State Sen. Dave Schmidt, R-Mill Creek, and his challenger in this year’s election, Democrat Steve Hobbs, both serve in the Army National Guard Reserve. Schmidt is a staff sergeant. Hobbs is a captain.
On the issues, however, they’re fighting from different sides.
Schmidt, for example, lists election reform as one of the major accomplishments of his 12 years in the Legislature, eight as a representative and four as a senator.
Last year, the state’s September primary was nearly ruled invalid by the federal government after soldiers overseas weren’t getting their ballots in time to send them back by the general election, Schmidt said.
He authored a bill to move the state’s primaries to August. It was approved last winter and will take effect next year.
“It’s important for people to get to vote,” he said.
Hobbs, a 36-year-old Lake Stevens resident, served in the Army in Iraq and Kosovo, leaving the service just a year and a half ago. He applauded Schmidt’s work on the election issue, as far as it goes.
“It’s important, but I don’t think it’s a priority,” he said, citing transportation, education and health care as his biggest three issues. “I think Schmidt has lost focus.”
The 44th District covers Lake Stevens, Snohomish, Mill Creek and parts of Everett and Marysville.
Hobbs also noted Schmidt is considering running for Snohomish County auditor next year. The job will open when current Auditor Bob Terwilliger completes his final term in office.
Schmidt, 52, acknowledged he is considering running but said he hasn’t made up his mind.
“I won’t even be making a decision until January or February,” he said.
If re-elected to a second term in the Senate, Schmidt said he’d focus on education reform and transportation. On education, legislators are working on how to tailor education more to individual students and on leveling the financial playing field between districts. It will take six to 10 years, he said.
Hobbs said the state needs to provide more help for the growing number of young people who don’t go to college.
“We should provide them vocational training,” he said. The state also could work with businesses to start apprenticeship programs, he said.
Creating jobs in Snohomish County is the best way to help transportation problems here, Hobbs said. He and Schmidt agree on one idea: consolidation of the many transportation agencies throughout the region into one agency.
“It’s time to bring transportation in the Puget Sound area into something that has one face that’s accountable to the public,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt said he takes a bipartisan approach to most issues, but when it comes to business, he votes Republican.
Hobbs criticized him for opposing a family leave bill last year and opposing another to tighten regulations on payday-loan companies, which he said get a disproportionate share of their business from military families.
Neither bill passed. The payday-loan bill went too far, Schmidt said. The family leave bill, he said, “was a huge cost issue.”
Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.
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