Teresa Mosqueda, a labor-movement leader, is running for Position 8 on the Seattle City Council this year. She joins an already crowded field.
Teresa Mosqueda, a labor-movement leader who helped write last year’s initiative to raise the state minimum wage, is running for Seattle City Council.
Mosqueda is political-campaign director at the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO and has served on the state’s Exchange Board, which oversees Obamacare.
Announcing her run Wednesday for Position 8, a citywide seat, Mosqueda said she wants to address Seattle’s affordable-housing shortage, economic inequality and uneven health outcomes.
She said Donald Trump’s election as president pushed her to seek office.
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“When we see communities of color, women and immigrants now potentially in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, that stirred me to action,” she said.
The Queen Anne renter enters the increasingly crowded Position 8 race with a number of endorsements from elected officials, including Lt. Gov. Cyrus Habib, Senate Minority Leader Sharon Nelson and House Speaker Frank Chopp.
Mosqueda, 36, is also touting endorsements from community and nonprofit leaders, such as former King County Executive Ron Sims, Estela Ortega of El Centro de la Raza, Fe Lopez of the Community Police Commission and Jorge Baron of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.
Position 8 is currently held by Councilmember Tim Burgess. Burgess announced last month that he would not seek re-election in 2017.
Mosqueda’s support from organized labor and established political leaders will likely make her competitive in what should be a hotly contested race.
Six other candidates have registered Position 8 campaigns with Seattle’s elections commission, including housing activist Jon Grant, who lost to Burgess in 2015, and NAACP leader Sheley Secrest, who launched her bid on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Before joining the labor council, Mosqueda was legislative director for the Children’s Alliance and worked for the state Department of Health. Sims called her “a respected health-care policy advocate with the heart of a caregiver.”
Mosqueda said her background as a public-health advocate has shaped how she views the city’s work.
“You can’t just tell people to eat better and work out when they don’t have access to affordable food, when they don’t have sidewalks, when they don’t have street lamps,” she said.
Mosqueda said she intends to participate in Seattle’s new “democracy vouchers” campaign finance program.