(bright music) - Good evening, and welcome to the Candidate Forum.

My name is Ruvine Jimenez, and I am a member of the League of Women Voters of Benton and Franklin Counties.

The League is a nonpartisan organization that neither supports nor opposes candidates.

In presenting these forums, it is our goal to provide opportunities for voters to become better informed about the people who are running for public office.

The 2024 General Election Candidate Forums have been pre-recorded in person by Northwest Public Broadcasting at WSU Tri-Cities.

They will be available through November 5th, General Election Day, on YouTube, the League's Facebook and website, on NWPB, and through the League's additional partners, the cities of Richland and Pasco, and the Columbia Basin Badger Club.

At this time, I would like to introduce our moderator, Matt Loveless, from the Murrow College of Communications at WSU Pullman.

Please welcome Matt.

- Welcome to NWPB Vote 2024 coverage of legislative races in Washington's 16th Legislative District.

This is night one of four this week dedicated to races that touch parts of Yakima, Walla Walla, Benton, and Franklin Counties, and we'll bring you closer to those races.

Tonight, three races in the 16th, all six candidates here for their respective debates.

And a reminder, the views expressed in the following program are those of the candidates on stage, and do not necessarily represent the views of Northwest Public Broadcasting and or the League of Women Voters of Benton and Franklin Counties.

We also want to mention we're here on the WSU Tri-Cities campus in Richland.

WSU Tri-Cities is located on shared traditional homelands of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation.

Now here's how today's program will work.

We have an hour and three races.

That means we'll get just a little less than 20 minutes with each one.

And with that, here's how timing will work.

All candidates will hear questions from the League of Women Voters.

No opening statements in this program.

We will get at what your priorities are in our line of questioning.

There will, however, be time for closing statements.

All timers right now are set at 90 seconds for responses.

Now, as moderator within the time parameters of this program, I do reserve the right to include more questions or, time permitting, shorten some of these response times.

Now for now, that's not part of the schedule.

We'll go with the flow here.

And of course, we'll do our best to stay on time and on topic for the sake of fairness for you both and transparency.

All right, let's meet our candidates for the 16th District Senator, a district that represents Walla Walla County and parts of Benton and Franklin Counties.

Incumbent Senator Perry Dozier is here on stage tonight.

Thank you for being here, having served since 2021.

Along with Challenger Kari Isaacson, we appreciate you both for being here today.

Now our first question, like I said, we get right into the line of questions for our 16th candidates is about the district itself and how redistricting changed the makeup of the area you serve, not just geographically, but in terms of constituents.

Can you articulate how the process changed your constituency and therefore your priorities?

Mr. Dozier, we'll have you go first.

- Okay, thank you very much.

When I was elected in 2020, the district included Columbia County, Walla Walla County, and the very south end of Benton County over to the Yakima County line to Prosser and down to the river.

Two years later, with the census, the district was rechanged again.

I had part of East Pasco back when I was first elected.

Everything moved down south of the river, it took in more of Kennewick and into West Richland, still took in Benton City, and still all the way over to Prosser and south.

This past April, with the lawsuit that came about, the total redistricting was changed tremendously.

Everything moved to the north, basically, so we still have Walla Walla County, but now we're north of I-182, North Pasco, all the way up to Adams County, then we cross the river and we're into North Richland, Northwest Richland, we still have Benton City, but then we head north all the way up to Grant County, and it licks over a little bit across the river into Grant County, which is, I think, right around the Priest Rapids Dam right there.

So a whole new constituency base, probably 60% of it is new to me, even though I am very familiar with the Tri-Cities, but a whole new constituency base is what we have now.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Dozier, very much.

Ms. Isaacson, same question to you, just your understanding of how the constituency has changed in the district.

Well, Perry summarized it very nicely.

What I'm finding, though, one of the big effects is very few people know which legislative district they're in.

It could be the 8th, 9th, 14th, or 16th, and going out and about and getting to know the district better, people, I have to help them look up which district they're on, or ask them to look at their primary ballot, and if I was on it, they're in the 16th.

- You have another minute left.

I will allow you to take that time or cede that if you'd like.

- Well, it's really a great mix of urban, suburban, and farmland.

I had the privilege of going up to Manawa in southern Grant County and to East Wahluke Precinct.

I don't know, maybe 100 voters there, but I was up there for their candidate forum, and what beautiful country, really great people.

Everyone is so proud of their own precincts and counties, and we all are.

- All right, Ms. Isaacson, thank you very much.

Let's move on to our second question, then, and we'll start with you first here on the topic of artificial intelligence, and we know the state addressed this to a degree last legislative session, passing some bills to make it illegal to create and distribute AI-generated explicit images, the other to create a task force.

So Ms. Isaacson, you're up first here.

If elected, would you sponsor or support AI legislation, and if you could give us an idea, what might that look like?

- AI is a wonderful tool, and I have just dipped my big toe into it.

I used it in analyzing voting records and recent developments in our area, and it's really wonderful in a lot of ways, but it's also like everything, and especially new, kind of new and innovative, and boundary-breaking kind of technology.

We really have to get ahead of it as best we can and make sure it serves mankind and not the other way around.

There was a bill to form a, there was a law to form a task force for the state to help the state anticipate the changes that AI will bring, and my opponent voted against that.

- [Matt] All right, thank you, Ms. Isaacson.

