Democrat Chopp often ran unopposed, but Socialist Spear wants to unseat him in WA’s Legislature

Seattle saw its first Socialist voted onto the City Council and now another socialist is making a run for the state Legislature.

A relative newcomer, Jess Spear, is taking on House Speaker Frank Chopp, who is seeking an 11th term this fall.

Chopp is popular among Democrats and has often run unopposed, but this is the second time he’ll face off against a Socialist.

During the last election, current Seattle City Councilmember Kashama Sawant sought to oust Chopp and lost with 29 percent of the vote. Spear ran Sawant’s campaign for the House seat and is coming back for more.

I spoke with Spear at the KIRO Radio studios and if you’re confused about what Socialism is, she wants to clear that up.

“It’s about economic democracy, it’s about you and I having a say in our work places, about what’s being produced and how it’s being produced. And, Socialists envision a society where production, where our economy is centered on maximizing meeting human need and environmental sustainability. Not what we have right now where all the production is focused on how do we increase profits,” said Spear.

She’s running on a few platforms including rent control in Seattle, funding for K-12 education and stopping oil trains from moving through Seattle.

In fact, she was arrested last week for sitting on BNSF train tracks.

“I mean, it’s dangerous if you’re not paying attention and you’re not planning it correctly, but what I would say is that we’ve done all we can do through official channels. There have been petitions. There have been letters to elected officials. We’ve held rallies and things like that and if that’s not getting the attention of the media to investigate this and really find out that there’s not a plan. Then sitting on the tracks is worth it,” Spear said.

She accuses Chopp of taking campaign money from BNSF, refineries and oil companies.

“And really not using his position, his platform, to bring attention to it to call for an immediate moratorium to make sure that we’re all safe, especially in his district, I think shows where he really stands on the issue,” Spear said.

I also spoke with House Speaker Chopp, who said he’s accepted money, but often turns money down or returns it if he doesn’t like who it’s from. He only said he’s redirected money from, for example, pay day loan companies.

To Spear’s point, he said the House passed the “Oil Transportation Safety Act” last session. It died in the Senate.

“We actually took action to deal with that situation because we don’t want those oil trains coming through our community. So, we’ve already passed the legislation, it died in the state Senate, but we’ll bring that back next year to make sure that the people in our state are protected,” Chopp said.

The Republican-controlled state Senate was often a road block, according to Chopp. Both he and Spear addressed the state’s woeful under-funding of K-12 education. The non-action is something the State Supreme Court has threatened to hold the Legislature in contempt of court if it can’t come up with the billions to do so.

“There’s huge corporations in this state. There’s no reason why we should not be taxing those wealthy corporations and super wealthy individuals and lift some of that tax burden off working people and fully fund our social services – fund education, fund transportation. He’s responsible for not really moving in that direction and so we challenge that,” Spear said.

Chopp points out that under his leadership in the House, they passed a bill to fully fund basic education. But, again, it died in the Senate.

“We proposed, for example, closing several tax loopholes to fund education and the senate didn’t go along with those except for one. So, it’s a matter of priorities. We put our kids first. That’s what matters,” Chopp said.

He would have closed tax loopholes worth “tens of millions” of dollars for “big oil.” And also pointed to the “Educational Legacy Trust Fund” which he set up years ago that will help fund education.

One tax loophole he doesn’t regret was the nearly $9 billion one the Legislature gave Boeing just last year. Boeing threatened to leave the state without it and Spear thinks Chopp and others should have called Boeing’s bluff.

“I think we should look at the fact that Boeing is leaving no matter what we do. I mean, we gave them three billion dollars in 2003 and they went and built an assembly plant in another state so it seems that no matter what we do Boeing is going to be leaving and while they’re leaving our state they’re also not paying taxes so I think that strategy is not working. We need to have a conversation about what we can do in order to keep the jobs and if they leave, what can we do using that money that they’re not paying into our treasury so that we can create jobs?” asked Spear.

Chopp said you can’t fund education without a vibrant economy and Boeing gives our state just that.

“I think in the case of the Boeing situation. We responded to the workers, the machinists and other folks said ‘look we need to continue these incentives in order to save tens of thousands of jobs’ so I listened to the workers and we moved forward on that,” he said.

Socialist Jess Spear and Democratic incumbent Frank Chopp are the only two candidates running in the 43rd District race. So, by default, both will move on to the November election.

Spear is not daunted by the thought of being the lone Socialist in the state Legislature.

“I’m sure there are people who don’t necessarily agree with me but if we want to work to end corporate loopholes I’m happy to work with Republicans that are unhappy with ‘cronie capitalism’ and want to end corporate loopholes so really I’m willing to work with anybody that’s willing to fight for what working people need,” Spear said.

Chopp said he has decades of work to prove to the voters he should get that 11th term.

“Primarily because of the record I have which is very significant in terms of actually getting programs done, implemented and funded,” Chopp said. I could give you lots of examples of that, including covering all the kids in the state with health care; also expanding funding for education, protecting the safety net that literally has saved thousands of lives in this state and in the city and so I have a very strong record on a progressive agenda and I’ve carried it out.”

Correction on Aug. 11: