by Ansel Herz
Election season is heating up in Seattle with the entry of Brianna Thomas, an accomplished City Hall staffer who managed campaigns to reform election financing and raise the minimum wage, into the race for City Council Position 9, the citywide seat being vacated by her boss, Lorena Gonzalez, as she runs for mayor.ย
โI am running because I am called to service,โ Thomas told the Emerald in an interview. From the COVID-19 pandemic to homelessness to systemic problems in policing, โall of those things I think normally would scare somebody right out of this job,โ she said. โBut it just caused me to dig in.โ
Thomas grew up in the South, a biracial only child of a white mom and Black father who spent her early childhood in a trailer park. She moved to Tacoma as a high schooler and then to Seattle some 16 years ago. Since then, Thomas said sheโs worked โall over this townโ as a waiter, Showbox bouncer, and day laborer, but has been hooked on politics ever since working on her first campaign. As a first-time candidate for office in 2015, Thomas ran unsuccessfully for City Council, garnering 10% of the vote in the race for the seat now held by Lisa Herbold, but found great success with progressive referendums, managing landmark campaigns to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour in SeaTac and implement Democracy Vouchers in Seattle.
She is currently the chief of staff for Council President Gonzalez, and has been at City Hall for five years. Asked what sheโs learned about city government, Thomas said the discussions that are least productive are โthe ones that youโve come to with a predetermined outcome. Governing is a team sport.โ Thomas stressed the โteam sportโ point several times, adding that in her view, โideological purity serves no one, especially the ideologically pure, because youโre not going to get exactly what you want.โ
Thomas said she supports the Jumpstart tax on large businesses and hazard pay for grocery workers. She also supports the cuts the council made recently to the Seattle Police Department budget and believes there should be more unarmed responders to situations involving poverty, mental health crises, and youth โ but does not support abolishing the department.
โI believe in the community’s calls for alternatives to policing,โ she said. โBut we’re not going to undo a 400-year-old system in a budget cycle. It’s going to take work, and it’s going to take investments in community that are sustainable and consistent.โ
She smiled and paused when asked whether Amazon has been a responsible economic actor. โI appreciate that Amazon has provided some good paying jobs for some people. I do not think Amazon has met its corporate responsibility to this community. I think there’s a lot more they can do,โ Thomas said.
Thomas is a resident of West Seattle, a renter with student loan debt, and hasnโt owned a car in six years. She said it would be โbadassโ to be the third Black woman to serve on the Seattle City Council in its 152-year history, and her election would hopefully โmake the city more welcoming to other Black people since weโve gentrified them all out.โ
โIโve had to walk into interviews and give people a little bit of time because Brianna Thomas doesnโt sound like a Black girl,โ she said, โand my experience in my resume doesnโt read like someone who is a Person of Color, because weโre not supposed to have these opportunities. I know what itโs like to have to overcome peopleโs assumptions of who Iโm supposed to be.โ
Thomas enters the race with the support of her boss, Gonzalez, as well as State Senator Joe Nguyen. While she emphasized the need for โcollaborative leadership,โ there are things she said she will not compromise on: โI donโt tolerate bullies, under any circumstances. I donโt believe in hoarding resources because you can. I think weโve seen a lot of that in this city.โ
And, Thomas added, โwhen it comes to making investments in our communities, weโve got to look at where thereโs been a lack of investment historically. Weโve got to start there.โ
Ansel Herz is a Seattle-based writer and editor and former reporter for The Stranger.
Featured image courtesy of Brianna Thomasย
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