The Congresswoman Who Wants to Shoot Sea Lions

Since she was first elected to Congress in 2022, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has made a name for herself as a moderate Democrat who is more than willing to disagree with the party’s leadership and to ignite the ire of progressives. But her biggest enemy right now—almost as big as a Toyota Corolla, in her words—is sea lions. They eat four times as many salmon as the fishermen and Native American tribes from the Columbia River in Gluesenkamp Perez’s home state of Washington are able to catch in a year, she wrote in April in a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Last spring, nearly 25 percent of the fish at a huge dam had sea lion bite wounds. Gluesenkamp Perez denounced sea lions as “vermin” in a controversial post on X. But she isn’t backing down from what she sees as the only solution to the problem: making it easier to kill sea lions. Doing so will likely require help from Lutnick’s agency and action by Congress. Why did Gluesenkamp Perez declare war on sea lions? Are they a campaign issue in her reelection bid in a very purple district stretching from the Pacific coast to the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, to the edge of Mount Rainier? I asked her about all this and more. Her responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.