Mr. Dozier, same question to you, and obviously an opportunity to respond there.

- Yeah, obviously AI, I think, is where we're headed to in the future here with things, and it does present us with a lot of opportunities to find information.

My biggest concern with AI, obviously, is maybe the abuse of it, and with that happening, we don't know how it's going to affect people individually, but I think that this is something that we definitely need to look at going forward.

I would, obviously, even though I may have voted against it, would support a task force at this point, as I've learned more about AI, to study what we could do to educate people and to have a good understanding of it.

- All right, thank you very much, Mr. Dozier.

All right.

Let's move on to question number three, and I want to ask about this because you have a state penitentiary in the district.

Are there any unique challenges into running a district with a state penitentiary in it, Mr. Dozier?

- Actually, we have two in the district.

We have Washington State Penitentiary and Coyote Ridge, and yeah, there are a lot of challenges.

Growing up in the 16th District my entire life, I'm very well aware of Washington State Penitentiary and Walla Walla.

I've known the past three superintendents well.

I've had multiple meetings with their corrections unit and especially with their union on issues that there are there.

What we end up seeing is there's staffing issues, there's safety issues, and we need to address those.

And it's something that, with the size of the population, we have probably, I think there's like 1,900 employees between those two facilities.

I know Walla Walla is the largest penitentiary in the state, and Coyote Ridge might be the second or third.

So there's a tremendous opportunity for employment, but also there's issues with finding what we had in Walla Walla many years ago was finding the people to come to work when we expanded.

We were actually having to run three buses from the Tri-Cities to bring people in, mainly because of the cost of housing in Walla Walla.

It was too competitive.

They couldn't afford to live there.

So finding enough staff is one of our biggest challenges.

- All right, thank you very much, Mr. Dozier.

Same question, Ms. Isaacson.

- Well, the penitentiaries are a big part of our communities.

We have a lot of people who work there, and they're a real source.

They're in a way an economic engine also.

We have a lot of government employment at all levels within the district, and it's quite intertwined and integrated with our community.

It's a, you know, Walla Walla, that is an old penitentiary.

The community college here offers classes to people, inmates there, and it's just a very important pillar there.

We recently, as a state, passed a level of requirements and standards that any potential private prison would have to match, such as nutritious food and minimizing solitary confinement and other things, and my opponent voted against that.

- All right, thank you very much.

Let's move on to question number four, and we're going quickly here.

We may have some time to add a couple of questions if we'd like.

But our fourth question is more broad, and maybe this is what replaces opening statements.

Your legislative priorities, obviously, with the session coming up.

What's the most important piece of legislation that you plan to bring forward in the 2025 session, Ms. Isaacson?

- Well, I think health care is really a primary driver.

First, a lot is going to depend on what happens at the ballot November 5th and whether those three revenue generating initiatives are recalled.

And I am not in favor of recalling those.

If they are recalled, that will leave a whole huge financial mess in Olympia.

But assuming that they're not recalled, we've got to address the health care problems which Walla Walla and Richland and other areas are suffering from.

You know, in wine country, we say health care, unfortunately, is withering on the vine.

We can't find primary care physicians.

My friends in Richland can't find primary care physicians.

Pharmacies are closing.

You know, it could go on and on about the contraction of that industry.

It's very concerning.

And so health care, especially for low-income people and for children, is something that I would really want to focus on.

And rural, I hasten to add.

- All right.

Thanks, Ms. Isaacson.

Senator Dozier, same question to you about your priorities for 2025.

- I think what I'm looking forward to promoting in 2025 is obviously affordability in Washington State.

Unfortunately, the last four years, we've been sliding pretty hard with that.

We are ninth in the nation for the highest cost of groceries, eighth in the nation for the highest cost of living, and third in the nation for the highest cost of fuel.

We have to find affordability means for the people here in the state.

The other is we have a tremendous problem with our drug overdose deaths.

We led the nation in a one-year span of gaining over 30 percent more drug deaths than any other state here in the nation.

That is a huge, huge problem we have.

It leads to mental health issues.

It leads to homelessness.

And we don't have the funding that should be going to our drug task force.

I've met with law enforcement, and we need to get more funding to them, because you have to cut the serpent's head off to be able to stop that flow of drugs coming into our areas, which there's a main pathway down here through the Tri-Cities.

And so we need to stop that.

And I think the other one that is so important to me is education.

We have a lot of school districts that have struggled financially this last year.

And this next year, we have to be able to address that.

I know that the superintendent of public instructions is going to present about a $3 billion package for this biennium.

And we need to be able to look at that and how we can get that tailored in to help our schools so they do not fail.

- All right.

Thank you very much, Mr. Dozier.

We do have some more time.

We've had some short answers, which, by the way, is totally your prerogative.

But that does give us a chance to talk about some more topics here.

So I'm going to ask you another one here.

Do the number or nature of colleges and universities in the area present any unique challenges in terms of representation here in the district?

Mr. Dozier.

- I think within the district here, we're super fortunate to have the number of colleges that we have.

We have WSU Tri-Cities.

We have CBC.

In Walla Walla, we have WWC Walla Walla Community College.

And we have two private colleges, Whitman and Walla Walla College.

There's a lot of choices, I think, for our youth and even those that want to go back to school to be able to find where they can exceed in life.

