Pierce County Executive – Larry Seaquist

Municipal/Other Questionnaire

Candidate Information

  • Candidate Name: Larry Seaquist
  • Position Sought: Pierce County Executive (Non-incumbent)
  • Home Legislative District: 26th LD
  • Democrat: Yes!

Campaign Information

Part I – Candidate Background

1. Please briefly describe your qualifications, education, employment, community and civic activity, union affiliation, prior political activity, and other relevant experience.

Please also see my full response to the Pierce County Democrats questionnaire.

Prior to eight years service in the WA State Legislature representing the 26th LD, I enjoyed a 32-year Navy career retiring after four commands including battleship USS IOWA. I have continued to be deeply involved in Democratic politics in the 26th and in homeless and education issues in Pierce County and the State.

2. What prompted you to run for this office? What are your campaign’s most important themes, issues, or priorities (three to five)?

This is the most important election of our lifetime. Because of the chaotic, incompetent, and corrupt leadership in the other Washington, a quarter of our residents have no job, half or more wonder if we have a future. In this crisis we are all called to action. I’m not running against Bruce Dammeier, My campaign is focused on working with citizens, businesses and communities all across the county to mobilize now, to pull ourselves out of this hole and build a path to a future better than the one we had before the virus pulled back the curtain and revealed our deep-seated problems.

I’ve spent a lifetime working with many Americans to build a country much better than this one. Please join me and please, bring your ideas. Working together, starting now, we can rebuild Pierce County as a model of good government where every family is healthy, housed, educated, and living in a thriving, fully equitable community.

The key actions of the campaign:
A. Use the campaign to start climbing out of the hole now. I believe we can work with local communities, organizations, business leaders, and engaged citizens to think our way forward starting right now. By the time of the Primary, August, let’s try to have a good sense of just how deep this hole is and what we need to do to climb out of it. By the General Election, November, let’s have the framework of a strategy for moving forward to the better world we all want where every family is healthy, housed, educated and living in the fully equitable, thriving democracy that our Founders intended.

B. Corral the virus. The virus is still running loose and we’re a long way from having everyone permanently protected by a vaccine. Despite the disgusting chaos and confusion at the national level, the Governor is doing a great job providing a framework for moving ahead. And we have both a fine health department and world-leading public health scientists. We need to construct for ourselves, probably on a neighborhood and business district basis, a locally agreed and county-supported regimen of testing, tracing, isolation and monitoring.

C. Boost education levels. We’ve got great people living here and we have a rich infrastructure of schools, colleges, and training centers. But sadly, the fact is that overall, we are seriously undereducated and falling further behind. Pierce County won’t fully prosper until we can rapidly and radically become better educated. That must include retraining opportunities for the thousands of adults and teens who are now un- or under-employed.

D. Flatten the homeless curve. Homelessness is downstream of everything. If we can prevent a new wave of homelessness and house those already homeless, we will have made vital improvements in many areas: housing, education, safety net services, business development, even parks.

3. What steps are you taking to run a successful campaign?

I’m an experience campaigner. I’ve organized a complete, professional campaign for this major office including campaign consultants, fundraising team, compliance and treasury. We’ve launched fundraising and are looking for a campaign manager now.
Now I’m looking for citizen-leaders all across the county to join me in the work outlined. In this non-traditional campaign, we will go to work right now laying out the strategy and catalyzing the work of climbing out of this hole and building a path to a future better than the one we had before the virus pulled away the curtain.

Part II – Local Issues

1. Would you support the establishment of a safe injection site in your district?

Yes

2. Would you support the administration and police force in your jurisdiction adopting a sanctuary policy, forbidding the sharing of local resources and labor with ICE?

Yes

3. Do you support raising revenue at the city level to expand transit service?

Yes

4. Should transportation policy discourage the use of private automobiles and encourage the use of public-transit?

Yes

5. Do you support building a municipally owned and operated broadband system in your city or jurisdiction?

Yes

Extremely important. Whether “municipally owned” or provided county-wide by the PUD, it is critically important that every household very rapidly be provided excellent broadband service.

6. Do you support requiring police officers in your jurisdiction to wear body cameras?

Yes

7. Do you support repealing Tim Eyman’s I-747, which artificially limits property tax increases to 1% per year, regardless of population growth, inflation, and need?

Yes

8. Should government assist individuals, and families who are without sufficient food, shelter, or basic necessities through no fault of their own?

Yes

9. Should the wages paid to workers in Washington State be raised incrementally towards the goal of living wages?

Yes

Let’s make sure the “incrementally” doesn’t mean little baby steps. We have huge income disparities in the county. And now we have a quarter or more unemployed, perhaps half our citizens in Pierce County living on the edge.

10. Will you seek opportunities to mitigate the human activities that are contributing to disastrous climate change?

Yes

Part III – Free Response

1. Why are you requesting Democratic endorsement? What aspects of the Democratic platform most resonate with you?

Please see accompanying response to Pierce County Democrats questionnaire.

2. What important local issues have you worked on (or taken an interest in) that you feel aren’t getting enough attention from elected leaders and the media?

Please see accompanying response to Pierce County Democrats questionnaire.

3. Please list up to three specific, concrete actions you would support to ease the homelessness crisis.

Please see accompanying response to Pierce County Democrats questionnaire.

4. What are the barriers to economic prosperity faced by residents in your jurisdiction, and how do you plan to address them?

Please see accompanying response to Pierce County Democrats questionnaire.

5. What are the transportation/transit challenges which face this jurisdiction and how would you address them? What role does rail play in your proposed solutions?

Please see accompanying response to Pierce County Democrats questionnaire.

6. What are your jurisdiction’s environmental issues, which ones are urgent and what will you do to address them?

Please see accompanying response to Pierce County Democrats questionnaire.

7. Does your district have a taxing authority or propose levies and what changes, if any, would you seek?

Please see accompanying response to Pierce County Democrats questionnaire.

By typing my name below, I declare under penalty of perjury the foregoing is true and correct.

Printed Name: Larry Seaquist

Date: 05/18/2020

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