Rep. Pramila Jayapal will launch her campaign to retain her seat representing Washington’s 7th Congressional District in an online event Thursday night:

U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal (WA-07) will formally kick off her people-first Congressional re-election campaign tomorrow evening at 5:00 PT with a public rally hosted online at Facebook.com/PramilaJayapal. The program will feature remarks from Congresswoman Jayapal, State Senator Joe Nguyen and Chair of the King County Democrats Shasti Conrad in addition to live performances by musician SassyBlack and poet Claudie Castro Luna.

You can tune in to facebook.com/PramilaJayapal for the show.

Jayapal faces a slate of underdog challengers heading into the August top-two primary:

• Jack Hughes-Hageman, a Democrat “progressive” who “worked for several years as a consultant for legal cannabis businesses, eventually getting into the hospitality industry.” — Bull Moose believe that we have the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and that those rights are in need of defending.
• Independent Rick Lewis works in Systems Engineering with a background in “Military Intelligence, Business Development, Artificial Intelligence & Game theory.” “What I do know is math, how to analyse a system and how to use those to make a system accomplish the goals set before me,” he writes. “This is what I do for a living and what I intend to do for you. I will simply fix our political system so that politics don’t trump good policy.”
• Meanwhile, two Republican candidates Craig Keller and Scott Sutherland made past, unsuccessful runs for the 7th.

In 2016, Jayapal advanced from the state legislature to an easy victory for the seat left vacant by the retirement of longtime congressional liberal leader Jim McDermott.

During the COVID-19 crisis, Jayapal has championed  legislation to create an economic recovery plan designed to subsidize struggling company payrolls and discourage layoffs. “Mass unemployment is a policy choice, and we must choose differently by passing an urgent proposal that matches the scale of this crisis while delivering certainty and direct relief to workers, businesses of all sizes and the economy,” Jayapal said. “The Paycheck Recovery Act will end mass unemployment, put workers back on their paychecks and health care and keep businesses from closing permanently while ensuring workers aren’t forced to return to work before it is safe to do so.” Under the $146.1 billion proposal, businesses, nonprofits and state and local governments facing COVID-19 related revenue losses above “a 10% gross receipts threshold” would be eligible for grants as well as independent contractors, domestic workers and gig workers.

CHS talked with Jayapal about the federal government’s relief response and her proposals in April.

You can learn more at pramilaforcongress.com.

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