And I think what it does is it gives us a balance from those that are looking for a career maybe that is not needing a bachelor's degree and go to some of our technical schools.

And so with those options available there, it really helps build our workforce and makes them more accessible coming in.

Especially with the growth in the Tri-Cities, I knew that PNNL does a lot of sponsoring programs over at CBC.

And those people then can go from there straight to work, and which is going to be so very important for them to become, how do I want to say, a productive part of society, but also to be able to sustain their families.

So we're very, very fortunate for that here in the 16th.

- All right.

Thank you, Mr. Dozier.

Ms. Isaacson, that same question to you in terms of representation and how the number, and nature of all the different colleges, and universities in the area affect that.

- Well, we really are fortunate to have such a diverse and rich array of universities and colleges, and really glad that Wazoo has this wonderful campus here.

And education is an economic driver, and it gives opportunity to a lot of people who otherwise don't have it.

And we have to, representing higher education is a challenge to make sure it's adequately funded, but also to integrate it with high schools because we have so many programs that support high school kids to get a head start, or a jump start, I should say, or even a running start on their college education.

So we're really fortunate for that, and I'd be proud to support higher education.

I have a law degree from the University of Oregon.

I went to Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma and have a lot of respect for science and research, and we are so rich in that here in the 16th.

And we're just really fortunate to have all those opportunities for people.

Plus apprentice programs.

We have an amazing array of labor unions here, and they cover southeastern Washington and even northeastern Oregon.

And that's another option for people, and I count them as part of education as well.

- All right, thank you very much, Ms. Isaacson.

All right.

Based on time, we do need to get to our closing statements.

Ms. Isaacson, I'll let you go first with our closings.

We've set the clocks at 90 seconds.

I mentioned this was fast.

Like I said, we could have covered so much more, and I know you're doing this a lot, but we would appreciate 90 seconds of a closing statement.

- I ask for your vote.

I am a Democrat, and we need to be at the, the district needs to be at the table in Olympia when priorities and budgets are set by the majority party.

And that does make a difference.

The Democrats are a party of live and let live.

As long as you're obeying the law and not hurting other people, you know, we hope you, we want to help you have all success and grow intergenerational wealth so that your kids can get good jobs and stay here too.

I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon.

I've lived in many different kinds of communities around the country, from the inner city of Detroit to the Edina, Minnesota, which is an upscale suburb to the foothills of Tucson.

And we are so fortunate in the Pacific Northwest to have our natural beauty, our rich hydropower, the agricultural economy that we have here combined with technology.

It's just a wonderful place to live.

I want to make it even better.

- [Matt] All right.

Thank you very much, Ms. Isaacson.

Senator Dozier, your closing statement, sir.

- Okay, thank you very much.

Having lived in this district my entire life, 65 years, I've experienced a lot of the changes in it from Walla Walla all the way through the Tri-Cities and have been a part of the Tri-Cities for a long time as my father-in-law had ground over here from 1946, which the city of Pasco grew into.

My background in serving this area was started 25 years ago when I was an officer with the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, representing 13 eastern Washington states here at that level.

From there I went on, and what has been really important for me going over to Olympia was being a Walla Walla County Commissioner for two terms.

I really got to see and understand how legislation affects us at the lower level.

And that is something that I always bring to our discussions when we go to pass bills because ultimately a lot of this we talk about unfunded mandates fall down on the local level where we have to figure out how to find the funding for it.

I've enjoyed the last four years working there.

I have or in Olympia being your senator and your voice and will continue to do so.

I've been on the education committee for four years as I spoke, and I am ranking member on business, financial, gaming, and trade, which deals with our banks and our insurances, which it keeps going up.

So I would appreciate your vote this coming next or this coming November and will be your voice again in Olympia.

Thank you.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Dozer.

Ms. Isaacson, really appreciate your time today.

I know it was quick.

Hopefully that's not a bad thing for you, and we appreciate the time you spent for our voters, especially here.

So, that's it for our time with the candidates in this race.

16th district senator.

Again, their names Perry Dozer, Kari Isaacson.

We appreciate your time.

And staying with the 16th into one of the two contested representative seats.

Another one with an incumbent and challenger.

That incumbent is Mark Klicker, seeking his third two-year term in the post.

The challenger, Dr. Linda Gunshefski, an ophthalmologist out of Walla Walla.

Here they are on stage now.

Once again, we appreciate your time and effort in getting here today.

And we just spoke with candidates for the Senate position and some discussion there as we get right into the line of questioning about these newly drawn district lines all over the Tri-Cities area.

And that means some nuanced changes in district needs.

So let's begin this debate today talking about infrastructure.

And Mr. Klicker, we'll start with you.

What infrastructure does the 16th district need, and how would you advocate for it?

- Thank you very much.

Thanks for monitoring this.

I want to thank the League of Women Voters for putting this forum on.

And I look forward to the rest of the discussion.

Housing is huge.

Affordable housing is so needed.

Taking care of the people that are trying to get into the workforce, stay in the workforce, and for our elderly that have a fixed income.

So we have to create affordable housing.

And that is probably the biggest need.

And a lot of that has to do with regulation, permitting, and the cost drivers that make it unaffordable.

And so I was fortunate to work on, put together a bill.

It was a cost driver bill.

It made it through the housing committee that would have looked at a variety of people throughout the public, economists, realtors, builders, tenants, landlords, utilities, REAs, whatever it may be.

