(gentle music) (dramatic music) - Welcome to "The Newsfeed."

In today's episode, we're digging in to what some would call the blurred lines between church and state in the Central Washington City Council.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Today's top story, we're exploring faith and politics in the city of Yakima, and how, for years, something has been brewing that's led elected officials to openly declare their faith and political leanings like never before.

I sat down with Cascade PBS reporter Mai Hoang to understand the layered dynamics at play.

Welcome Mai.

Thank you for joining us today.

- Thank you for having me here today.

- Let's get right into it.

Over the years, there's been a growing shift in Yakima politics.

What's been the undercurrent and what's led to the more recent conservative, evangelical majority?

- Well, with Yakima shifting to a district-based election system starting in 2015 in response to a court ruling the year earlier, it created a lot of change in who represents various populations, namely more Latino and Latina voices on the council, and generally, those voices tended to be more liberal and progressive.

As a result, there were periods in the last decade where the Yakima City Council was more center-left rather than conservative or center-right, which is where the council was historically.

The most recent period we saw this was in the 2021-2023 period when there was the 4-3 majority towards the center-left.

There was one council member who was kind of a swing vote, and in 2023, that council member, along with that 4-3 majority contributed to a 5-2 vote to a pre-arranged proclamation for Pride Month.

It was really clear that conservatives in the Yakima area didn't like this iteration of the council, so they made a very concerted effort to bring a slate of conservative candidates to the council in 2023, and those efforts worked with the reelection of Patricia Byers, who is part of the minority that voted against the Pride Month proclamation in 2023, and the new conservative council members, it became a 5-2 conservative majority.

In addition to Byers, Matt Brown, who was also part of that minority a year earlier, was now leading the majority, and they were appointed mayor and assistant mayor earlier this year.

And it was that new 5-2 conservative majority that would do an about face in May to vote to reject a Pride Month proclamation.

- How does Christian singer Sean Feucht, who lives in California, fit into local politics?

- So Sean Feucht's become more of a national figure for his right wing and Christian nationalist views.

During COVID, he started an event called Let Us Worship, it's actually a very political name.

It references the fact that he felt that because of the pandemic restrictions, he was prevented from worshiping God.

Where he kind of comes in locally was kind of by happenstance.

When he saw that the city of Yakima voted against the Pride proclamation, he gave them a shout out on Twitter, and he happened to be in Yakima a couple of days later for a Let Us Worship event, and there, he shouted out the council again, the mayor, Patricia Byers was there, he shouted her out, she got up to this stage and so it's kind of showed that, hey, look at this very moral city that has Christian values.

- In your reporting, you've kind of connect the dots between the intersection of local and national organizing by conservative groups.

- I think when you look at the 2023 Yakima City Council election, it's very obvious that they took the pages of a playbook from Steve Bannon.

And what the playbook says is, "Hey, instead of kind of the top down, let's go for a grassroots approach," which is let's aim to get conservatives in these kind of local, historically nonpartisan seats, like school boards or city councils.

It's really obvious that they took a page outta the book.

- Now, what is the pushback by other faith leaders in community groups?

- So I think the first thing was the Yakima LGBTQ+ community swiftly responded.

Yakima Pride issued a statement pretty much right after the rejection to approve the Pride Month proclamation, and I think they felt like it was a wake up call for people in the community to respond accordingly during the next Yakima City council election, which is scheduled for 2025.

In addition, several Christian leaders expressed disappointment.

One pastor we interviewed, Colby Roberts, said that he felt evangelical Christians and conservatives cherry pick Bible verses to justify kind of what he feels are hatred towards the LGBTQ+ community.

- Thank you so much for joining us, Mai.

- Thank you so much.

- To read more on Mai's reporting and follow our election coverage, go to cascadepbs.org and click on the politics tab.

(dramatic music) Also from the Cascade PBS newsroom, a Seattle city council challenger for District 8 garners more votes than the incumbent, but the question is will that upset hold in the general election?

Check out our website for more.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching "The Newsfeed," your destination for nonprofit Northwest news.

Go to cascadepbs.org for more.

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