Campaign Phone Number
3602233652
Biography (max 750 char)
Bruce Guthrie is a retired Marketing Executive with a second career as a Teacher. His undergraduate degree is from Cornell University, and he earned a Masters Degree in Marketing, Operations and Business Strategy from Northwestern University in 1992. He later earned a Masters in Teaching Degree from Seattle University in 2008. Bruce has over 1,000 hours of teaching experience in this State. He has lived in Edmonds for over 17 years, and has lived in WA State for over 32 years. Bruce was a volunteer Special Olympics Speed Skating Coach for almost a decade, and was National Champion in Long Track Speed Skating in the 60-64 age group in 2024. He and his wife and three children live in Edmonds. His eldest child attends Cornell University.
Washington tax revenue is at record levels. The growth of revenue has outstripped the sum of inflation and population growth. We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. This is one of the main reasons the rent is too high, and inflation still rages. And most State spending winds up hurting the poor, either through bad government schooling, reduced job creation, increased inflation or greater welfare dependency. Washingtonians need jobs and better pay. The best way to achieve that is through reducing the regulatory barriers to starting and running a business, and by reducing the tax burden on employers and consumers. I support cutting funding for almost every budget item except for law enforcement. We must lift the burden of bad government from the backs of the people.
Confidence in election integrity in this state is at record lows. Rightly or wrongly, many people perceive irregularities in election outcomes. This up-swelling of feeling among the people is a threat to democracy in America. The only way to reassure voters that their votes are counted and that the vast majority of all ballots cast are legal votes is to make some major changes. It is time to recognize that all mail-in voting is a failed experiment. Mail-in ballots should still be available by request for those who are sick, disabled, traveling, in college or serving in the military. We should all have to show valid photo ID. To assume certain communities will have a harder time getting ID is to patronize them unfairly. The process must be transparent to restore faith in our elections.
Tracking down murderers, rapists and thieves should be the highest priority of State government. But Washington is in the bottom five states for police officers per capita. Police leave this state for other states because of recent defunding efforts, and because they perceive that they are not valued or their hands are tied. They also see too many of those whom they arrest are not prosecuted, but are merely released. Shoplifters are no longer even arrested. This means the costs of their theft are passed on to other shoppers. This policy has tended to increase the number of homeless people on our streets. Also, our officers waste their time on victimless crimes such as drugs, prostitution and gambling. Refocus them on property and violent crime, and we will all be safer.
Journalism can only be effective if it is privately funded. With tax funding would come pressure from politicians to cover up their misdeeds and policy failures. It is the hallmark of a dictatorship to have state-run media. Our goal should be a competitive, independent media landscape, with diverse media organizations and private news sources. The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects freedom of speech and a separation between government and journalism that is every bit as important as the separation between church and state. Competition between news agencies will work better than regulation or taxpayer funding of journalism. I’ve been very impressed by Mario Lotmore of the Lynnwood Times. You should all subscribe as I do to support excellent local journalism.
The goal of the district boundary design process should be competitive elections. But because we have left the job to politicians we get the opposite: safe districts where the same party has won the district for decades. This pushes any competition that might arise to the primaries. Since primaries are often dominated by the most extreme and enthusiastic voters, the result is more extreme and polarizing candidates. It also results in candidates who have to appear extreme to win their primary, and then have to try to walk back to the center to win re-election. This makes them seem like hypocrites or liars. Creating competitive districts is a mathematical problem, not a political one. Redistricting power should be taken away from the gerrymandering legislature, and returned to the people.
The Hippocratic Oath is to first, do no harm. State government is actively making things worse in just about every area it touches. Government education in this State has become a disgrace. Math and reading scores continue to fall, as legislators chase equity and anti-racism instead of achievement and competency. Homelessness continues to rise because bad state programs subsidize homelessness and we instruct our police to allow shoplifting. The new State Income Tax drives employers out of the State and hurts jobs for the poor and middle class. High property taxes and over-regulation makes home ownership more difficult for the young to achieve. We have too much government. And power corrupts. We need to depend more on private charities and less on politicians who have failed us.
Campaign Phone Number
2064968190
Biography (max 750 char)
Lillian has spent her career working on behalf of children, youth and families. Her work experience includes serving as the Supervisor of Youth Services and the Executive Director of a Mental Health Center; Education Advisor for the Department of Children and Youth Services; School Counselor for the Everett Public School District; and Small Business Owner/Mental Health Practice. Lillian received her Masters in Public Administration and her Masters in Counseling at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. She was appointed to the Wa State House of Representatives in 2014 and elected in 2015. She currently serves as the Majority Caucus Chair, and a member of the Labor committee, the Education committee, and the Early Learning/Human Services Co
Increasing jobs is a priority for me which will in turn benefit the states revenue package. I also believe it is critical to help our most vulnerable populations. That includes struggling families trying to make ends meet, children and families trying to access necessary services and an educational system that needs to serve all kids. We need to make sure we have a fair tax system, that the masses don't have to pay more than a few. We need to protect our small businesses that provide for their families. We need to encourage businesses to invest in our workers, in our community and in our State. And we need to keep families in their homes by making rising property taxes a last resort.
I think it's a two fold approach. I think it's important that we keep working on the integrity of the system but I also think it's important to educate the public on how the system works, being as transparent as possible, using independent observers, etc. Helping the voters understand all the checks and balances is crucial for voters to gain and retain confidence in the system.
Increasing public trust in our law enforcement system is crucial. Providing adequate comprehensive, fully funded training for our officers, especially around dealing with diverse populations and people with different abilities. Having independent investigations will increase confidence. Providing adequate funding for our officers so that they can take the time to attend training etc. is crucial. There seems to be a lot of gaps in regards to efficient timing and funding in our law enforcement academies that also need to be addressed.
They need to abide by the public disclosure laws and ensure that they have access to all the law requires.
These are unprecedented times. We are no longer on an even playing field. As long as the federal government is redistricting to give themselves an advantage we have a responsibility to fight back if that means redistricting back I will support this.
Families are struggling to make ends meet. Between increasing gas prices, cost of child care, cost of higher education, housing prices, lost of jobs, loosing health care, lost of employees and families being torn apart. etc. These are unstable times. Wa State Government's job is to try to mitigate the harm. By upholding laws such as Keep Washington Working, filling in where services have been stripped, like trying to fill in on our health care system to help the most people possible, work on partnerships to lower the cost of child care, provide loan forgiveness state programs for public service, and ensuring all services expected by the public, like education, stay strong. We also need to make sure we hold the federal government accountable when they violate our rights.
