UNITED STATES SENATOR
27 candidates are running against incumbent Maria Cantwll to be your next senator from Washington state. They include an old hippie, a crazy gun guy, a Nazi saluter, a dude whose North Korea policy is to "kick Jung's ass," and, of course, GoodSpaceGuy.

Senator Cantwell is a heavy favorite to win re-election and will easily make it through our top two primary and onto the general election. The top contender to join her on the ballot in November is Susan Hutchinson, a Trump-loving, Sarah Palin wanna-be who thinks creationism is science and the government should be able to tell a woman what to do with her body. She's not a good person.

Cantwell has been a decent Senator in her 18 years in office. Her major misstep, however, was her 2002 vote authorizing George W. Bush to attack Iraq. I vowed at that moment to never vote for her again. And fortunately I haven't had to, as she easily beat her Republican opponents in 2006 and 2012.

I'm hoping Cantwell once again doesn't need my vote in 2018. She certainly doesn't need it in the primary election. But neither does the old hippie, the crazy gun guy, the Nazi, GoodSpaceGuy, or most certainly Susan Hutchinson. In fact, wouldn't it be great if no Republican made it through to the general election? That's my goal.

VOTE CLINT TANNEHILL

UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVE,
CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT NO. 7
Exactly two years ago, a wise man wrote of Pramila Jayapal: "After 9/11 she founded Hate Free Zone (now called OneAmerica), whose goal is to protect the rights of immigrants, especially Arabs and Muslims. And depending on who wins the White House in November, this could be one of the most important issues our representatives in Washington DC face in the coming years."

That wise man was me.

And when I wrote those words, I really had no clue that Donald Trump would actually be sitting in the White House in January 2017. Or that the U.S. government would be banning Muslims from entering the country. Or that the U.S. government would be separating children from parents seeking asylum. Or that the U.S. government would implement a citizenship question on the U.S. census.

But that's where we are now, and Representative Jayapal has been one of the strongest voices and most active members in the U.S. House fighting against Donald Trump's racist, ill-informed, and misguided policies. We should be proud to call her our congressperson for the next two years and beyond.

VOTE PRAMILA JAYAPAL*

*future Speaker of the House?

LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT NO. 43, SENATOR
Jamie Pedersen has served in the Washington State Legislature since 2006, but hasn't faced an electoral opponent in the past 10 years. That changes in 2018, when Pedersen goes up against mighty Republican challenger Dan "I Will Work" Harder.

Dan has a pretty nice website. Well, it looks nice, but the content sucks. Dan wants to reduce the minimum wage, make sure the wealthy don't pay taxes, kill light rail, and build more roads. His greatest civil rights complaint is "the attempted silencing of the College Republicans by the UW administration." Who will defend the poor, disenfranchised college Republicans? Dan will!

Jamie Pedersen is a bike commuter and proponent of improving cycling infrastructure and safety. He's a light rail advocate. And his office helped me out when I had a dispute over Washington's health insurance law. I should probably vote for him. However, he currently has three photos of himself with disgraced former Seattle mayor Ed Murray on his website, which I find to be in incredibly poor taste. I have emailed Jamie and told him that if he wants my endorsement (and my vote), he needs to remove those photos immediately. I'll let you know how it goes. Until then...

WRITE IN ALEX P. KEATON

LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT NO. 43, REPRESENTATIVE POSITION NO. 1
If you added about 10 years and 40 pounds to Dan Harder, you'd get John Peeples. Their resemblance is eerily similar, especially when you look at their respective headshots taken at the exact same location in West Seattle (which is nowhere near the 43rd District, guys). Their policies are also similar, and despite the fact that Peeples supports a gas tax and liberal arts education, he will not be getting my vote.

Nicole Macri has a long background working on low income housing and other issues around homelessness. No, she hasn't solved our legislative district's homeless crisis in her first two years in the State House, but who could? We need her to keep working on it.

VOTE NICOLE MACRI

LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT NO. 43, REPRESENTATIVE POSITION NO. 2
When Frank Chopp was first elected to the Washington State House of Representatives, Rick Mirer was the starting quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks, Amazon was just some river in South America, and Sleepless in Seattle jokes were still funny. A lot has changed since then, but Frank (and his mustache) are still in Olympia, taking credit when things are good and blaming others when things are not.

Frank has two opponents this election cycle, and while I'd really love to see a new face in this seat someday, this it not the year.

His Independent opponent, Boris Joffe, isn't too clear on many issues, except he is against "feces on the streets" (which I can totally get behind, but it's a rather crappy platform). Frank's Republican opponent, Claire Torstenbo, is young and eager for change, but that change includes removing bike and HOV lanes, opposing safe injection sites, and supporting regressive tax policy.

Frankless in Seattle? Not yet.

VOTE FRANK CHOPP

PROPOSITION NO. 1, REGULAR PROPERTY TAX LEVY
AUTOMATED FINGERPRINT IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM SERVICES
This proposition seems like a no-brainer. If you've ever watched a cop show, you know that fingerprint identification is technology ubiquitous in cracking cases. This six year property tax levy of 3.5 cents per $1,000 assessed value (basically $21 a year on a $600,000 home) would fund the continued operation of, and improvements to, the King County fingerprint identification system. It's replacing an expiring levy first approved in 1990. Seems like an easy "YES" vote, right?

Well, maybe.

It has recently come to my attention that buried deep in the proposition's "fine print" (not really that deep, it's on page 7) is the proposal that this levy money could be used to research new biometric technology, which could include creepy Big Brother tactics like facial recognition. If Proposition No. 1 was a blank check to fund government facial recognition technology research, I would not vote for it. But the safeguards are fairly well documented—any biometric technologies that fall outside of fingerprint-based services will be assessed by privacy rights experts and advocates, and then reviewed by the King County Council.

Keep an eye on the government that's keeping an eye on you, but...

VOTE APPROVED (AND DONATE TO THE ACLU)