By Manny Frishberg, JTNews Correspondent
Marcie Maxwell is a familiar face around the halls of the state legislature in Olympia. She has represented the Renton Chamber of Commerce as a member of that organization’s board of directors, its Legislation and Transportation Committee, and on behalf of the Washington State School Directors’ Association, the organization for local school board members.
But now she is looking to move from the lobby to the state legislature’s chamber as a Democratic representative from the 41st District, a wide-ranging area covering a number of East King County’s suburban cities, from Renton to Bellevue and Newcastle, and beyond. To get there, thanks to the state’s newly minted top-two primary law, she will have to face her opponent, Mercer Island City Councilman Steve Litzow, twice — in the Aug. 19 primary and again in the general election on Nov. 2.
Maxwell is a familiar figure to voters in much of that district as well, having been a member of Renton’s School Board since 2001(and in that capacity she is also a member of the National School Board Association). The school district boundaries reach beyond the South King County city to include schools as far afield as Issaquah. And, in her day job, as owner of a Windermere real estate office since 1989, she is also a familiar face to hundreds of homebuyers and sellers throughout the area.
She points to the number of groups in which she as taken a leadership role and the long list of endorsements from individuals and groups from throughout her district as important distinctions between herself and her opponent.
Not surprisingly, given her long association with the area’s public schools (which also includes stints as past president of both the Maplewood Heights Elementary and Hazen High Schools’ parent-teacher organizations), education policy is at the top of her list of legislative issues. She says her work as a legislative representative of the school directors’ group has given her a good sense of education needs around the state, in urban and rural districts alike.
“As I see it, it’s about making sure we give the children the opportunities to succeed, and also that we’re going to build the future workforce that we need here,” Maxwell says, regarding the central role of education to her campaign. “Those two things are tied to the quality of life here and the success of our region and our employers.”
She says education and jobs — creating more good jobs and new employment possibilities — are closely intertwined in her mind.
Specifically, she calls for dealing with what she describes as “unfunded mandates” from the state level “that are making it very difficult for the districts to do their work.”
She also says students need to graduate from high school prepared to go on to the next level, and to be aware of the range of those options, including apprenticeship programs and technical colleges, as well as community colleges and universities.
She identified special education and students with limited English proficiency as two areas that the state should do more to help overburdened school districts meet their obligations. She is also a proponent of full-day kindergarten and early childhood education as ways to boost student achievement.
“We talk a lot about rigor and math and science, and so forth, yet we still have a state that provides for five periods a day in high schools,” says Maxwell. “My real interest is in seeing that we give kids the opportunities to succeed…and we need to bring everybody into that fold — businesses and neighbors, civic leaders, and so forth.”
Considering that her district includes some of the most congested highways in the state, transportation policy comes next on her list of important issues for the summer and fall campaigns.
“We have major issues getting around the Eastside, from Renton to Bothell and beyond,” Maxwell says. “We need to make sure we have choices and we have accommodations for the growth of our community, which is happening.”
She notes that there has been improvements happening already as a result of the last round of transportation funding approved by the voters. But, she says, there is still more to be done.
“If you live in Seattle, the transportation system works very well,” she says. “It gets you where you want to go. There are many who live in East King County and South King County where you don’t have those opportunities.”
Along with transit, she mentions the high-occupancy toll lanes experiment on Highway 167 as another way to help solve the transportation and congestion problems for the district.
Working in real estate, she also points out that the cost of housing adds to the problem, saying that people who work in Bellevue and Redmond should not have to live in Pierce County to find affordable homes.
Maxwell grew up in South Seattle’s Sephardic community. She attended the Seattle Sephardic religious school from kindergarten through 8th grade.
Her husband of 32 years, retired Sheriff’s deputy Steve Maxwell, converted to Judaism before they were married. They have raised their two children, Denise, 27 and Mike, 24, as Jews. She says her Judaism is a part of her she holds dear.
“That’s where my heart and my beliefs are,” she says. “It’s a huge part of who I am and the family I grew up with. My family was very involved — my parents still are — with Sephardic Bikur Holim.”
Marcie says the nurturing of family was always very important to her and the synagogue and community felt like an extended family when she was growing up. It’s the charitable facets of being Jewish as well as the ability to understand different communities that she hopes to bring with her to Olympia next year.