This Washington
Marcee Stone: Campaign Finance Activist Makes Her Case in the 34th
This article was originally published on May 1. Given that Stone got the sole endorsement of the 34th District last night, by a wide margin, we are re-running it.
And here are profiles on her Democratic rivals, Joe Fitzgibbon and Mike Heavey. Fitzgibbon came in second last night and Heavey did not seek the endorsement.
Marcee Stone is quiet and intent, staying a few steps ahead as we go door to door in West Seattle's sleepy High Point neighborhood. Kenyon Foxworthy, her campaign manager, is a pace behind, walking slowly and flipping through his clipboard. Stone, 57, is running for the open House seat in the 34th District, which includes West Seattle, Burien, White Center, Vashon, and Maury Island. (Foxworthy, 24 and baby faced, is a recent graduate of The Evergreen State College.)
"Aja Stanman," reads Foxworthy, marking the name off of his clipboard. Stone ascends the stairs toward the house.
The couple who answer the door are Aja and Mat Riddle, and they listen politely as Stone introduces herself. Stone has three points (labor rights, tax reform, and campaign finance reform) that she brings up at any given door we come to; for Aja and Mat, Stone chooses her obvious favorite.
"It pretty much all comes down to campaign finance reform," Stone tells Aja and Mat. "What I'm trying to do is take the money out of politics."
Stone, who lives in West Seattle and works as a legal secretary at Cozen O'Connor, a large, national law firm based in Seattle, tells them that she is the only candidate running who is only taking money from private individuals—no corporations or political action committees.
Mat nodded and smiled. "That's fantastic," he said.
Mat had a couple of points he wanted to talk about with Stone, most importantly that he was upset with the state legislature's vote this session to suspend I-960, a Tim Eyman initiative which requires a two-thirds majority vote to raise taxes (34th District Sen. Joe McDermott co-sponsored the bill that continues to temporarily suspend I-960). "You know, I think [I-960] really ties legislators' hands behind their backs," Stone told Mat. He doesn't necessarily seem convinced, but he listens to Stone, and it's clear he likes her.
"Great people," Stone said softly as we walked back to her car, a Volkswagen Jetta, with Green Day's American Idiot spinning in her CD player.
I called the Riddles later to see what they thought of Stone. "We both felt pretty positive about her. And we definitely want to read up on her some more," said Aja (who admitted that she didn't know anything about Joe Fitzgibbon or Mike Heavey, the two other Democrats in the race). The Riddles told me that Stone didn't change their minds about suspending I-960, but that they liked her point and "it definitely didn't feel like she was blowing smoke."
The other issue Stone talked about with the Riddles, public campaign finance, is the central issue in Stone's campaign. She says it's the main reason she got involved in politics. (In 1999, when she organized against cellphone towers in West Seattle, she ended up getting inspired to fight for public campaign financing as she noticed the influence of telecom companies in City Hall.) "I believe it is a crux of what's really wrong with our government," Stone told me, adding: "I want to give the residents here the confidence that I represent them, that I'm not taking money from people like Wal-Mart." (Local labor Democrats associate Wal-Mart with killing a Democratic bill during the 2006 session that would have forced big employers that skimped on health care—forcing low-wage workers onto state health care—to pay into a workers health fund.)
Up until announcing her candidacy in February, Stone was board president of Washington Public Campaigns, an activist group that works for campaign finance reform in Washington State. Stone said one of her main priorities in Olympia would be a bill that died on the floor this session, which was also co-sponsored by Sen. McDermott, that would provide the option for candidates for the state supreme court to gather all campaign funds from private individuals.
Like her push to revamp election financing, Stone's other objectives are also on the macro side—mostly, she wants to focus on labor rights. One of her top legislative priorities is taking the Democrats to task for not passing the Employee Privacy Act—a bill that got headlines during the 2009 session when Democratic leadership—Gov. Chris Gregoire, Senate Majority Leader Sen. Lisa Brown (D-3) and Speaker of the House Rep. Frank Chopp (D-43)—refused to hear it, arguing that labor was playing unethically by threatening to withhold donations if the Democrats didn't pass it. (The bill is more show than substance according to most observers, but essentially, it makes a statement about management holding captive anti-union meetings.)
"I think the Democratic Party needs to repair its relationship with the labor unions," Stone says. Stone is dating defeated Port Commission candidate Max Vekich, a former longshoreman and eight-year Democratic state legislator (D-35) who ran for the Port with strong union backing (Foxworthy worked communications for Vekich's campaign).
And, like Heavey and Fitzgibbon, Stone pushes tax reform, citing the high-earners tax initiative recently filed by Bill Gates, Sr, which she supports but says "doesn't give working people like myself any type of break at all from the sales tax." Stone said she would like to drastically reduce or completely eliminate the sales tax and institute an across-the-board income tax (a point she brings up several times while doorbelling in the 34th).
