Pacific Northwest - Politics

Politics

A major divide in political opinion separates the region's greatly more populated urban core and rural areas west of the mountains from its less populated rural areas to their east and (in British Columbia and Alaska) north. The coastal areas—especially in the cities of Vancouver, Victoria, Bellingham, Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, Portland, Corvallis, Eugene, and Ashland—are some of the most politically liberal parts of North America, consistently supporting left-wing political candidates and causes by significant majorities, while the Interior and North tend to be more conservative and consistently support right-wing candidates and causes. In the 2008 presidential election in Alaska, while Senator John McCain won the state by more than 20 points, then-Senator Barack Obama actually won southeast Alaska, albeit by an extremely narrow margin of two votes. It should be noted that the religious right has far less influence throughout the region than elsewhere in the U.S., although it is very strong in the Fraser Valley, and also that certain areas of the BC Interior, particularly the West Kootenay and some areas of Vancouver Island and the BC Coast, have long histories of labour, environmental and social activism.

The urban core in addition to certain rural districts is known for supporting liberal political views, perceived as controversial in much of the rest of North America. Many jurisdictions have relatively liberal abortion laws, gender equality laws, legalized medical marijuana, and are supportive of LGBT rights, especially British Columbia, where gay marriage has been legal since 2003, Washington where it has been legal since 2012, and Oregon, where same-sex civil unions are legal. Due to the urban core's size and voting impact, their counties and states as a whole have generally followed their leads, often to the disgruntlement of the more conservative rural areas. Oregon was the first U.S. state to legalize physician-assisted suicide, with the Death with Dignity Act of 1994. Washington State was the second when I-1000 passed in 2008. Colegio Cesar Chavez, the first fully accredited Hispanic college in the U.S., was founded in Mount Angel, Oregon in 1973. In 1986 King County, Washington, of which Seattle is a part, rebranded itself in honor of Martin Luther King.

These areas, especially around Puget Sound, have a long history of political radicalism. The radical labor organizers called Wobblies were particularly strong there in the mines, lumber camps and shipyards. A number of anarchist communes sprung up there in the early 20th century (see Charles Pierce LeWarne's Utopias on Puget Sound, 1885-1915 for an excellent overview of this popular yet forgotten movement). Seattle is one of a handful of major cities in North America in which the populace engaged in a general strike (in 1919) and was the first major American city to elect a woman mayor, Bertha Knight Landes (in 1926). Socialist beliefs were once widespread (thanks in large part to the area's large numbers of Scandinavian immigrants) and the region has had a number of Socialist elected officials. So great was its influence that the U.S. Postmaster General, James Farley, jokingly toasted the "forty-seven states of the Union, and the Soviet of Washington", at a gala dinner in 1936 (although Farley denied ever saying it).

The region also has a long history of starting cooperative and communal businesses and organizations, including Group Health, REI, Puget Consumer's Co-ops and numerous granges and mutual aid societies. It also has a long history of publicly owned power and utilities, with many of the region's cities owning their own public utilities. In part as a result, the region enjoys the lowest electrical power rates on the continent. In British Columbia, credit unions are common and popular cooperatively owned financial institutions.