About Jamie
Jamie Keenan-deVargas is a horticultural retail worker, a renter, and an artist. He was raised in a single-parent household with four kids. Jamie knows the value of hard work, and he knows the hardships of poverty: He's been working to help support his family since he was in middle school. In high school, he got into acting, and has played leading roles in numerous theater and musical productions locally ever since. While Jamie was at UW, he founded the Immigrant Defense Coalition, an organization that educates and empowers people to resist governmental overreach. He will be pursuing a master's degree in public administration in the near future.
Why is Jamie running?
Jamie decided to run because he is extremely frustrated with the status quo. He am frustrated that career politicians - like the current incumbent - do absolutely nothing, collect a paycheck, and have lobbyists buy them lunch at the Capitol building. The establishment does not care about the working people in Thurston County. Jamie is a working person in Thurston County, and it is excruciating! Rent is out of control, gas prices and food prices are out of control, and nobody has offered solutions! Jamie will fight for policies that are based on real data and real results, and will pressure his fellow representatives to better represent the workers of Washington every step of the way. Jamie is absolutely not a career politician, and has no corporate funding or lobbying interests backing his campaign. Instead, he has you: the working people and working families of Washington State.
What are Jamie's basic values?
Working families deserve stability. Housing is a human right. In so many ways, work must be done to rebuild public faith in government: We need to build communities that are safe for women and marginalized groups, and communities where the working class can live and thrive without the constant threat of economic ruin or systemic violence. We cannot accept a Washington where young people are priced out of their hometowns and older generations cannot afford to retire securely. Team Jamie Keenan-deVargas is inherently a populist campaign, built on the frustration of the working people of Washington, with the goal of transforming that frustration into legitimate structural change. If you are tired of the status quo, join the fight. Fight for yourself, fight for your family, and fight for a better future for all of us.