Hi! Thanks for being the kind of voter who reads the details!

 

My name is Maya Morales (she/they) and I am a legislative advocate, educator, and artist. I'm running to be your County Council Member for District 2!

(Yes, that's COUNTY, not city. 😊) 

 

What's important to know about me? Well, for starters, I'm a big fan of participatory democracy. I helped pass two local ballot initiatives in 2021, and then founded WA People's Privacy to push people's legislative and policy advocacy on tech equity and justice issues, which pretty much overlaps with every area of our lives, because we're in the digital age.

I earned a Master's degree in teaching, and have worked abroad in two other democracies with universal healthcare, so I know that governments and societies work best when they protect the most precarious people first, because I have seen that first-hand. I'm running for Whatcom County Council in District 2 because I want to ENSURE, not just champion, affordable housing for ALL. I know I can protect and advance people's rights; help enact greater transparency, accountability, and inclusion in our local governance; and contribute creative, visionary, and practical solutions that actually help people. Our County electeds will be called upon to enact a firewall between this federal administration and the people we serve. I've had to live my entire life courageously, so I know that I can do that, and I know that I can be trusted not to throw marginalized communities under the bus.

My brother and I were raised by a single mom who worked in retail until my teens, and then went back to school and became a public middle school teacher. I grew up with a big, and very diverse extended family. Multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-lingual, and with different economic class statuses and political views. Some of my ancestors were settlers, and some were colonized peoples. While I've been living in Bellingham since 2018, I have spent lots of time and family visits here, in the Skagit Valley, and in the Seattle area since I was a child. These lands, which Coast-Salish peoples have cared for since time immemorial; these beautiful mountains and low green hills rolling into rivers and sea, they are a truly sacred place on this planet. The PNW has always been home, even when I've lived elsewhere.
 

I'm a working-poor renter, and member of the LGBTQ+ community who supported myself through BA degrees in my late teens and twenties, usually while working two or three part-time jobs at the same time. After graduating, I worked for about six years, and then left my position at Equal Rights Advocates to earn a MA degree in Teaching, with a focus on teaching English to speakers of other languages. I lived abroad and taught K-12 while I completed my MA coursework, and then University students after earning my degree. I returned to the U.S. in 2016 when ESL Programs were downsizing thanks to our first go-round with a hateful federal admin, and I pivoted back into community work instead of continuing to search in vain for a full time university position here in the U.S..

 

I love art, music, dance, travel, learning languages, and I have a green thumb: I love gardening and small farms! But, my burning passion for as long as I can remember? It's actually justice. Justice is the thread that runs through my entire life. My passion for fairness, equality, and justice has always infused everything I do, whether it's in community, in education, in conservation, in the arts, with directly impacted people, in legal advocacy and collective civic action, or in elected public service.

I am currently one of your elected Whatcom County Charter Review Commissioners for District 2. I know that we need leadership that can push our county forward on a set of interlacing justice frameworks that will help us create a County that really works for the SUM of us, not just some of us.

 

I also know that District 2 deserves a County Council member who will stand up for them, fight alongside them, and center their unmet needs. How do I know that? From knocking thousands of doors in our district. 

Now that this administration is wreaking havoc on the well-being of poor and working class people, I know this with even greater urgency.

 

I have fought hard to protect abortion and gender-affirming care via data privacy and anti-surveillance advocacy. I've also advocated for rent stabilization, and even authored a sweeping resolution outlining a policy framework to permanently end our unhoused crisis.

 

I helped pass a people's initiative to ban the City of Bellingham's use of Face Recognition and Predictive Policing software, both of which are racist, creepy, and reinforce systemic injustice while creating new harms, and a ban on the use of city funds against workers organizing their labor. 

 

Over the past five years, I've stacked up a lot of work, advocacy, and people's wins at the local, state, and federal levels. I tend to be so busy working on coalitional and legislative wins, that I often don't make enough time to properly document that work, share it, and brag about it! 😹

 

So, here's a news clip from the 2023 signing of the slate of bills the WA state Legislature passed to help firewall our state against the overturn of Roe, and the attacks on reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare by this administration.

I'll try to find time amid knocking doors to put a more detailed list here soon! 

 

Thank you for your vote!