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See you in the streets.
See you in community. See you in
the legislature!

My name is Devin Rydel Kelly and I’m running in the 27th LD because I believe true change comes through addressing our state’s deepest structural issues. We must keep working people housed. We must make K-12 school funding equitable and provide free state higher education for all. We must transform to green utilities and infrastructure, guarantee a just transition for workers and create high paying union jobs. We must boldly commit to funding that overturns our rigged tax code, makes Washington’s wealthiest elites pay their fair share, and creates an accessible, equitable public bank.

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Image by Mika Baumeister

key issues in district 27

Housing for all

  • Keep working class people housed and end cycles of eviction and homelessness through rent stabilization and tenant rights

  

  • Create a Department of Housing to investigate speculation and fight off global investors buying our homes, and create a statewide social housing developer to expand supply

  

  • Create zoning laws incentivizing single family homeowners to add density, and a public bank offering low interest financing for remodeled units and mortgages for working families.

equitable education funding

  • Change the school funding model to drive equity throughout lower income communities and lift property tax burden on workers

 

  • Use an equity model to fully fund special education and other essential but woefully neglected programs throughout the state

 

  • Create free tuition at Washington’s four-year universities and two-year colleges, and invest equitably in apprenticeships and other right fit pathways for career-bound youth

Green jobs and

union power

  • Majorly invest in green, union jobs, creating future proof transportation and utility infrastructure, and create a living wage youth jobs corps

 

  • Strengthen labor law statewide, such as providing unemployment for striking workers, creating Community Workforce Agreements, fighting wage theft, and more

  

  • Use the legislative bully pulpit to fight inflation from corporate greed, and consolidation such as the national Kroger and Albertson’s grocery merger

Youth engagement, mental health, violence reduction

  • Make major investments in integrated mental health systems (including dispatch, referral and treatment), using culturally responsive, harm reduction approaches

 

  • Massively expand funding for K-12 advisors, counselors and mental health professionals, and incorporate curriculum such as life skills and civics to help end the school-to-prison pipeline

  

  • Provide robust, state funded before and after school and summer programming, and finally resolve our childcare funding crisis

Make the rich pay their fair share

  • Overhaul Washington’s regressive tax structure that burdens the working poor

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  • Replace our outdated, oppressive sales tax with taxes on obscene incomes and wealth, massive corporations, and real estate speculation

  • Build the political will for this fight now and into the future, either in the legislature or via a people’s referendum to overturn the tax code and create public banking

I believe that together, we can create a world that works for all.

I live and work in Hilltop, organize in communities throughout Tacoma and beyond, and I believe that together, we can create a world that works for all.

 

I’ve called Tacoma home for nearly ten years, and I hope the deep roots I’ve set with my work, neighborhood and partner - herself seven generations deep in Pierce County - will keep me in the 27th LD forever. In this time, I bought my lovely Hilltop home, saw my kids graduate from Tacoma Public Schools, helped create Tacoma’s HOPE crisis response team, and led in Tacoma For All, the coalition that recently won us the strongest tenant protections in the state.

supported victories

01

Measure 1, A Tenant Bill of Rights for Tacoma

02

Tacoma’s non police HOPE crisis response team

03

Required housing affordability in Seattle

04

Jamika Scott’s City Council race

05

Many union and labor fights

progressive initiatives
i already support

If the legislature won’t do it, then the people should!

01

A new referendum for statewide taxes on incomes and assets for billionaires and the ultra wealthy

02

A referendum for universal healthcare, such as “Whole Washington”

03

A referendum for statewide rent stabilization

Regressive Initiatives
I will firmly Oppose

Any and all billionaire backed “astroturf” initiatives this year, including:

01

The effort to repeal Washington’s Capital Gains tax, which only taxes the 3,000 richest investors in the state!

02

the effort to undermine our state’s new long-term healthcare program

03

The effort to undo years of progress on protecting our environment

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Image by Wei Zeng

Prior to calling the gritty city home, I spent almost 20 years fighting for justice throughout the northwest. At just 18 years old, I co-founded the Idaho Progressive Student Alliance, and organized with a mutli-racial, interfaith campaign to win minimum wage for migrant farmworkers.

My true passion is education equity

I spent five years as a rank-and-file leader in the University of Washington academic union, six as an education researcher and organizer with SEIU Local 925, and the last five as director of data with the Foundation for Tacoma Students.

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I am a proud leader in the Tacoma & Pierce County Democratic Socialists of America, where I’ve been elected to office four times

and led in Tacoma For All, the coalition that recently
won us the strongest
tenant protections in the state.

Devin Rydel Kelly and Partner Holly

In my free time, I’m a DJ and event promoter, aspiring screenwriter, foodie, nature lover, reader, stepfather and cat dad. I hope to return to these pursuits after running a people-powered, passionate and political campaign.

         

In the meantime,

I look forward to conversations with all of you!

Devin's endorsers

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Organizations

The Conversation 253

Indivisible Tacoma

Parable Tacoma

United Auto Workers (UAW) Region 6

Washington Housing Alliance Action Fund

Democratic Socialists of America

Infinite Soups

Red Elm Coffee

The Urbanist

Developmental Disability Ally PAC

Law Offices of Beverly Allen

Tacoma & Pierce County Democratic Socialists of America

Washington Ethnic Studies Now

Individuals

Beverly Allen - Founding Attorney - Law Offices of Beverly Allen

Jennifer Barfield - Co-Chair, Tacoma & Pierce County DSA

Eve Bowen - Community Activist and Educator, the Conversation 253

Silong Chhun - Community Leader, artist & Musician

Tim Fairley - Founder, Tacoma Volunteer & Outreach Services

Leo Maffei - Tacoma Mayor's Youth Commission Co-Chair (former)

Ty Moore - Campaign Manager, Tacoma For All & Initiative 1

Sal Ryan - Tacoma Mayor's Youth Commission Co-Chair (former)

Jamika Scott - Tacoma City Council Position 3

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James Williams, Ph.D - Community Activist & Educator

Laurie Arnold - Community Activist, Tacoma Action Collective

Chris Barnes - Dupont City Council

Douglas Cannon - Emeritus Professor of Philosophy

Carla De Lira - Pullman City Council Member

Bill Hanawalt - Community Leader- Former School Board Candidate

Ash Meer - Right to Counsel Attorney

Kaitlan Ohler - Nonprofit Leader for Youth Safety & Justice

Diane Sandrowski - Community Activist, Retired

Ronald Stone, OTR/L -Tacoma Commission on Disabilities Member (former)

Michael Williams, Vice  President - Tacoma Education Association

Oneida Arnold - Activist and Educator, The Conversation 253

William "Kit" Burns - 27th LD Precinct Committee Officer

Barb Church - Community Leader - Member, The Conversation 253

Richard Dorsett - Community Activist, Retired

Dr. Kimberly Keith - Executive Director, Hilltop Artists

Carol Mitchell - Founder, Institute for Black Justice

Marco Rossi - Executive Director, Washingtonians for Public Banking

Diana Schooling - Diversity Specialist & Native American Faculty

Colleen Waterhouse - Community Activist, Retired

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