Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Biography
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is an American businesswoman running to represent Washington’s third Congressional District on a Democrat ticket. She co-owns Dean’s Car Care, INC. in Portland with her husband Dean.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Age
Marie is 34 years old.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Reed College
She holds an Economics degree from Reed College. Her thesis was a cost-benefit analysis of the City of Portland’s curbside composting program. When residents were allowed to put food scraps in the yard debris, the federal government qualified the waste as a biohazard, making it so many small processing businesses were no longer licensed to handle the material, she said. Therefore, the compost was shipped all over the state, eventually generating more emissions than the program would have saved by composting.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Parents
Gluesenkamp has not revealed the names of her parents but her father immigrated from Mexico. He met her mother at Western Washington University, where he studied as an international student from Mexico. Her mother’s family was living in Washington before it became a state. She grew up in Texas where her father served as a pastor.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Husband
Perez is married to Dean, who he met while working as a bike mechanic. He was a mobile car mechanic who made house calls. The couple started their own auto repair shop after they got married.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Children
Marie has a one year son known as Ciro. She has also said that she suffered a miscarriage in in early 2020. She says that if someone had told her how much fun being a parent was, she would have done it sooner.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Auto Shop
Perez co-owns an auto repair shop, Dean’s Car Care, INC., with her husband Dean in Portland. They began the shop at a rental space but they soon bought their own shop in Portland after getting a small business loan program. The business now has six lifts and eight employees. Perez works mostly on the intake end, working with customers to diagnose issues. In her role she works as a service writer, customer service representative, human resources manager, marketing specialist and more.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Politics
Perez has been active in politics for a long time as she unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the Skamania County Board of Commissioners in 2016. She has been an elected member of the Democratic National Committee, where she pushed for the organization to stop requiring cross-country travel as a condition of membership, to open up opportunities for people who aren’t wealthy.
In the 2016 Democratic primaries, she supported Bernie Sanders saying he better understood how much of the country has fallen behind.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Congress
Marie is running for the 3rd Congressional District on a Democratic party ticket. During the August primary she led all candidates with 31% of the vote. The district hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives in more than a decade. The incumbent congresswoman Jamie Herrera Beutler, a Republican, lost in the August primary to Joe Kent, a Trump-endorsed military veteran.
She says she has been motivated by the controversial nature of John Kent. She says she felt the needs of the district weren’t being adequately met.
Her top pillars platform includes; reproductive freedom, inflation, affordable child care and medications, and spending federal dollars on law enforcement in the 3rd district with the goal of stopping rising crime. She however doesn’t agree with gun control as she is a gun owner. She admits that it is challenging as a Democrat to say she is not going ban assault rifles.
“It’s hard to go into a Democratic crowd and say you’re not going to ban assault rifles. But, when we talk about them (the issues), we are building coalitions. We are, I think, broadening the dialogue in a way that needs to happen.”
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Salary
If elected in November she will be earning $174,000 annually.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Endorsements
The list of her endorsement can be viewed on her website. The list includes national organizations, local organizations, labor, elected officials and local community members.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Campaign Manager
Marie’s campaign manager is Madeleine Newton, who has a background in politically progressive and creative fields. Her past work experience has involved canvassing in different parts of the country talking to individuals with a wide range of political views. This experience has made her passionate about the the value of conversation across political division.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Stevenson Downtown Association
Marie served as Executive Director of the Stevenson Downtown Association for two years. Vancouver Attorney Angus Lee alleged that she was fired after she engaged in a pattern of mistreating volunteers and a staffing review showed 20 percent of Gluesenkamp Perez’s “skills were ranked as needing improvement.”
He alleged that he obtained an email from Marie acknowledging her pattern of mistreating volunteers, and the recent staffing review that concluded 20 percent of her skills were ranked as needing improvement. He added that the record shows that in late October of 2019, the Board of Directors for the nonprofit voted to approve a one-year contract with Gluesenkamp Perez, but the contract contained “A 30-day termination notice” clause. But despite the approval of a one-year contract, Gluesenkamp Perez’s employment ended only a few months later.
After the allegations, a representative of Marie’s campaign released a statement which read in parts;
“The assertions made in this press release are flatly false, and this is clearly a hyperpartisan smear effort intended to distract voters from MAGA extremist Joe Kent’s radical and divisive conspiracy theory claims and dangerous ideas. Contrary to the claims in the release, Marie was not ‘fired’ by the Downtown Stevenson Association.
Rather, Marie is proud of the two years of work she did, along with so many other dedicated residents of the Stevenson, WA community, to build the capacity and reach of the Stevenson Downtown Association. Her performance review was in fact strong, and in 2019 the board of the organization sought to renew and extend her contract. But after the SDA board and Marie were unsuccessful in coming to agreement on some of the contract terms for the extension, Marie parted ways with the organization amicably and professionally, as can be corroborated by the then-leaders of the organization.”
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Social Media
Twitter; @MGPforCongress
Instagram; mgpforcongress