes our time and money when we all have better things to be doing.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Seattle must be a place where everyone can afford rent, save up to buy a home, and retire on a fixed income. The recent report on record-setting median house prices is ominous news for Seattle and the rest of the region, which has seen an unprecedented level of growth for years now. Seattle is ranked first in the nation for growth, first in price increases for the past seven months, and all while experiencing historically low levels of available homes for sale.

HOMELESSNESS
Too many people in Seattle have experienced homelessness for far too long. Our region’s success economically has caused growing pains, displacing housing that was once affordable and accessible. Meanwhile, those facing challenges related to physical, mental, or behavioral health, domestic violence and other abuse, or challenges in obtaining basic needs continue to struggle.

CHILD CARE
As a working mom and public school parent, I know how important and expensive child care is. A city as innovative as Seattle should be leading the nation in solving the childcare and early-learning affordability challenges facing our families. As a Mayor who would know the struggle these parents face, I want to help Seattle’s parents easily find the highest quality, most appropriate, and most affordable options for their child.

WORKING WITH LOCAL TRIBES
Seattle is extraordinary in many ways, but one of its especially unique features is that it is located within tribal treaty territory. This means that tribes have a role in many of our programs and projects, and that we are partners in ways like no other City. Our water and power supply largely come from tribal treaty lands, and the region’s rich cultural heritage is reflected throughout the fabric of the City.

PROTECTING OUR ENVIRONMENT
I am the environmental candidate in this race. As Vice Chair of the House Transportation Committee, I led on the legislative authorization of Sound Transit 3 with landmark requirements for affordable housing, secured $500 million for housing and education in Seattle, and passed bills that are making our roads and rail system safer.[46][44]

”
—Jessyn Farrell (2017)

2012

Farrell's website highlighted the following campaign themes:[47]

  • Environment
Excerpt: "We need a comprehensive approach that focuses on economic transformation, smart land use and transportation policies, and clean energy investments. ...A low-carbon future is a great future. We can enhance our communities, our environment and our economy by aggressively moving away from a carbon-based economy. We need a much more robust effort to focus on efficiencies that reduce energy use and save money both in the short and long term. ...I support a dedicated funding source for Puget Sound clean up and I would champion policy solutions based on polluter-pays principles."
  • Land Use and Transportation
Excerpt: "In the face of three years of transit service cuts across the state, we need to get back in the game of state funding for transit (currently the state funds about 1% of transit budgets). We also need to continue to provide local jurisdictions with more funding tools, especially in the very near term to prevent further cuts to transit. ...I support investments in bike paths like the Burke-Gilman Trail, clearly marked bike lanes on neighborhood streets, and planning efforts that help communities identify and prioritize bike infrastructure. ...In districts across the state and in the 46th, there are still too many neighborhoods that lack sidewalks, clear pedestrian and bicycle markings and signage, street connectivity, and safe street crossing treatments."
  • Economy
Excerpt: "The key to economic development is job creation. That means growing our diverse economic base, supporting our small business owners, encouraging creativity and fostering innovation, and working aggressively to be on the forefront of the clean energy economy. We must be insistent on developing the emerging markets of clean energy, manufacturing, and technology which will encourage Washington’s economic success regionally, nationally, and globally."
  • Health and Family Planning
Excerpt: "I strongly support preserving a government-mandated social safety net for our underserved residents including family planning grants, medical care for disabled parents, funding for special education, and promoting sick and family leave for all Washingtonians. As a NARAL 100% Pro-Choice Candidate, I will stand up and defend our rights and freedoms for family planning measures, a woman’s right to choose, critical preventative care, and will fight any threat to our progress or erosion of our rights."
  • K-12 Education
Excerpt: "I went to public schools in Lake Forest Park and Shoreline, and attended the University of Washington. My children will go to our neighborhood schools. I am an ardent believer in public education...If elected to represent the 46th District, I will fight to fundamentally change the way we fund education in Washington by helping people connect to the political process, and ensuring that government is accountable and efficient."
  • Higher Education
Excerpt: "All students deserve access to a well-rounded education, but young people currently face major economic barriers to achieving their goals. It is time to start thinking more creatively and strategically about our higher education funding. If elected, I will oppose cuts to funding for higher education at all levels, and will make this a priority in my first term."

