(Image: Friends of Sameer Ranade)
The 43rd District may represent a large swath of Central Seattle in Olympia but the race — for now, at least — will be filled with Capitol Hill candidates.
Sameer Ranade, a Capitol Hill resident and campaign associate for the Washington Environmental Council, has announced his campaign for the 43rd District seat being left vacant as Rep. Brady Walkinshaw sets his sights on Washington D.C.
“Environmental protection and social justice have been the driving force of my career,“ Ranade said in his announcement. “I seek to make good on the legal obligation our state has to future generations by achieving our statutory limits to reduce heat-trapping, ocean acidifying carbon emissions and to fully fund basic education.”
The 35-year-old joins homelessness and low income housing expert Nicole Macri, an 11-year Capitol Hill resident, who announced her candidacy last week. With a deep resume in homelessness and low income housing work, Macri started with a strong roster of endorsements including City Council members Sally Bagshaw, Lisa Herbold, Mike O’Brien, and former councilors Nick Licata and Sally Clark. Real Change founder Tim Harris and former Tenants Union director Jon Grant have also backed Macri’s campaign.
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Ranade will start with a shorter list including Tony Lee, the co-chair of the King County Chapter of the Asian Pacific Islander Coalition, and Frank Loy, “who served as Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs in the Clinton Administration, and worked with Ranade on a volunteer led group called the Energy and Environment Team for reelecting President Barack Obama,” according to the announcement.
A third candidate in the 43rd, LGBTQ advocate Thomas Pitchford, quietly entered the 43rd District race in January. The Capitol Hill resident told CHS he decided to take a “slow approach” to the campaign and would likely have a public-facing campaign launch in March.
In his announcement, Ranade said he would be a champion of LGBTQ rights and the environment. “I have helped mobilize, engage, and learn from communities of color and labor rights groups,” Ranade is quoted as saying in the announcement. “And I organized folks to advocate for legislation in Olympia in 2015 that would have charged a fee on carbon pollution and invested in essential priorities like public schools, affordable housing, transit, and air quality improvements. I know that we can and must tackle multiple social problems together. Victory isn’t achieved unless we both limit pollution and invest in our people.”
You can learn more at electsameer.com.
