Jeanne Stewart’s eyes light up when she speaks of Dave, her husband of 40 years.
The manufacturing sales business they built together. His support during her many hours spent volunteering in schools and on the Coalition of Vancouver Neighborhoods. And then that strange thing he said shortly after New Year’s Day in 2014.
“You know what?” Stewart recalled her husband telling her after reading The Columbian one morning. “You should run for Clark County commissioner.”
That was a first for Stewart, a 68-year-old Republican. Not in 12 years on the Vancouver City Council had she ever recalled her husband encouraging her to run for elected office. Sure, he was supportive. Mostly, she said, he was ambivalent, being no real fan of politics himself.
“He’d put up with campaigns,” Stewart said. “He’d put up with me being tired and stressed. The only thing he would ever say is, ‘You are honorable and well-intended and we need people like that to run for office, but don’t get a single thing out of it.’ ”
But this was different. He kept bringing it up, pushing her and encouraging her to run for the seat left vacant by Democrat Steve Stuart.
“He basically thought something was missing that I could provide,” Stewart said.
So, after a few weeks of pushing, Stewart did run, announcing her candidacy in May. Her victory at first seemed a long shot. In the primary, she finished a distant second to Democrat Craig Pridemore in her liberal district, with 42.5 percent of the votes. Her husband, meanwhile, remained optimistic.
“He said, ‘Don’t worry about that,'” Stewart said. “‘You’re going to win.'”
But Stewart’s husband would never see her November victory. Dave Stewart died unexpectedly in August 2014 from complications following heart surgery.
The loss shook Stewart to her core. The race became “entirely irrelevant,” she said, and understandably, nowhere near the priority list.
But then volunteers and friends came forward, urging and encouraging her to keep going. They helped her with social media. They identified precincts to doorbell in. They reminded her to take her raincoat and boots during the cold fall campaigning.
“She’s a good friend and she needed help,” said Steven Nelson, who runs Stewart’s social media accounts and communication during her campaigns. “I was there. I volunteered to step up when she needed some time.”
Two weeks later, Stewart made her first public appearance since the death of her husband.
“It was almost like needing to finish it,” Stewart said. “Really, to fulfil the promise that I made to Dave.”
And finish it Stewart would. In the Nov. 4, 2014, countywide election, Stewart defeated Pridemore by less than a thousand votes. She took her oath of office on Nov. 25, almost exactly a year ago.
In Stewart’s first year in office, Clark County has seen significant political challenges. The year has been defined by a complicated and drawn-out Comprehensive Growth Management Plan update, yet another countywide election due to the adoption of the home rule charter, which turned county commissioners into councilors, and the ever-present criticism of the current Clark County council.
Through it all, Stewart has received significant praise — and occasional criticism — for being an unexpected foil to Councilors David Madore and Tom Mielke, regularly questioning them and offering her own differing ideas to the board.
But in doing so, Stewart said, she’s brought to the council what her husband believed she could accomplish.
“He would be proud of me that I do not let myself be overcome by anything or anybody,” Stewart said. “Because that’s exactly how he was.”
‘Sense of fairness’
Clark County would not immediately warm to Stewart in her early months on the council. Questions still remained about allegations, which have since been found unsubstantiated by the Public Disclosure Commission, that Madore and local developer Clyde Holland had earmarked donations to the Washington State Republican Party for Stewart’s campaign.
“Who Owns Stewart?” read the headline on one Columbian editorial.
It quickly became evident that Stewart would not vote in lockstep with fellow Republicans Madore and Mielke on controversial issues, saying her “deep-seated sense of fairness” is what drives her to question those things she disagrees with.
Clark County would see its first flash of that in February, when, after hours of public testimony and hundreds of comments, the council controversially voted to post the motto “In God We Trust” inside its hearing room. The words went on the wall Thursday.
Stewart is a Christian. She can be “profoundly religious,” she said. At one point, she thought nothing of posting the country’s national motto in the hearing room.
Then the debate took a turn Stewart hadn’t expected. In the days before the council voted on the matter, she began to receive email from political and religious groups urging her to bring God to the county chambers. God, as Stewart put it at the February meeting, was thrown around like “a political football.
“It was coming to be Christians against anyone who wasn’t a Christian,” Stewart said.
And that created a bigger problem.
“When you get issues that aren’t the most important thing you’re working on, and you get that polarization, you get the divisiveness.”
So Stewart voted no on the proposal Mielke championed, and it would not be the last time she was critical of a proposal by one of her fellow councilors.