Committee assignments

2017 legislative session

At the beginning of the 2017 legislative session, this legislator served on the following committees:

Washington committee assignments, 2017
• Commerce & Gaming
• Rules
• Transportation, Vice chair

2015 legislative session

At the beginning of the 2015 legislative session, Farrell served on the following committees:

2013-2014

In the 2013-2014 legislative session, Farrell served on the following committees:

The following table lists bills this person sponsored as a legislator, according to BillTrack50 and sorted by action history. Bills are sorted by the date of their last action. The following list may not be comprehensive. To see all bills this legislator sponsored, click on the legislator's name in the title of the table.


Campaign finance summary

Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.

Jessyn Farrell campaign contribution history
YearOfficeStatusContributionsExpenditures
2016Washington House of Representatives, District 46-Position 2Won $75,380 N/A**
2014Washington House of Representatives, District 46-Position 2Won $72,858 N/A**
2012Washington State House, District 46-Position 2Won $107,342 N/A**
Grand total$255,580 N/A**
Sources: OpenSecrets,  Federal Elections Commission ***This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
** Data on expenditures is not available for this election cycle
Note: Totals above reflect only available data.

Scorecards

See also: State legislative scorecards and State legislative scorecards in Washington

A scorecard evaluates a legislator’s voting record. Its purpose is to inform voters about the legislator’s political positions. Because scorecards have varying purposes and methodologies, each report should be considered on its own merits. For example, an advocacy group’s scorecard may assess a legislator’s voting record on one issue while a state newspaper’s scorecard may evaluate the voting record in its entirety.

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Click here for an overview of legislative scorecards in all 50 states. To contribute to the list of Washington scorecards, email suggestions to editor@ballotpedia.org.









2017

In 2017, the Washington State Legislature, first session, was in session from January 9 through April 23. There were also special sessions. The first special session was April 24 through May 23. The second special session was May 23 through June 21. The third special session was June 21 through July 20.

Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to the state’s business community.
Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to home building industry issues.
Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to reproductive health issues.
Legislators are scored on their votes on conservative issues.
Legislators are scored on how they voted on firearm policies.
Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to environmental issues.
Legislators are scored on whether they voted for or against WSLC's position.


2016


2015


2014


2013


Missed Votes Report

See also: Washington House of Representatives and Washington State Senate

In March 2014, Washington Votes, a legislative information website, released its annual Missed Votes Report, which provides detailed missed roll call votes on bills for every state legislator during the 2014 legislative session.[50] The 2014 regular session included a total of 515 votes in the State House and 396 in the State Senate, as well as 1,372 bills introduced total in the legislature and 237 bills passed. Out of all roll call votes, 90 individual legislators did not miss any votes. Three individual legislators missed more than 50 votes.[50] Farrell missed 40 votes in a total of 1211 roll calls.

Personal

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Farrell has a husband, Tim, and two children.[51]