Tim Nuse, chair of the 34th district Democrats, worked on state Democratic policy with Stone, who is the district's state committeewoman and worked on the resolutions committee, drafting bills for the party. Nuse told me the assessment that Stone is focused single-mindedly on campaign finance reform is unfair (Stone herself acknowledged to me that some see her as a one-issue candidate, which could be a problem. Former 43rd District Democrat Chair Dick Kelly ran for the House in 2007 on public campaigns too. He didn't make it through the primary.)
"She really had a strong ability to jump into the pertinent issues," said Nuse, who also told me he is solely endorsing Stone's campaign (the 34th District Democrats as a whole will make their endorsement on May 12).
Stone seems to enjoy talking to her constituents face to face, but she gets nervous and flustered at candidate forums. She got visibly upset at conservative radio host John Carlson at a forum in Burien this week, when he asked questions relating to immigration reform and tax revenue. She demurred, saying, "you know, I don't appreciate, that, these questions are really coming from a certain prism."
Stone refers often to the same Democratic Party points as Heavey and Fitzgibbon (stormwater runoff pollution in the Duwamish River, for example, as well as introducing a progressive income tax), but she has a tendency to deliver vague, winding answers.
At the 34th District Democrats forum on April 14, she stumbled—twice—through a point about school confidentiality policies and teens with substance abuse problems (she hasn't brought it up since then). Although, now she can't avoid that tricky territory. The candidates were asked by Carlson at the latest forum in Burien about a parent's right to be notified if their child has an abortion. "This is an encroachment on our personal rights," Stone answered, without explaining much.
According to the Public Disclosure Commission, Stone's raised $14,893.67 and spent $7,104.27. Her balance of $7,789.40 puts her between Fitzgibbon's total of $6,445.49 and Heavey's $10,269 (an independent, Geoffrey "Mac" McElroy, is also in the running—he's raised $3,610).
Stone lent her campaign $5,000 so she could take a two-week break from "the frenetic pace" of fund raising, she told me. She lists among her sole endorsements Seattle City Council Member Tom Rasmussen and State Sen. Eric Oemig (D-45, Woodinville). She also has one labor endorsement—ILWU local 52, the longshoreman's union, Vekich's union.
Stone graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Fine Arts and worked for several years as an actress in Seattle and New York City (she cites her membership in the Screen Actors Guild as a foundation to her pro-union stance and marks her fight against the cell phone towers in 1999 as her real start in politics.)
Stone and Foxworthy doorbell for about an hour before calling it quits. They stop at the house of Kristen Love, another High Point resident. "One of my goals is to take the money out of politics," Stone tells Love.
"Oh, I'm all for that," says Love from her doorway. "Yeah, you've got my vote." Stone smiles and thanks her, and they chat a bit before Stone walks back down the front steps.
"She was nice," Stone says, walking on to the next house.
And here are profiles on her Democratic rivals, Joe Fitzgibbon and Mike Heavey. Fitzgibbon came in second last night and Heavey did not seek the endorsement.
Marcee Stone is quiet and intent, staying a few steps ahead as we go door to door in West Seattle's sleepy High Point neighborhood. Kenyon Foxworthy, her campaign manager, is a pace behind, walking slowly and flipping through his clipboard. Stone, 57, is running for the open House seat in the 34th District, which includes West Seattle, Burien, White Center, Vashon, and Maury Island. (Foxworthy, 24 and baby faced, is a recent graduate of The Evergreen State College.)
"Aja Stanman," reads Foxworthy, marking the name off of his clipboard. Stone ascends the stairs toward the house.
The couple who answer the door are Aja and Mat Riddle, and they listen politely as Stone introduces herself. Stone has three points (labor rights, tax reform, and campaign finance reform) that she brings up at any given door we come to; for Aja and Mat, Stone chooses her obvious favorite.
"It pretty much all comes down to campaign finance reform," Stone tells Aja and Mat. "What I'm trying to do is take the money out of politics."
Stone, who lives in West Seattle and works as a legal secretary at Cozen O'Connor, a large, national law firm based in Seattle, tells them that she is the only candidate running who is only taking money from private individuals—no corporations or political action committees.
Mat nodded and smiled. "That's fantastic," he said.
Mat had a couple of points he wanted to talk about with Stone, most importantly that he was upset with the state legislature's vote this session to suspend I-960, a Tim Eyman initiative which requires a two-thirds majority vote to raise taxes (34th District Sen. Joe McDermott co-sponsored the bill that continues to temporarily suspend I-960). "You know, I think [I-960] really ties legislators' hands behind their backs," Stone told Mat. He doesn't necessarily seem convinced, but he listens to Stone, and it's clear he likes her.
"Great people," Stone said softly as we walked back to her car, a Volkswagen Jetta, with Green Day's American Idiot spinning in her CD player.
I called the Riddles later to see what they thought of Stone. "We both felt pretty positive about her. And we definitely want to read up on her some more," said Aja (who admitted that she didn't know anything about Joe Fitzgibbon or Mike Heavey, the two other Democrats in the race). The Riddles told me that Stone didn't change their minds about suspending I-960, but that they liked her point and "it definitely didn't feel like she was blowing smoke."