They would be at the table.

It would be a task force that would, they would bring everything to the table, and they would be able to find out what the real reason of an affordable housing is, what's causing the unaffordable housing.

So it made it through our committee unanimously, bipartisan.

Unfortunately, it had a fiscal note.

It didn't make it through at the time through the appropriations committee.

But we're gonna do it again next year, and we're gonna find out what the real causes of it is.

- All right, thank you very much.

And Dr. Gunshefski, same question to you about infrastructure needs.

- You bet.

Thank you very much for this opportunity.

It's a real privilege to be here.

Running for the 16th Legislative District has been pretty exciting.

This is a huge district now, all the way from Waitsburg, Washington, to Benton City.

I've been very excited to meet so many new people and to learn about this particular part of the district, Richland, PNNL, Hanford, and all the exciting things that are happening here.

This area is going to boom economically in the next 25 years.

So infrastructure is really important.

And as Mark said, housing is probably at the peak of what we're going to need.

We definitely need more affordable housing.

But we're going to need a lot more than that.

We're going to need power.

We're expecting chip manufacturers to set up shop here in this area.

We're going to have EV battery producers.

We're going to have the Hanford cleanup.

That's going to require additional rail.

We're going to need more roads.

So we are going to need all kinds of infrastructure here.

And we've got to be prepared and forward thinking.

We're gonna need people to work.

We're geed union workers, skilled workers.

We're going to need child care people to take care of all these workers.

We're going to need more education to train and prepare people.

We're going to need health care workers, physicians.

So I think we need to get ready for a broad increase in our infrastructure.

- All right, thanks, Dr. Gunshefski.

All right, let's move on to question number two.

And we'll start with you here first for this one.

And this is amid any number of budget questions we could ask you about.

But let's talk about schools right now in the 16th district.

Reports out there that schools are running out of that COVID relief money.

That's going to lead to some cuts to staff positions all over districts, all over the state.

This district is not exempt from that.

And as this is happening, the league's question is, where do you stand on funding for after school programs, for elementary schools and middle schools?

And why?

- Well, I think we need to fully fund all our public schools.

So they are local school districts are not on the brink of bankruptcy.

Clearly, there's a problem with the McCleary formula that so many of our local school districts are teetering on bankruptcy.

I believe after school programs are essentially important.

We need to enrich our students with more than just the three Rs.

They need art.

They need education.

They need a place where they can do their homework.

Also, most parents aren't done working at three in the afternoon.

They need to know their kids are somewhere in a safe, stimulating, and enriching environment after school.

So I think we need to be realistic that we need to be funding education so children and students are engaged and supervised until 5 p.m.

So I do think that needs to be part of the funding.

But I think one of the things I would look forward to doing as a legislature is to be going back to Olympia and figuring out a better formula and a better way to fund our local school districts.

Because what we're doing now is not working.

McCleary's been available since, I'm thinking, the 1980s, 1990s.

But if a formula isn't working, you fix it.

And clearly, it's not working.

And our students deserve better.

Our teachers deserve better.

And our parents deserve better.

- All right.

And Representative Klicker, the same question goes to you about funding for after school activities for schools.

- It's really important that we have the funding of after school activities.

In fact, at least the Wawa School District, they're making it possible to utilize some of their funding where parents, especially families that can't afford the things such as band or choir, and some of those different things, they usually have to pay a fee for for some of the sports.

The school districts are actually helping fund those, primarily because we're finding that families are really struggling to afford to do things.

And we have to be able to keep these kids active.

And that is some of the things that we have fallen behind on is because we've dealing kind of going into another realm is some of the technology, the smartphones, some of the things these kids are, you know, they're using every day, and it's consuming their lives.

And some of these kids are reclusing.

So we have to keep them involved.

So yes, it's really important that we continue to fund those programs and keep them going, even if it's a little bit more.

We're losing students in our public school system.

And we have to find out really what's causing that.

Seattle School District apparently is going to close down between 19 and 20 schools within their school district.

Why is that?

Walla Walla School District, their kindergarten class is now the same size as the Walla Walla High School graduating class.

What's gonna happen?

Generally, when they start kindergarten, there's a large group of kids.

By the time they get to high school, it shrinks.

We've got to do something about that.

- All right, thank you very much.

And we'll go right back to you for a bit more of a broad question.

For question number three, Mr. Klicker, what are your concerns, if any, for the overall state budget?

Is there any area where you're concerned the state is spending too much, too little in the wrong places?

- Yeah, so you have to look at both capital budget and your transportation budget, appropriations for other needs that they use.

And Washington State has a bad spending habit.

We spend too much on a lot of projects that maybe aren't needed.

And we find that with some of the programs.

Transportation, so much of that is spent in areas that have to do with pedestrian, bicycle use, which is fine.

But when we have unsafe infrastructure, it can be very dangerous.

We have to be careful where we spend that money and make sure that our ideologies regarding that is important.

The same thing with different projects that are being built on the capital budget.

It's great that we can apply and utilize those capital budgets for projects.

Are they needed?

And I think that's what we have to do is run a scale.

What's important?

We do a pretty good job throughout the state on providing projects for different programs.

It doesn't matter if it is in the Tri-Cities, Waitsburg, Seattle, Bellingham.

Both parties do a good job distributing that out.

