Skip to content

Endorsement Process 2020

June

  • Endorsements announced! 
  • The board voted to endorse the candidates.  Note: Stephanie Allen, Debbi Anderson-Frey, Michael Peñuelas, Jennifer Wright, and Amanda Zimmerman abstained from voting on endorsements in the 42nd legislative district.
  • Recommendations were submitted by the committee to the board and voted on at a June 16th meeting. 
  • Committee members scored the interviews using rubrics and discussed the candidates.
  • Candidate interviews were held the first week of June!  Interviews were recorded via Zoom, and captioned by volunteers.

May

  • Questionnaires were prepped for distribution to candidates.
  • Based on our questions, we made rigorous rubrics that were aligned to the platform. 
  • Questionnaires were emailed to candidates on May 20th.  Candidates must return completed questionnaires by May 29th to be considered for endorsement.
  • The committee reviewed and scored the questionnaires using the rubrics. 

April

  • The committee met to write, revise, and finalize questions aligned to the positions and platform.

March

  • Special Guests Atul Deshmane, Whatcom PUD Commissioner, and Michael Peñuelas, Legislative Assistant to Sharon Shewmake informed us about elected positions, terms, and responsibilities. 
  • We did training on question writing, mapped out what information we needed to write questions targeted to both the positions and the platform, and we did tech training. 

February

  • Special Guest Whatcom County Prosecutor Eric Richey opened the first meeting. He spoke about the enduring impact that going through our endorsement process had on him as a candidate and how it continues to impact him in his current work. The committee met for the first time to get to know each other, learn some background of Riveters Collective and learn why we make endorsements, discuss the races and decide which races we can cover, decide who will work on which races, discuss writing questions and using rubrics to rate answers against the Riveters Collective platform, and learn about the online collaboration tools we use to work. We began listing topics for questions and figuring out what information we would need in order to ask questions that would elicit candidates views, actions, plans, and vision around application of the values in our platform. 

January

  • Our endorsement committee consists of volunteers from the community. We used a Google form to recruit endorsement committee members and shared it in our Facebook group, on our Facebook page, to our mailing list, and on our other social media channels. Qualifications for committee members:
    -Live in Whatcom, Skagit, or San Juan county.
    -Work collaboratively with positive intent to identify candidates who align with the  RC platform.
    -Commit to attending meetings and communicating with the committee February-early June.
    -Commit to making time outside of meetings for question development, editing, response review and scoring, and communication with the committee.
    -Anyone who is an officer, committee member, or employee of a political party, or who is already working on a campaign for which we plan to endorse is not eligible for the endorsement committee. Committee members will refrain from involvement in campaigns until endorsements are made in early June.
  • In addition to steering committee members, 16 people applied to be on the committee prior to the date of our first meeting and we invited all of them to join.  Four people were not able to commit to the meetings and so declined to participate in the committee.  Endorsement Committee Chair: Jennifer Wright, Steering Committee Members: Stephanie Allen, Debbi Anderson-Frey, Lisa Van Doren, and Amanda Zimmerman. Committee Members: April Barker (April did not participate in the PUD endorsement process), Zenda Boss-Hall, Rita Jefferson, Paloma Edison, Monea Kerr, Elaine Morado, Emily Sharpe, Inmara (Jonna Anne) Sodt, and two more.

September – December

  • The steering committee met to finalize plans for the year and map out how to accomplish a rigorous process that would help educate the committee and community about how candidates align with the RC Platform. 

August

  • Based on feedback from the previous cycle, a plan for the upcoming Endorsement Committee cycle was developed and the steering committee formed.