Manka Dhingra Talks Championing Justice and Change in Washington's Attorney General Race
Photos by Susan Fried
Manka Dhingra joined The Day with Trae recently to talk with host Trae Holiday about her time as Washington State Senator and her current candidacy for Attorney General.
“I came into politics in a very unusual way,” Dhingra said. “I was someone who was very passionate about gender-based violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking from a very young age.”
Early on in high school, she knew she wanted to be a prosecutor — to stand up for survivors of violence. She saw it as her life's passion. She went to the University of Washington School of Law and interned at the Attorney General's office in the sexually violent predator unit for two years the clerkship with the state Supreme Court with Justice Barbara Madsen. She then spent two decades in the King County prosecutor's office with a lot of work on domestic violence, sexual assault, trafficking, and gun crimes.
“I got involved in criminal justice reform and alternatives to incarceration and worked on creating a mental health court, veterans court, and trained law enforcement in crisis intervention at a time when most people didn't even know what crisis intervention looked like,” Dhingra said.
By the 2016 election, Dhingra said she was “truly horrified” by who the country had elected to be its leader.
“My life's work is standing up for survivors of violence, and we had a president who was bragging about sexually assaulting women. We had a president who was making fun of people with disabilities and mental health issues,” Dhingra said.
It was during her first democratic party meeting in 2016 when a good friend of Dhingra asked her if she was thinking of running for office.
“I said, I don't know. But I know, I need to do something, and I know I cannot sit by anymore,” Dhingra said. “The Democratic Party had a candidate picked out for this race. They didn't know who I was, but the community knew who I was. So in February 2017, just a few months after going to my first democratic party meeting, I announced I was going to run for the Senate. And with my race, we flipped our State Senate and turned Washington blue.”
For Dhingra, the work that she is doing in the Senate, the work that she wants to continue as Attorney General, is about improving the lives of people. She said it's about changing the culture, and how the government shows up for people.
“People's expectations have changed, and unless you get new blood in there, asking questions and demanding change, you're not going to get it,” Dhingra said.
Dhingra has been in activism for most of her life, she started at Chaya, a South Asian organization to help survivors of domestic violence.
“When I was a student starting Chaya, I started talking about criminal justice reform as a prosecutor and delivered on those changes, and that's what I brought to the Senate,” Dhingra said. “That's what I'm going to bring to the Attorney General's Office — really making sure we're changing cultures and delivering results for the people of Washington.”
Since being first elected in 2017, Dhingra has done a lot of work in the poverty reduction task force in the state of Washington. She helped create the statewide office of equity, the purpose of that office is to look inward at how agencies are hiring, what the policies are, what the practices are, and if they are delivering the services that people want, in a culturally competent manner.
“What drives me to do this work is not seeking higher office, what drives me to do this work is truly showing up for people in a meaningful way,” Dhingra said. “I think that my biggest strength is that I have had a career I'm very proud of and that for me is about changing how the government shows up for people and making sure we're elevating the voices of people who traditionally have been left out.”
For those who want to learn more about Dhingra and her campaign, visit her electmanka.com.
For more news happening throughout Washington, tune into Trae every weekday at 11 a.m. on all Converge Media platforms and The Day With Trae YouTube Channel.
