Riveters Collective 2017 Endorsement Process and Information
- Riveters Collective has Washington Nonprofit Corporation status, which allows electoral activity, including endorsements.
- The RC Board voted to do endorsements on April 13, 2017.
- RC Member Susan Wood volunteered to be the Endorsements Committee Chair.
- RC recruited endorsement committee members by an open call to members through Facebook and email.
- RC excluded anyone from the committee who had already begun working on a campaign, is a candidate for a local office, or has a leadership role in a major political party. For this reason, RC board members Lisa McShane, Stephen Jackson and Jenn Mason were excluded from the Endorsement Committee, and abstained from involvement in the process. Board members Elizabeth Hartsoch and Eowyn Savela supported the committee’s work, but did not serve on the committee.
- 11 people responded to the call, met the criteria, and were appointed to the Endorsements Committee. One of the 11 committee members, Lisa Van Doren, also serves on the RC board.
- Recognizing that the RC leadership team and endorsement committee are not sufficiently representative of the larger community–and more importantly the more marginalized and vulnerable members of the community–and recognizing that many local progressive groups are prohibited from making candidate endorsements, RC solicited feedback from groups representing diverse interests.
- The Endorsement Committee built questionnaires off of these responses and RC’s progressive mission. The questionnaires were shared with the RC Facebook group and were amended based on the solicited feedback.
- All candidates who filed for open positions on the Whatcom County Council, Bellingham City Council, Port of Bellingham Commission, or Bellingham Public School Board were contacted with an invitation to request the RC endorsement. Final questionnaires were shared on the RC website and in the facebook group.
- Candidates were sent RC endorsement questionnaires in mid-May, immediately after candidate filing week.
- The Endorsement Committee met to develop candidate interview questions.
- Eighteen candidates submitted materials to the endorsement committee by the May 30th deadline.
- The Endorsement Committee interviewed candidate interviews June 5-7, 2017. The committee declined to interview candidates in uncontested races, and declined to interview candidates whose values were fundamentally opposed to the values of the RC.
- All interview questions were asked in exactly the same manner to all candidates.
- The Endorsements Committee considered questionnaire responses and interviews in making endorsement decisions. Following extensive conversation, the Endorsement Committee made their endorsement recommendations to the RC Board.
- The RC Board formally voted to approve all endorsements as presented by the Endorsements Committee.