But we have to be careful what is important and how does it work well for the public.

- All right, Thank you, Mr. Klicker.

And Ms. Gunshefski, same question to you.

Just about state spending and where you think we've gone awry or where you think we could spend better.

- Thank you.

I think we can spend better if we spend and invest in people.

As a physician, I'm very concerned with healthcare.

I can see that our healthcare infrastructure is in crisis.

We have doctors leaving our communities.

People are having a hard time finding access.

And we're suffering on mental healthcare services.

And I think we need to keep in mind that when the state spends money in those areas, they're creating jobs.

Those people who are working as physicians and nurses and working as mental healthcare counselors are an investment that the state can make.

So I would look to invest more strongly in healthcare, in education, especially childhood education and early learning.

It's better to be penny wise and a pound foolish.

All the money that we spend on early childhood education is money that we can save later on in life, and kids are less likely to get into trouble, to get involved with crime if they're invested early on.

So I would take a very pro-family, pro-child look at investing in education.

As regards to transportation, I think that we can and should be spending, investing more money in mass transit and rail to move people.

Not everybody here has access to a car.

Not all citizens can drive.

So those are things that I will look at regards to budget.

All right, Thank you, Dr. Gunshefski.

Our fourth question is on the line between accountability and privacy in your job, or, to put another way, that we know is legislative privilege.

Something that's been moving to the forefront the past five years, particularly when it comes to withholding information from public record.

Protecting communications among legislatures in the legislature.

Ms. Gunshefski, what's your understanding of legislative privilege?

And if elected, would you use it?

Why or why not?

- So my understanding, I have to admit, of legislative privilege is limited.

But my philosophy is if I am working for the public and the taxpayer is paying my salary, that the public and the taxpayer is entitled to know who I'm talking to, what I'm talking about, who I am receiving money from, and my relationship with bills that are submitted.

So I believe that public servants should be fully accountable to their constituents.

And there should be full transparency at every level of government to the constituents.

- All right, thank you, Dr. Gunshefski.

And then, Representative Klicker, that same question to you, as somebody who's been in the legislature.

- Yeah, I agree with Linda wholeheartedly.

That's exactly what we need to do.

We are hired by the people.

And if we aren't accountable and they aren't able to see what we are doing, and if we don't want to provide it, shame on us.

It's very important that they understand.

We work for them, and we get these requests, Public Information Act requests, quite often.

And we provide what is needed to be provided, and then some if we need to.

And so I think it's a good rule.

I think it's something that needs to be done.

There are people that don't want to see that happen.

But when you're out there working for the public, we need to make sure that we are doing our best and we are held accountable.

- All right.

Thank you very much, Mr. Klicker.

As a professor who teaches journalism and often files many of those records requests, I know we're interested to hear your answers on things like that.

Well, finally, we mentioned this was going to be quick, and it is.

We have some time for some closing statements.

Now, we said it before.

We cannot cover everything.

We just covered a few things here.

And we know you're doing this plenty, but this is a chance to cover the things that you perhaps want to address the most.

Mr. Klicker, we'll let you start for a 90-second closing statement.

- Well, thank you.

I've been, my family's been in the area since 1861 on my mom's side and 1891 since my father's side.

The Tri-Cities has been part of my home.

My grandparents lived here, and I was here quite often.

Walla Walla farmed that for many years and farmed on the Snake River.

So it's really, it's all home.

It's something we've lived with.

And we believe serving our community is what we have to do.

I think it's, all of us should be required to serve our community in some way.

For me, the most important things that are important to our district is both the issues on mental health and the drug problem, and our housing problem.

We need to address all of these, and we need to do it the right way.

The great thing is, is every bill I sponsored the last couple of sessions were bipartisan bills.

I had a Democrat co-sponsor with me.

And as any of the bills that we have, not everybody's bills make it through to be signed by the governor.

But the best way to do it is to work back and forth and together in a bipartisan way.

And I was fortunate to be able to do that.

We worked and passed the Richard Lenhardt Act, which was the bus driver that was killed on the bus.

And we passed that, that that would be a gross misdemeanor for trespassing.

So I'm excited to get back, and we're gonna do more bipartisan work.

Thank you.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Klicker.

Ms. Gunshefski, your closing statement.

- Okay.

So as I mentioned earlier, I'm from Walla Walla.

I've practiced medicine there for 28 years.

Originally, I'm from the East Coast.

I was educated at Johns Hopkins, and I have an engineering degree from that institution.

I received my medical degree from Rutgers Medical School in New Jersey.

But I've been blessed to be able to call Eastern Washington my home.

I've spent 35 years taking care of patients.

I've operated on thousands of patients here in Eastern Washington.

They've trusted me with their vision.

As an owner of a small business, I led a team of 12 employees, training and educating them, managing the business and the finances, complying with regulations, and all the while still delivering excellent and compassionate care to my patients.

As a small business owner and a physician, I've had to make some very tough decisions, and I've led with integrity, and that is the kind of values and skill set I will bring to Olympia to work for you if I'm voted in.

They call me doctor, but my favorite title is mom.

My son is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy.

My younger son is an aerospace engineer.

As a physician and a woman, I am very concerned about the regressive laws that have been passed in the wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

Don't be misled.

Washington State is at risk for that.

In 2021, all the Republican legislators voted no on safeguarding abortion rights in Washington State.