The other issue Stone talked about with the Riddles, public campaign finance, is the central issue in Stone's campaign. She says it's the main reason she got involved in politics. (In 1999, when she organized against cellphone towers in West Seattle, she ended up getting inspired to fight for public campaign financing as she noticed the influence of telecom companies in City Hall.) "I believe it is a crux of what's really wrong with our government," Stone told me, adding: "I want to give the residents here the confidence that I represent them, that I'm not taking money from people like Wal-Mart." (Local labor Democrats associate Wal-Mart with killing a Democratic bill during the 2006 session that would have forced big employers that skimped on health care—forcing low-wage workers onto state health care—to pay into a workers health fund.)
Up until announcing her candidacy in February, Stone was board president of Washington Public Campaigns, an activist group that works for campaign finance reform in Washington State. Stone said one of her main priorities in Olympia would be a bill that died on the floor this session, which was also co-sponsored by Sen. McDermott, that would provide the option for candidates for the state supreme court to gather all campaign funds from private individuals.
Like her push to revamp election financing, Stone's other objectives are also on the macro side—mostly, she wants to focus on labor rights. One of her top legislative priorities is taking the Democrats to task for not passing the Employee Privacy Act—a bill that got headlines during the 2009 session when Democratic leadership—Gov. Chris Gregoire, Senate Majority Leader Sen. Lisa Brown (D-3) and Speaker of the House Rep. Frank Chopp (D-43)—refused to hear it, arguing that labor was playing unethically by threatening to withhold donations if the Democrats didn't pass it. (The bill is more show than substance according to most observers, but essentially, it makes a statement about management holding captive anti-union meetings.)
"I think the Democratic Party needs to repair its relationship with the labor unions," Stone says. Stone is dating defeated Port Commission candidate Max Vekich, a former longshoreman and eight-year Democratic state legislator (D-35) who ran for the Port with strong union backing (Foxworthy worked communications for Vekich's campaign).
And, like Heavey and Fitzgibbon, Stone pushes tax reform, citing the high-earners tax initiative recently filed by Bill Gates, Sr, which she supports but says "doesn't give working people like myself any type of break at all from the sales tax." Stone said she would like to drastically reduce or completely eliminate the sales tax and institute an across-the-board income tax (a point she brings up several times while doorbelling in the 34th).
Tim Nuse, chair of the 34th district Democrats, worked on state Democratic policy with Stone, who is the district's state committeewoman and worked on the resolutions committee, drafting bills for the party. Nuse told me the assessment that Stone is focused single-mindedly on campaign finance reform is unfair (Stone herself acknowledged to me that some see her as a one-issue candidate, which could be a problem. Former 43rd District Democrat Chair Dick Kelly ran for the House in 2007 on public campaigns too. He didn't make it through the primary.)
"She really had a strong ability to jump into the pertinent issues," said Nuse, who also told me he is solely endorsing Stone's campaign (the 34th District Democrats as a whole will make their endorsement on May 12).
Stone seems to enjoy talking to her constituents face to face, but she gets nervous and flustered at candidate forums. She got visibly upset at conservative radio host John Carlson at a forum in Burien this week, when he asked questions relating to immigration reform and tax revenue. She demurred, saying, "you know, I don't appreciate, that, these questions are really coming from a certain prism."
Stone refers often to the same Democratic Party points as Heavey and Fitzgibbon (stormwater runoff pollution in the Duwamish River, for example, as well as introducing a progressive income tax), but she has a tendency to deliver vague, winding answers.
At the 34th District Democrats forum on April 14, she stumbled—twice—through a point about school confidentiality policies and teens with substance abuse problems (she hasn't brought it up since then). Although, now she can't avoid that tricky territory. The candidates were asked by Carlson at the latest forum in Burien about a parent's right to be notified if their child has an abortion. "This is an encroachment on our personal rights," Stone answered, without explaining much.
According to the Public Disclosure Commission, Stone's raised $14,893.67 and spent $7,104.27. Her balance of $7,789.40 puts her between Fitzgibbon's total of $6,445.49 and Heavey's $10,269 (an independent, Geoffrey "Mac" McElroy, is also in the running—he's raised $3,610).
Stone lent her campaign $5,000 so she could take a two-week break from "the frenetic pace" of fund raising, she told me. She lists among her sole endorsements Seattle City Council Member Tom Rasmussen and State Sen. Eric Oemig (D-45, Woodinville). She also has one labor endorsement—ILWU local 52, the longshoreman's union, Vekich's union.
Stone graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Fine Arts and worked for several years as an actress in Seattle and New York City (she cites her membership in the Screen Actors Guild as a foundation to her pro-union stance and marks her fight against the cell phone towers in 1999 as her real start in politics.)
Stone and Foxworthy doorbell for about an hour before calling it quits. They stop at the house of Kristen Love, another High Point resident. "One of my goals is to take the money out of politics," Stone tells Love.
"Oh, I'm all for that," says Love from her doorway. "Yeah, you've got my vote." Stone smiles and thanks her, and they chat a bit before Stone walks back down the front steps.
"She was nice," Stone says, walking on to the next house.
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