Voters in Seattle had reason to wonder, in 2021, why Sen. Bernie Sanders from far off Vermont was endorsing Lorena Gonzalez, then running (unsuccessfully) for mayor of Seattle. The answer, in two words, was Pramila Jayapal.
The Seattle Congress member had been a high-profile Sanders surrogate and warmup act in his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. She was then co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Jayapal is no shrinking violet. She was barely sworn into Congress in 2017 before challenging the count of.Georgia’s electoral votes for Donald Trump. On Inauguration Day, she hosted a panel with undocumented immigrants, exactly the folk that Trump would forcibly deport.
Just as quickly, she became a favorite talking head of MSNBC and CNN hosts. She penned a New York Times Op Ed piece discussing her own abortion and another discussing the gender identity conflicts of her offspring.
Washington’s political culture can be explored through the prism of Jayapal’s career. An immigrant from India, she helped create and became CEO of OneAmerica, the immigrant-rights organization. She was overwhelmingly elected to a Washington State Senate seat, representing south Seattle. She worked on bipartisan immigration reform, which legislation plan was passed in the U.S. Senate but buried by Republican House rulers.
With Jim McDermott’s retirement, she inherited one of America’s safest House seats. Rep. Jayapal can occupy it as long as she wants and pursue such national causes as Medicare-for-all. There will, however, be temptation if Patty Murray’s Senate seat comes open in 2028.
In John Steinbeck’s book Travels With Charlie, the author and his standard poodle passed through a white-working-class Seattle. Steinbeck would hardly recognize the town today. The city’s population has diversified, with many immigrants, and Jet City has grown a technology economy. In politics, it has swung sharply left.
Jayapal fits in. She is a firebrand who directs fire at Trump (though with perhaps spotty success: He has demonized transgender teens; she is part of a Transgender Task Force in Congress. She was an early voice for impeachment in his first term; Trump is now serving his second term. She has worked years on immigration reform; Trump is working on mass deportations.
Jayapal has evoked criticism on several fronts. Buzzfeed ran an expose on her treatment of staff, depicting a hostile workplace of low pay, long hours, a demanding boss, and high turnover. She permitted Trotskyite Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant to share the dais at a 2020 Sanders rally at the Tacoma Dome.
Early in the Ukraine war, Jayapal released a Progressive Caucus statement urging negotiations with Russia. Fellow caucus members said they were not consulted. Jayapal explained the release was an accident, thereby both taking responsibility and blaming staff.
The progressive Left in Congress badly overreached early in the Biden Administration, “demanding” sweeping reforms at a time when Democrats had tiny majorities in Congress. Progressives also held up passage of key infrastructure legislation. As a result, Joe Biden’s job-approval ratings tanked and would never recover.
Jayapal is a hero to Seattle’s hard left, witness a recent, packed, raucous preaching-to-the-choir town meeting at Town Hall Seattle. Add in participating in demonstrations against Trump’s mass layoffs of federal workers, and Jayapal is big on sloganeering street protests.
The Congresswoman’s tactics have come up short beyond Seattle boundaries and sometimes within. In a victory of center-left over far-left, Gonzalez lost in a near-landslide to Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell. Jayapal channeled buckets of labor union resources into the campaign of State Rep. Beth Doglio for Washington’s new 10th Congressionsl District — only to see a centrist Democrat, Marilyn Strickland, win in a walk.
She’s a fighter, however, squaring off against both Trump and the equally nasty Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Given extremism of the Trump Administration, fiery pushback may prove to be the order of the day.
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Haha, Joel, you buried the lede in your very last paragraph. Pramila has been right all along, and you are dragged kicking and screaming into a backhanded acknowledgement, like you’re passing a kidney stone. I hope you feel better now, brother.
Oh, and it’s Travels with Charley, not Charlie. Have a great day.
Right about what? Trump bad? Who knew? I’m sure a stern word from Jayapal will turn things around pronto.
Jayapal appears to be the leading example of how to make the left look bad. Foolish, counterproductive moves, disregard for popular consensus, unpersuasive. Colleagues who are trying to get anything done are probably wondering when her district will finally get tired of this bull in a china shop.
This is just plain silly. Look at her victory margins in her re-election campaigns. It’s pretty clear that voters in her district (including me) are perfectly satisfied with her representation and eager for more of it.
Who’s going to proimary her? Some “moderate,” “pragmatic,” centrist,” middle of the road Democrat? Whoever tries it will get their asses kicked. Pramila represents her constituency just as Adam Smith, Rick Larsen, Suzan Del Bene, Kim Schrier, Marilyn Strickland, Emily Randall, and Marie Perez represent theirs. We need all of them, to contribute in their own way.
Yes, people trying to accomplish things may wonder if they’ll have to put up with her until she dies, but apparently they will.
Rep. Susan Delbene is doing the heavy lifting as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee while Jayapal riles up her base not unlike Trump igniting his. Delebene is the one to support and Jayapal should be weighing in. Winning back the House is the only way to put the brakes on the disastrous bromance between Musk and Trump. Jayapal’s so-called ‘resist labs’ are okay and worthwhile, but certainly not a way to put a stop to it. Delebene’s DCCC have identified 33 vulnerable House seats. Jayapal might consider forming ‘grassroots labs’ aimed at vulnerable districts in support of her seat-mate Delbene and the DCCC. Joel, you’ve characterized Jayapal as a ‘show horse’ vs. work horse like Delbene – 2026 is the key and it will be here before we know it.
Washington state has eight Democrats in its Congressional delegation, most from districts clustered around Puget Sound. While Pramila Jayapal (D-Seattle Times) is the first to rush to the microphone, others such as Suzan Delbene and Adam Smith do more substantial heavy lifting in Congress. Though none will be the source of snappy quotes for MSNBC. While politicos and local media are used to thinking of Seattle as the center of the state’s political universe, there is no much more politcal power out here in the ‘burbs.