They also voted no against mandating that hospitals take care of women experiencing miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies, and they would allow out-of-state law enforcement and agencies to have access to your medical records without your knowledge or consent.

So be careful.

Thank you.

- All right.

Thank you, Dr. Gunshefski.

That does it for our time with our candidates in this race, and as you hear in those closing statements, we wish we could get to a lot more topics here, but we want to thank you again, Representative Mark Klicker, Dr. Linda Gunshefski.

We appreciate it.

Candidates for the 16th district representative, position one.

And that makes for an easy transition to position two in the 16th.

We'll get a couple more candidates here on stage.

In this race, we have incumbent Representative Skylar Rude in the position since 2019, facing Craig Woodard, a former union electrician and operating engineer.

We thank you both for being here.

As I mentioned, no opening statements here, but our first question from the League of Women Voters is meant to get at your priorities and vision for the state legislature.

And the first question, in your opinion, what's the greatest challenge for the legislature in 2025?

Mr. Rude, we'll have you go first.

- Well, first of all, thank you so much for having us.

I appreciate the opportunity.

I think that over the last few years, including the 2025 session, partisanship is going to be a bit of a challenge.

And as probably a lot of folks know, part of my platform since I got elected was to try to break down the partisan barriers.

And so I've been doing that for the last six years in office.

And we'll continue working across the aisle as much as possible.

Right now, our divide is 58 to 40.

One more vote on the majority side gives them a supermajority to pass bonds without minority party support.

So I think it'll be even more important going into this next session to try to fight back on the partisanship that I think is just really divisive and is a barrier to creating good policy.

- All right, you have 40 more seconds if you'd like to use it, or we can move on.

- Policy-wise, probably budgetary problems.

In tight budgets, we face difficult decisions on what to cut and what to prioritize.

And, of course, my vision for the budget differs a little bit from the majority party's vision for the budget.

So I would prioritize vulnerable populations, people with disabilities, elderly, that really need to be prioritized in the budget.

Plan 1 COLA has come to mind for some of our really aging public service employees.

So prioritizing that way and then public safety.

- All right, thank you very much.

Mr. Woodard, what would your priorities be for the 2025 session?

- I agree with my opponent that budget would be one of the biggest priorities we've got to deal with when we get there in the 2025 session.

I know there's money set aside in certain areas that we need to access where we need to make sure that our schools are funded properly.

And what we've been hearing the past couple of days is there's a lot of people with special needs in schools that need extra care, extra services that are not getting it right now.

So we need to work on that.

I think that's pretty important to everybody, especially in the school system.

Our education is very important in the state in the fact that we want to make sure that kids are educated properly and we don't turn out a bunch of people who don't know what's going on in the world, and they need to have all the basics and the basic information that they need.

And the times are changing, and the kids need to keep up.

The teachers need to keep up.

And we need to work on that and make sure that we can keep that momentum going.

Cell phones in classes also a big something we should work on.

I know that he had a bill last year that either passed or I don't recall if it passed or not, but we need to keep going on that too.

- All right.

Thank you very much, Mr. Woodard.

All right.

Let's move on to our second question.

And Mr. Woodard, you'll go first on this one.

And it really just gets down to what this job means to you.

And I love this question from the league, especially as you make a first run at a term in the legislature.

Describe the most important duties of a legislative representative.

- The most important duties is to work with everybody in the legislature to form fair and just laws to make sure that the people are represented properly in our district.

And we can do that by working across the aisle, working together, making sure that we have bipartisan support on most of our bills that we're going to be working on and moving forward with that, also to make sure that our retirees are taken care of in the state.

That's one of the big problems I think we have is people who are underfunded with their retirements that we need to get in health care, child care, and health care, child care, and housing are the most important things that we have to work on in the coming session, in my opinion.

And they need to be fair, they need to be quality, and they need to be accessible, all three.

- All right, Mr. Woodward, thank you very much.

And Mr. Rude, you've been here, and who knows, your answer may be a little bit different or nuanced.

What is the main duty of a legislative representative?

- I would say that the only legislation, well, first of all, the legislative branch of government is the policymaking branch of government.

We have the executive branch that implements the policies of the legislature.

The one piece of legislation that we are required by the Constitution to pass is the budget.

We already touched on that a little bit, so I'm not going to go into that.

But upholding the Constitution, we all swear to uphold the Constitution when we're sworn in, and that's one of our top duties.

As probably a lot of people know, because of the McCleary decision, the state Constitution says that the paramount duty of the state is to provide ample provision for the education of all children in the state.

So K-12 is the one policy area that's called out in the Constitution.

I happen to be the ranking member on the Education Committee, which is the minority party lead.

So my focus has been on K-12.

It accounts for over 40 percent of the state's operating budget.

So I'm gonna continue focusing on that.

There's so much room for improvement.

I agree with my opponent that limiting cell phone use in the classroom really is a way that we can shift the focus from the handheld devices to learning.

And there's so many policy issues within education that I've been working on.

One of them that I'm proud of was a bill that is now law that requires all school boards to record their meetings for transparency's sake.

My time's up.

- All right.

Thank you very much, Mr. Rude.

All right, let's move on to question number three then.

And we're flipping a usual question about reaching across the aisle for bipartisan progress.

We normally ask our candidates about that.