At an October meeting, Stewart snapped at Madore after the council voted 2-1 to delay its decision on the Comprehensive Growth Management Plan update’s preferred alternative. Madore has come under fire for developing his own alternative to that growth plan, and then later for developing new planning assumptions that will shape the overall plan.
“I want to say that it is absolutely shameful the way that you have hijacked this process to get people to comply with your, and only your, will,” Stewart told Madore at that meeting. “This is not good government. It’s shocking and I’m ashamed of it.”
The contrarian
Stewart’s often contradictory nature has endeared people to her during her time on the county council, but caused a bit of a headache during her time on the Vancouver City Council. Former Vancouver Mayor Royce Pollard said he often got frustrated with Stewart’s questions and that she occasionally “pissed (the other city councilors) off.”
But, Pollard said, “I love Jeanne Stewart now.”
“She is standing up and people need to applaud her,” Pollard said. “I think even council members who had a problem with her would say she’s doing a hell of a job.”
On the county council, Stewart’s actions have also earned her significant community support, most surprisingly by vocal Democrats who have applauded her independence.
Former county Commissioner Betty Sue Morris, a conservative Democrat, sat on the C-Tran board with Stewart while she was on the Vancouver City Council. Stewart’s regular questioning of her fellow councilors has provided a much-needed voice on the council, she said.
“Stewart is a bright, intellectual, thoughtful woman with a healthy streak of independence,” Morris said. “She is philosophically and politically much more conservative than I, but as a person goes, I think she’s a very independent person.”
But Stewart has had her share of vocal critics along the way as well. There were those who questioned whether her failed bid for Clark County council chair this year was nothing more than an effort to deny conservative votes to Madore and Mielke. Stewart has vehemently denied that claim.
And then there were those more direct concerns. In a recent post to Stewart’s Facebook page highlighting her disagreement with a charter amendment proposed by Madore, Christian Berrigan expressed disappointment in the Stewart’s actions. Berrigan was the spokesman for the failed write-in campaign for Rep. Liz Pike, R-Camas, to become Clark County council chair.
Berrigan accused Stewart of “going out of (her) way to appeal to those who are haters of our fellow Republicans.”
“I can’t seem to reconcile it,” Berrigan wrote. “If you are getting advice from people who think this is a good idea, I recommend you greet their future advice with absolute skepticism.”
Stewart, meanwhile, tries not to be swayed one way or the other by after-the-fact applause or boos in council chambers or comments on social media.
“Never play to it. Don’t react to it,” Stewart said. “If you get booed, you can’t take that seriously, and depending on who is in the chambers, you may be applauded for sticking it to those guys, as opposed to out of respect for the individual decision.”
Stewart’s term ends in 2018, and she seems to be a long shot for a second term. Under the charter, county councilors are elected by voters in their districts in both the primary and the general elections. When Stewart ran for county commissioner, the top two candidates were elected in their district during the primary, then faced off countywide in the general election.
As evidenced by Pridemore’s success in the 2014 primary, Stewart represents the liberal District 1, which covers the west side of the city of Vancouver. Though she did not say whether she plans to run in 2018, Stewart agreed that it will likely be a challenge to keep her seat.
“What’s likely to happen is Democrats have shown me some warmth in the last several months,” Stewart said. “Part of that warmth is not sharing a political view. It is their belief that there’s counterbalance. But they’re certain to have at least one full district in their control, and that’s intoxicating.”
‘We’re pioneers’
Stewart may not be the odd woman out for long on the Clark County council, however. With the election over, Stewart and her fellow councilors will be joined by Marc Boldt, no party, as council chair, and Republican Julie Olson, who will represent District 2. Both have raised questions about controversial Clark County policies such as the growth plan update and the county’s fee-waiver program for non-residential developers.
Stewart is looking forward to the prospect of building relationships and moving forward with the new board.
“I foresee my ability to work well with them without any complications or barriers,” Stewart said.
Stewart’s new cohorts agree.
“I think the biggest thing is how we approach issues and how we search for information,” Olson said. “I think Jeanne is thoughtful and deliberate in that process. I think we both have that in common.”
Boldt, who has been a vocal critic of Madore and Mielke, called Stewart an “outsider” among her current colleagues, and said he’s looking forward to working with her.
“I admire how much she reads and how much she puts into consideration of all the decisions she makes,” Boldt said.
Stewart was no fan of the home rule charter herself, calling it a reactionary measure to the dissatisfaction with county leadership. However, it’s law, she said, and the council needs to embrace it moving forward and set rules of practice that allow the council to “set the stage of how this should be.”
“We’re pioneers,” Stewart said. “We need to conduct ourselves with courage and inspiration and working together. I’m excited at that prospect.”
