By The Herald Editorial Board
As significant as the presidential race is — judging by the millions of dollars raised and spent on campaigns and advertising — the election of state legislators is consequential for all state residents, as those lawmakers set policy, budgets and taxes that affect our lives daily.
The editorial board continues its recommendation for state legislative races this week and next, with the 10th and 39 Legislative District’s today and following next week with the 1st, 32nd, 38th and 44th.
A recap of all endorsements is scheduled for Oct. 26. Ballots will be mailed to registered voters on Oct. 17.
10th LD, House, Pos. 2
The 10th Legislative District encompasses all of Whidbey and Camano Islands and includes portions of southwest Skagit County and northwest Snohomish County, including Stanwood and most of Arlington.
Current Rep. Dave Paul, D-Oak Harbor, who teaches at Skagit Valley College and is a director for community relations, is seeking a fourth two-year term in the House and is challenged by Oak Harbor Republican Gary Wray, who previously ran for the Island County Commission.
Wray, who graduated from Marysville High School and is a Navy veteran with six years of service as a reactor operator on a nuclear submarine, is the owner of a contracting business he has run for 35 years. Wray, who has been active with building associations at the county, state and national level, is running, he said, to bring the perspective of a small business owner and builder to the Legislature, beyond his previous experience there testifying during hearings on legislation.
Wray said he intends to focus on affordable housing and related issues, noting his work with a local nonprofit, Hearts and Hammers, that connects Whidbey residents donating time with building projects, and with Habitat for Humanity. He also serves with the nonprofit Civility First, an effort similar to Braver Angels, that works toward bridging political divides in communities.
Increasing supply of housing to reduce its cost to affordable levels, will require reducing regulations and streamlining the process for approvalst, Wray said. Among the constraints to keeping housing affordable, he said, have been energy efficiency requirements that in the end aren’t achieving goals for saving energy or reducing carbon emissions; they are, instead, raising costs for builders and homeowners.
“Let the builders get creative (in meeting those goals) and let the market rate do it,” he said in a recent interview.
Having lived and worked on a ferry-served island for decades, Wray also is unsatisfied with the state ferry system’s delays in replacing boats and staffing shortages that still lead to sailing cancellations. Wray is skeptical of requirements to build the boats as diesel-electric hybrids, as he believes the technology for electric batteries is not sufficient to serve the larger boats used here.
Paul disagrees that the state should have waited to move forward with electrification of its ferries. What slowed construction was the loss of a shipyard contractor that went out of business, forcing the work to go out to new bids, further slowed by a law, now repealed, that required ferries to be built in Washington.
As well, Paul said, the state has made investments and policy changes to its dispatch practices that are improving ferry staffing.
Paul expects the Legislature in the next session to reexamine the changes it made to school funding in its McCleary reforms; school funding as a percentage of the budget has slipped since those reforms and will need to be readjusted to meet the constitutional “paramount duty” mandate, he said.
“There is still a gap for our districts, some more than others,” he said, noting persisting funding deficiencies for special education, the need to address the model used in school funding and supporting capital construction of school facilities, in particular the state law that requires school district pass construction bonds by 60 percent. The move to improve school funding could force some tough choices for lawmakers in balancing the budget, he said.
Paul, in his three terms, has been an advocate for K-12 and higher education, successfully pursing bills in the most recent session that expanded student access and financial assistance for Running Start, which allows high school students to earn college credits.
Paul also has been an advocate for career and technical training, looking to encourage and prepare students for internships, apprenticeships and careers in the building and manufacturing trades.
Paul, who serves on committees for community and economic development and post-secondary education and workforce issues, also serves as vice chair of the House transportation committee.
Wray, for his practical experience on housing issues and his commitment to civil political engagement is a serious candidate, but Paul during his tenure has shown himself to be an effective and knowledgeable legislator, especially committed to K-12, career and technical and post-secondary education and workforce, transportation, and public safety issues, seeking practical and effective solutions. Voters should keep Paul at that work.
39th LD, House, Pos. 2
The 39th Legislative District is comprised of the bulk of Snohomish and Skagit counties east of I-5.
Rep. Carolyn Eslick, R-Sultan, has represented the district since 2017. Previously, she served as mayor of Sultan for nearly 10 years and on its city council for several years.
Eslick is challenged by Snohomish Republican Jackie Huey. Huey did not respond to requests for an interview with the editorial board.
Eslick, throughout her tenure, has been an advocate for children and families, behavioral health and health workforce training, serving as ranking minority member of the human services, youth and early learning committee, as well as the education and capital budget committees.
She’s led efforts in recent sessions to pass bipartisan legislation, including a bill to improve families’ access to child care for those enrolled in early childhood education and Head Start. Other legislation reduced the interest rate to 2 percent for scholarship loans for those in the Washington Health Corps; and created a behavioral health scholarship program for the health corps.
But Eslick, while successful in getting legislation passed, also is keen enough to understand the follow-through that’s necessary to make sure programs are funded and operating as intended.
“Just because you pass a bill or you change a (state law) doesn’t mean that it actually follows through with the intent that it was put in place,” she said in a recent interview.
In fact it was a ‘glitch” in state law that had to be corrected to allow funding of the behavioral health scholarship, she said.
Eslick also has concerns for housing affordability, in particular for the state’s more rural regions and its seniors. She’d like to see more done to encourage construction of condominiums, which she said, can fill a need for starter homes for young families as well as housing for seniors.
Eslick plans to resume work on legislation to make it easier for seniors to find affordable housing through shared housing arrangements, which she compared to a “Dating Game” that matches seniors looking for housing with those who have rooms to rent.
As well, she’s looking for continued attention by both the human services and education committees on addressing the fentanyl crisis in the state.
She’s also interest in helping school district’s find more support for construction, noting that the Sultan School District currently has more portable classrooms than traditional classrooms.
Eslick, along with her 39th district seatmate, Rep. Sam Low, R-Lake Stevens, can point to legitimate Republican cred, but they also are willing to take some heat from fellow Republicans for the right issue. Both were censured earlier this year by Snohomish and Skagit county party officials for their support of House Bill 2368, which established support services for immigrants and refugees.
“The Republican Party doesn’t put us in our seat, the constituents and the voters do,” Eslick told Bellingham’s Cascadia Daily News, “So I didn’t lose a lot of sleep over it. They didn’t have enough education to understand where we were coming from on this one vote.”
Eslick’s courage in standing up for practical legislation and programs that serve her community and constituents, as well as her careful stewardship of taxpayer money, should earn her the respect and support of district voters.
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