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    Footnotes

    1. ↑ King County, Washington, "Who has filed: 2017 candidate filing," accessed May 19, 2017
    2. ↑ Alliance for Gun Responsiblity, "ALLIANCE FOR GUN RESPONSIBILITY VICTORY FUND ENDORSES JENNY DURKAN FOR SEATTLE MAYOR, LEGISLATIVE AND LOCAL CANDIDATES THROUGHOUT WASHINGTON STATE," September 18, 2017
    3. ↑ Democracy for America, "http://democracyforamerica.com/site/page/democracy-for-america-endorses-cary-moon-for-seattle-mayor," September 7, 2017
    4. ↑ Equal Rights Washington, "Endorsements," accessed October 16, 2017
    5. ↑ King County Democrats, "Our Candidates," accessed August 28, 2017
    6. ↑ The Seattle Times, "Moon grabs key Dem nod in Seattle mayor’s race amid Durkan’s union endorsements," August 24, 2017
    7. ↑ M.L. King County Labor Council, "2017 Endorsements," August 24, 2017
    8. ↑ Seattle Education Association, "WEA PAC," accessed October 16, 2017
    9. ↑ Seattle Weekly, "Sweep the Sweepers! Our Endorsements For the Nov. 7 Election," October 18, 2017
    10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 The Stranger, "Labor Split Begins as Cary Moon Gets First Union Endorsement in Mayoral Race," August 25, 2017
    11. ↑ SEIU 925, "2017 Candidate Endorsements," accessed September 19, 2017
    12. ↑ The Seattle Times, "Seattle Times endorsements for the Nov. 7 general election," September 7, 2017
    13. ↑ The Stranger, "The Stranger's Endorsements for the November 7, 2017, General Election," October 11, 2017
    14. ↑ UFCW 21, "UFCW 21 Largest Private Sector Union Endorses Moon for Mayor," September 29, 2017
    15. ↑ The Seattle Times, "Moon backpedals on ‘right to shelter,’ dents Durkan’s labor lead in Seattle mayoral race," September 29, 2017
    16. ↑ KING 5, "Local businesses endorse former US Attorney Jenny Durkan for Seattle mayor," May 30, 2017
    17. ↑ M.L. King County Labor Council, "2017 Endorsements," June 22, 2017
    18. ↑ Metropolitan Democratic Club of Seattle, "Home," accessed July 11, 2017
    19. ↑ Seattle Democratic Socialists of America, "Dispatches," accessed June 23, 2017
    20. ↑ Seattle Education Association, "WEA PAC," accessed June 23, 2017
    21. ↑ Washington Hospitality Association, "Seattle restaurants and hotels endorse Jenny Durkan, Sara Nelson and Scott Lindsay," June 19, 2017
    22. ↑ Seattle Subway, "2017 Primary Endorsements," accessed September 19, 2017
    23. ↑ The Seattle Times, "Editorials," accessed July 11, 2017
    24. ↑ Seattle Met, "Labor Groups Divided on Endorsements for Mayor," July 12, 2017
    25. ↑ Sierra Club PAC Washington State, "Endorsements 2017 Primary," accessed July 25, 2017
    26. ↑ The Stranger, "Kshama Sawant Will Endorse Nikkita Oliver for Mayor, Jon Grant for City Council," May 17, 2017
    27. ↑ The Stranger, "The Stranger's Endorsements for the August 1, 2017, Primary Election," July 12, 2017
    28. ↑ The Urbanist, "2017 Primary Endorsements," July 6, 2017
    29. ↑ UFCW 21, "2017 Primary Election Candidate Endorsement Recommendations," July 11, 2017
    30. ↑ Washington Conservation Voters, "Endorsements," accessed June 23, 2017
    31. ↑ 32nd District Democrats, "2017 Election Endorsements," March 10, 2017
    32. ↑ 36th District Democrats, "Executive Board Makes Recommendations for 2017 Primary!" May 21, 2017
    33. ↑ 37th District Democrats, "2017 Election Endorsements," accessed July 25, 2017
    34. ↑ 43rd District Democrats, "2017 Endorsement Results," June 21, 2017
    35. ↑ 46th District Democrats, "46th District Endorsements," accessed June 23, 2017
    36. ↑ Washington Secretary of State, "General Election Results 2016," accessed December 2, 2016
    37. ↑ Washington Secretary of State, "2016 Candidates Who Have Filed," accessed May 23, 2016
    38. ↑ Washington Secretary of State, "August 2, 2016 Primary Results," accessed August 25, 2016
    39. ↑ Washington Secretary of State, "2014 Candidates Who Have Filed," accessed May 20, 2014
    40. ↑ Washington Secretary of State, "August 5, 2014, Official Primary Results," accessed August 5, 2014
    41. ↑ Washington Secretary of State, "Official general election results, 2014," accessed December 2, 2014
    42. ↑ Washington Secretary of State - 2012 Primary Candidates
    43. ↑ Washington Secretary of State, "August 07, 2012 Primary Results - Legislative - All Results," accessed August 15, 2012
    44. ↑ 44.0 44.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
    45. ↑ Jessyn Farrell's 2021 campaign website, "Issues," accessed July 21, 2021
    46. ↑ Jessyn Farrell for Mayor, "Issues," accessed June 20, 2017
    47. ↑ Jessyn Farrell, "On The Issues," accessed August 2, 2012
    48. ↑ Multi State, "2015 State Legislative Session Dates," accessed July 13, 2015
    49. ↑ StateScape, "Session schedules," accessed July 23, 2014
    50. ↑ 50.0 50.1 Washington Policy Center, "2014 Missed Votes Report for Legislators Released," March 18, 2014
    51. ↑ Jessyn Farrell, "Just the Facts," accessed August 2, 2012
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