Melissa Chaudhry’s Strong Policies Challenge Adam Smith’s Complicity in Genocide

Democrat Melissa Chaudhry has made it to the general election for Washington Congressional District 9’s seat in the US House of Representatives. She’s challenging the nearly 28-year incumbent Democrat Adam Smith who has denied the genocide in Gaza. His largest donor by far is the pro-Israel AIPAC, the biggest source of Republican money influencing Democratic primaries. Chaudhry runs a grassroots campaign. Smith just voted to send $26 billion to Israel—$14.1 billion of which is for U.S-made weapons.

I interviewed Chaudhry to dive deeper into her political stances.

Samuel (S): Tim Walz was in Seattle, but only for a private fundraiser. JD Vance will have a fundraiser in Woodside, CA. Tickets start at $3,300. How could fundraisers affect politicians' priorities? What funds would you never accept?

Melissa Chaudhry (MC): People who empower us to do what we are driven to do as individuals have a bit of a claim on us. I want to uphold principle first. That's what this is about. But the people who are in a position and [chose] to contribute financially to this and make it possible for me to reach everybody? Yeah, I'd like to make sure they're still in a good way with me. That sense of self-preservation politically does have influence.

[The] less financially capable—the vast majority of Americans—wind up psychologically, structurally minimized in our political process. I try to counter [that] where I can, building relationships with unions and grassroots organizations who aggregate voices of the less wealthy and powerful, but just as important. I want to be accountable to the people. I would never accept money from any entity that benefits from making life worse for others. That includes defense contractors, the war machine, Big Pharma, Big Oil, monopolized corporate ag right?

(S): Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, "We started with the premise on October 7th that Israel had the right to defend itself, and more than the right to defend itself, the right to try to ensure that October 7th would never happen again." However, Israel has had control over the land, resources, housing, trade, electricity, and water supply of Palestinians, long before October 7th.

(MC): Blinken is known to have lied to Congress about whether he knew that Israel has been violating international law and American law. I would take anything Antony Blinken says with a large grain of salt. Even if the premise is correct, how Israel has gone about it is completely unacceptable.

Why were people driven to such an extreme to break out of what international reporters call the largest open-air prison in the world—before all this bombardment—and fight back? I would argue—and I'm not alone—that it was a system of apartheid. The Palestinian people were unable to exercise their own right to self-determination and self-defense. Israel is not the only force in the world that has the right to self-defense. According to [the] United Nations, Israel is an occupying power and has responsibilities to the people whom it is occupying.

Standards of self-defense and self-determination must be applied equally. That leads to a moral and political solution that recognizes equality for the Palestinian people. Israel has not moved any closer to peace and stability. Israel is escalating into a wider regional war; it would like to have more territory than it currently does. As Americans, [we] need to take very seriously what our tax money is being used to support. If it's not okay for Russia to commit war crimes with expansionist goals, it shouldn't be okay for Israel to commit war crimes with expansionist goals.

Much of this campaign [is] about re-inspiring people in the United States to take responsibility and agency over what our government is doing in our name and to make changes to make America a country we are proud to live in.

“When the price is right: Adam Smith’s role in denying genocide." / Wesley Brown

(S): Your opponent, Adam Smith, called pro-Palestine protestors left-wing fascists and said they should be arrested. Why is the right to peacefully protest important? What kinds of protests cross the line?

(MC): “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” [US Constitution] I was 11 when I memorized the First Amendment of the Constitution. I was the only one in my class who did anything like that, [or] who might have been able to show empathy for people in Iraq who we invaded. Everybody else just called them terrorists.

Adam Smith did say that. He has been condemned and censured formally by the 43rd LD Democrats for those statements. I consider them a truly abhorrent abrogation of his responsibilities as a politician and representative, which includes to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

The second part of your question is "peaceably to assemble;" if that assembly—that protest—is peaceful. It can be loud; it can be bothersome. It can annoy people for sure. People can wish that it wasn't going on. Anybody who resorts to protest is not being heard [otherwise]. The goal is to address the underlying concern.

I spent time at the UW encampment in April. That was an incredibly diverse, peaceful, thoughtful, well-informed, generous, and kind place. To know that that flourishing of the best of human intention was met in many places with violent police repression, because they didn't like the message—that's a corruption of the spirit of America at a fundamental level.

(S): What steps are necessary to increase public trust in law enforcement?

(MC): Accountability, plain and simple. There have been good movements in the direction of having true accountability for police misconduct, including new laws here in Washington State. When we have seen convictions for murder for excessive force, I think that's also a good start. I believe strongly in empowering communities to maintain order within themselves. Mental health and crisis response teams can be available for situations which don’t require police.