I'm actually curious about how you may handle a situation in which you disagree with a strategy, a policy, or messaging from within your own party.

And Mr. Rude, we'll start with you here.

How would you balance your personal values against perhaps conflicting party priorities?

And could you provide an example, including how you might have addressed that issue?

- Probably, that was a lot in one question, so hopefully I'll be able to answer it.

I feel like when I first got elected, my pledge to myself was to always do what I thought was right so I could go to sleep with a clear conscience.

And I feel like I've done that.

I have made some mistakes along the way and regretted some votes, but at the time, I truly felt that those were the votes I needed to take.

One area that comes to mind as an area where I disagreed with, I'm not going to say my party because we're not a party as legislators.

We're individual legislators in a government position representing the people of our district.

And I don't represent the party.

I represent my district.

But the members of my caucus, House Republicans, and I disagreed on Washington's death with dignity law, and I worked for four years to improve access to that law.

I think there were maybe two Republicans that ended up voting for that.

My bill is now law, but it allows a person who is terminally ill to be prescribed a lethal dose of medication to end their life.

There are a lot of safeguards in there.

They have to be within six months of death.

They have to have two providers.

There's a waiting period, all this kind of stuff.

But as kind of a libertarian-leaning person that really emphasizes personal rights, I thought that that was a good policy, and the voters actually implemented that 15 years ago, and I just had some updates to it.

So we just disagreed and went our own ways, and I appreciate my caucus not being hostile toward me over it.

- I appreciate it.

And you bring that up.

Even that last bit is sort of why we asked that question about differing from party values, however you might define that.

Mr. Woodard, what are your thoughts on that?

- Well, I believe in negotiating one-on-one, whatever it takes, if I had to go in there and talk to someone to make sure that they could see my point of view, I would make sure that we negotiated and negotiated until we came to a conclusion.

And when you walk away, if there's a win on each side, if both sides feel like they won, then that's a successful negotiation in my mind.

And that's the goal that I would approach it with to reach.

So whatever it takes, you know, it takes a lot of time, sometimes four years, you know.

You just got to keep going.

And if you believe in it strong enough and you don't want to give in, you just-sometimes you do have to compromise and give up a little bit to make it happen.

But I think that the best way to do it would be to negotiate and make sure that everybody who walks out of there feels like they got something out of the deal.

- All right, Mr. Woodard, thank you very much.

And we're going to go right back to you with our fourth question, and one that's become a state issue for states across the country, is about abortion.

And law is relatively unchanged since 1970 here in Washington, abortion legal up to fetal viability.

In 2023, the SHIELD law was passed, keeping citizens from facing civil or criminal action in the state in response to Roe v. Wade.

Mr. Woodard, where do you stand on state legislation regarding abortion?

- I think the state legislation that we currently have is pretty strong in protecting women's rights, and I think we need to keep-make it better, make it stronger if we can.

One of the problems that we're having right now is people coming from out of state that don't have the same rights we do here.

And there are-I mean, nothing wrong with it.

We need to make sure that we're-we are an accessible place for people to come to.

But at the same time, that leaves us kind of short on healthcare needs for people that live here in the state.

So we have to kind of balance that out and make sure that we have enough people to work in the healthcare industry to make sure that we don't lose that situation right now.

- You have some more time if you'd like to use it.

- Yeah, I just want to say I do stand up for a woman's right to choose, and that's one thing that-since it's been the law for 50 years in this country, and I think it should be-go back to that as soon as possible.

- All right, thank you very much.

Mr. Rude, same question.

Where do you stand on state legislation regarding abortion?

- Thanks for asking the question.

It's probably the most sensitive of the election cycle.

For background, the voters of this state created legal access to abortion in the 1970s before Roe v. Wade.

And there have been measures since then to improve access.

I think that this issue comes up in campaign season because it's a hot issue.

People feel passionately about it.

But I think the idea that abortion access would be threatened by Republicans in Washington is misguided.

I pointed out at a forum the other night that Republicans have had control, since I've been in the legislature, as staff, control of the Senate.

There were zero Republican abortion bills passed out of the Senate.

When Republicans had control in the 90s of the House, zero abortion bills.

So I think that in the House Republican caucus, we recognize the value that we place on direct democracy and the initiative process.

And I feel comfortable saying that the majority of Republicans believe that the legislature should not be passing abortion law to contradict the initiative that the people passed.

If there are any changes, those need to go back to the ballot for the people to decide.

- All right, thank you very much, Mr. Rude.

Well, we have left ourselves a little bit more time, so I'm gonna add a question here.

And this is another one of those perspective ones, but also it helps our voters sort of get your understanding of your job.

What are the key differences between a senator and a representative in a district like the 16th, Mr. Rude?

- Very, very little.

So there are the two chambers in the legislature, the House and the Senate.

They serve the same lawmaking function.

The one difference that stands out to me is the Senate does confirmation of gubernatorial appointees.

If there was ever an impeachment process for an elected official, it's just like the federal government.

The House handles the impeachment.

The Senate handles any kind of trial or conviction.

But for the most part, each chamber operates independently, but like the committee process is the same.

The obligation to our district is the same.

The geographic area of our districts is identical, same voting population.

So really, as far as the lawmaking piece of the job, it's identical.

There are half as many senators as representatives.

And so where I collaborate with Representative Klicker on legislation, and we work on priorities together in the Senate, there's only one district, one senator per district.

