Jenny Durkan: From running for Rainier to running for Seattle mayor

Former Western District U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan will announce her campaign for Seattle mayor Friday morning at a news conference on Beacon Hill, her campaign staff confirmed Thursday afternoon.

Seattle mayoral candidates

Durkan’s official candidacy comes four days after Mayor Ed Murray confirmed he he will not run for re-election. Murray faces allegations that decades ago he sexually abused four minors.

Durkan, an Issaquah native and University of Washington Law School graduate, served as the local U.S. Attorney under President Obama from 2009 to 2014. The appointment made Durkan the first openly gay U.S. Attorney in the nation’s history.

In a post late Thursday on Medium, Durkan said she is willing to fight for what she believes is right.

“I was one of the trial lawyers who fought the Republicans in court when they tried to unseat Democratic Governor Chris Gregoire in 2005,” she wrote in the piece titled, “Hi, I’m Jenny Durkan.”

“More recently, I was at SeaTac airport the day that Donald Trump’s executive order banning Muslims came down, working on the front lines to make sure people who arrived here lawfully could stay,” she wrote.

But perhaps the most surprising revelation was this nugget: Durkan apparently made extra money as a part-time Wild Rainier bottle while in law school.

Writes Durkan, “In a less-well paying gig, I played a Rainier Beer bottle in the Running of the Rainiers commercial. It was the first Fat Tuesday celebration in Seattle — and was labeled by one of our esteemed local papers “Unlawful Tuesday. I am one of the beers. You may be able to spot my legs.”

The deadline to file as a candidate for mayor is May 19.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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