[Police] are trained for life and death violent-response-required emergencies. It's a lot to ask them to also know how to do trauma-informed crisis care and to be able to decide in a split second, often in chaos, often in the dark, which of those modalities is called for.

I believe in civilian oversight boards for police. Taxpaying community members employ the cops—the police should be accountable to them. This culture of protecting bad apples, excusing them, or transferring them has to stop. I joined a vigil for Sonya Massey, a Black woman who called the police because of a prowler on her own property. [The cops] came, and they wound up shooting her in the head, not rendering aid, and she died. What?!? How is this happening? How come when white guys have giant guns and have just killed a whole bunch of people, they get taken into custody nice and peacefully? But others wind up dead just for seeking help.

[This] is going to be a long process. There's a lot of history here. There's a lot of present-day trauma. I wouldn't expect anybody to trust the police just because anybody says so.

(S): What specific sustainable energy sources do you most support to mitigate global warming?

(MC): My father was a navy commander and disaster response professional. I [knew] that climate change was going to be devastating. Droughts, floods, fires, storms, heat waves. Refugee pressures, supply chain disruptions.

There's two ways to reckon with [climate change]: One is to try to ride it out alone. The other is to recognize we have common humanity.

I haven't found green energy that I don't support. We should be investing heavily in wind and solar and tidal. Forms of nuclear are safe. The faster we can transition to non-hydrocarbon-based forms of energy, [the better]. But making the price of heating, cooling, transportation out of reach for ordinary folks [is] not okay.

(S): You've created affordable housing and you mention lowering property taxes helps.

(MC): Property taxes are a heavy burden on lower-income property owners, especially elders who bought their home a few decades ago but now are living on a fixed income. When their property value goes up because of development in the local area, their property taxes go up. And they have to keep paying, even though they've paid off the mortgage.

Property tax often [forces] communities of color to move, who are historically disinvested, marginalized, [and] did not have access to buy into the homeownership market back during the GI Bill, when white families did. Generations [later], white families have been able to have their homes increase in value basically in proportion to inflation. Their wealth has grown; Black families’ wealth has not or has declined. That's a structural problem I want to address.

I worked in community land trusts. They're a nonprofit community governed structure: [People] still pay monthly building equity, but the land is not up for sale. It's a great way to remove housing, which is a need, from [the] real estate market, [where it's] a commodity subject to market forces. You don't want big swings [in price] when all you need is a safe place to sleep and raise your kids.

I [helped] spearhead the team that brought down 3.2 million federal dollars for affordable homeownership opportunities in King County. I've worked in homelessness alleviation; I've sheltered folks directly myself. I worked [overnights] at a residential treatment center for moms who were coming off heroin and hard drugs. For their recovery, stability, and ability to stay with their kids, housing and employment, after treatment, were immediately the next problems they needed solved.

Map of Congressional District 9 / Creative Commons

(S): The primary you advanced through had an almost 41% voter turnout rate. You're now a federal candidate sharing the general election ballot with Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. An 80% or higher turnout is likely. Does this help you?

(MC): Absolutely. Most folks who [voted] in this [primary] were older and white. In the general election we'll see a massive bump in turnout, particularly among younger voters and voters of color, who make up the majority of this district. Our incumbent has been in elected office longer than half of this district [has] been alive.

There's appetite for change. In a 70% Democratic district, Adam Smith could never lose to a Republican. Having [two Democrats] on the ballot means people are free to vote their real preference and conscience; there's no risk of spoiling the election. Some of Smith's emails strongly imply he is up against a MAGA extremist which is not at all the case. If that's what he's relying on, I'm confident.

Since the creation of this Congressional District it's been represented by three white men.

30% of the people in this district were born in another country. 60% of people here are people of color. We have one of the most diverse districts in the country. That means we can be an example for what a thriving, prosperous, inclusive, multiracial, American democracy really can and should look like. We are still pushing against the forces of racism and white supremacy that we were fighting against in the Civil War.

I tell particularly folks of color, young folks, [and] Muslims: We have the opportunity to improve the society we’re in. We're all paying taxes into the system. Therefore, we must use our votes and voices to make sure that the people who are making decisions about where those taxes go are actually representing our interests and values.

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Melissa Chaudhry was born to a Navy family in Dallas, TX. She spent most of her childhood in San Diego, CA, and the Salish Sea area. She's worked on economic development and climate resilience initiatives on several continents. She analyzed global humanitarian systems for the State Department. In Washington, she worked on the frontlines of her district's biggest challenges: homelessness, addiction, healthcare, and COVID relief. Chaudhry lives in Beacon Hill with her husband, their toddler, her godmother, and little balcony garden.