So it's more of a, I would say, an independent, senators are in a more independent position as the lone person representing their district in that chamber.

So little differences like that, but essentially the same function.

- All right, Mr. Rude, thank you very much.

And Mr. Woodard, it's the same question to you, your perspective on the differences between a senator and a representative.

- Yeah, I was going to say there are twice as many representatives that are senators.

So the representatives actually represent fewer people than the senators do.

The senators represent twice as many people as each individual representative does in a district, because there are more.

So it's helpful to have the senator and the two representatives in the same party.

They can actually get more done that way, I think.

But at the same time, we also need that balance of having a representative from each party in those spots so that we can balance it out a little better and maybe make some more balanced legislation in that respect.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Woodard.

I'm going to add one more question here, and actually I'm going to ask our clock timers.

We set the clock at one minute for this one.

We're gonna try to sneak one in before closing statements here.

This comes from the League of Women Voters.

Any unique challenges here in the 16th, and we asked this of our Senate candidates as well, in terms of representing an area with a state penitentiary or, I should say, a couple of correctional centers here?

Mr. Woodard.

- I would say that the people up there at the state penitentiary are doing a pretty good job of getting people out and having these programs to get people back into society, and that's really what the special aspect would be, to make sure that they are released into a friendly area, or they're friendly.

I mean, safe for everybody when they get out, and to make sure that everything works the way it's supposed to.

It also gives access to people who want to go and help the people in the prisons.

I know several people who have worked up in the Walla Walla Penitentiary, and none of them has had a bad experience there.

It's always been positive, from what I've heard, so th - All right, Mr. Woodard.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Rude, same question.

So, I live in Walla Walla, home to the state penitentiary.

Yeah, I think those are a unique service by government or department in government.

We have over 1,000 correctional officers in the state penitentiary, and the issues that I hear from them are about staffing shortages, mental health impact from the really challenging and demanding role, the assaults.

I introduced a bill that extended peer-to-peer counseling programs, specifically to the Department of Corrections.

That was a Teamsters 117 request.

The governor signed it.

It's now law to help address that issue.

I think, generally, safety of correctional officers is an issue, and I've been meeting with them and doing my best to support them in that.

- All right, Mr. Rude.

Thank you very much.

Well, we appreciate both of your responses to these questions.

Before we go, we did promise some time for closing statements.

We'll reset the clock to 90 seconds at this time.

And, Mr. Rude, your closing statement now, sir.

Thank you.

Thanks again for whoever's tuning in and out there, and thank you to League of Women Voters for hosting this every election cycle.

So, I think what you as a resident of the newly drawn 16th Legislative District can expect from me is I do feel that after six years, I've demonstrated how I operate and what my policy positions are, kind of how I think through policy, and I intend to continue operating that way in a bipartisan fashion.

I started a bipartisan working group with House Democrats, plan to continue doing that.

I go out of my way to build relationships with majority party members.

One of the byproducts of that is effectiveness.

I've had nine bills that are signed into law by our Democratic governor, and I think that's a demonstration of the bipartisan relationships that have already been built.

But aside from that, I just think it's the right thing to do.

And in a time when there's a lot of division, we need to overcome that and be above the partisan division that's happening.

I think it's easier in Washington State to do that because it's smaller, as we just talked about.

We have 49 senators, 98 representatives.

We don't have the 435 representatives that the U.S. House has.

So I get to know every one of my colleagues, and I think that's pretty special.

So I will continue to not be a one-issue representative, but try to be someone who's responsive to a wide variety of issues facing this district.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Rude.

Mr. Woodard, your closing statement.

I'd like to say that college education is not the only path to a successful career and a successful retirement.

The trades right now are really in desperate need of people to go to work.

And if you tune into a good union apprenticeship program and get yourself in a job like that, you can go in there for four years, get paid while you earn, while you learn, and get out and have a very viable career, well-paying job without student loan debt.

So that's one thing that I would recommend everybody do, especially in this area with the Hanford operation going full blast, and it'll probably be here for a while.

I understand until 2040 or something like that, maybe even longer.

We know how that works.

There's a lot of government funding there that goes on.

So it is important to get that area cleaned up, and we need to concentrate on that for the future.

And that's pretty much what I was going to say.

- All right, thank you very much.

I really appreciate that.

That does it for our time with Skylar Rude, Craig Woodard, running for District 16, representative position two.

Thank you both for being here today.

- Thank you.- - Thank you, Matt.

- And I want to remind our voters about some election information as we wrap up this hour of NWPB's Vote 2024 coverage.

Before we sign off, a reminder that that general election is coming up on November 5th.

Ballots will be going out beginning October 18th.

And if your deadline's here, if you have not registered to vote and want to do so by mail, that deadline is October 28th, eight days before the election.

You can register in person all the way up to election day.

In fact, all the way up until the moment the polls close.

And if you happen to be watching the first airing of this program, we'll let you know our next set of debates will cover races in Benton County, contested seats on the ballot for Superior Court Judge, Commissioner, and Public Utility District Commissioner.

Well, we'll also have our full programs online at Northwest Public Broadcasting on YouTube.

And not just these programs, but coverage from NWPB on some of the stories behind the questions we have asked our candidates here today.

We thank you all for joining us and thank you for wanting to learn more about those running to serve your community.

Have a great night.

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