Thanks to Mike C
By
Seattle Times political reporter
State Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen just finished steering the state’s new “millionaires tax” to passage, securing a seismic tax-policy shift long desired by progressives.
You might think that would leave him sitting pretty in Seattle’s liberal 43rd Legislative District.
Instead, Pedersen is facing the most serious reelection rival he’s ever had — and she’s punching from his left.
In a race that echoes the Democratic Party’s broader generational and ideological rifts, Hannah Sabio-Howell, a 30-year-old former legislative aide and worker rights activist, is mounting an energetic insurgent challenge, casting Pedersen as part of an establishment wing of the party that is failing to meet a political moment that demands more aggressive action on economic inequality and corporate power.
“I think that the ‘millionaires tax,’ while being a really important piece of legislation … is too little, too late,” she said in an interview. Pedersen, she argues, represents a go-slow style of Democratic leadership that concedes too much to corporate interests.
She wants more taxes on the state’s wealthiest companies like Microsoft and Amazon, backing a statewide version of Seattle’s “JumpStart” payroll tax to fund healthcare, higher education and other services.
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