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Biography (max 750 char)
Vanessa Kritzer is in her seventh year on the Redmond City Council, where she recently served as Council President. She is a mom of two kids who is a leader on local action to expand childcare access, housing affordability, climate action, and supporting families and individuals in need. Vanessa is also the Executive Director of the Washington Association of Land Trusts, where she works to protect our lands and waterways. Her career has included work at Microsoft and years working for nonprofits in Washington, DC, including the Latin America Working Group and the League of Conservation Voters. Vanessa holds MBA and MPA degrees from UW and served as the student member of UW's Board of Regents during graduate school.
I’m running for 45th LD State Representative to provide leadership that is grounded in the issues that matter most to our residents. I’m committed to restoring cuts to childcare access and fully funding our education system. From conserving our forests, trails, and salmon habitat to lowering carbon emissions through greener infrastructure and access to transit, I will make safeguarding our environment a top priority. Finally, I will provide the housing and human services funding to ensure everyone in our communities can thrive. I’ll bring experience from leading Redmond’s city budget process and identify the best ways to spend taxpayer dollars responsibly. I’ll also work to reduce the inequitable tax burden on those least able to pay by advancing more progressive revenue options.
Washington should continue protecting secure, accessible elections while doing more to help people understand how the system works. I would support sustained investments in election security, ballot tracking, audits, modern equipment, and the county election offices responsible for administering elections. We should expand multilingual voter education, civic education in schools, and partnerships with trusted community organizations so every eligible voter understands how to register, participate, and find accurate information. I also think that civic engagement begins with having elected leaders that show up in community, listen, and encourage people to make their voice heard in the political process. That's how I'm running my campaign and how I plan to lead as State Representative.
Ensuring that everyone can feel safe and supported in our communities is a top priority for me. As a city leader, I have worked on efforts to reimagine public safety and scale up alternative crisis response to ensure we have the most effective resources available to address the different crises people may be facing. I’ve also found funding to invest in our most critical emergency services to keep response times high as our communities grow. State support can make an important difference in helping local jurisdictions train crisis responders from police to fire to social workers. I also would like to help achieve our Statewide Vision Zero targets by investing more in infrastructure and planning that makes it safer to walk, bike, and roll.
Strong local journalism is essential to healthy communities and accountable government. Local reporters attend council meetings, explain ballot measures, investigate public spending, and tell stories that larger outlets often overlook. As newsrooms shrink, communities lose both a trusted source of information and an important check on those in power.
Washington should explore carefully structured support for local journalism while maintaining a firm firewall between public funding and editorial decisions. I would support approaches such as a statewide local journalism corps, workforce or employment incentives that help outlets retain local reporters, expanded public-media partnerships, and grants administered by an independent entity rather than elected officials.
Washington’s 2021 bipartisan redistricting commission process revealed areas that should be improved before 2031. The commission missed its deadline, and too much consequential negotiation occurred late in the process without adequate public visibility. I would support reforms that provide the commission with permanent professional staff and technical capacity, require greater transparency around meetings and negotiations, establish clearer and ranked map-drawing criteria, and begin public engagement much earlier. The process should also include robust language access, accessible mapping tools, and meaningful opportunities for communities of interest—especially communities historically divided or underrepresented—to participate.
In the 45th LD, affordability is one of the biggest challenges for our residents. I’m hearing from seniors who aren’t sure if they can stay in the places they’ve called home for decades and from families who are struggling under the strain of rising costs of everything from food to childcare to housing and utilities. As State Representative, I will work on addressing the property tax burden for those on fixed incomes, increasing affordability so seniors, young families, and working people can stay in our communities, and supporting access to healthcare and human services. In a district with many immigrants, I also believe we need state leaders that will take action to stand up for our civil rights, our democracy, and an inclusive community for all at this critical time.
Biography (max 750 char)
Chandler Torbett is a technology attorney, father of three, and citizen of the Muscogee Nation running for the Washington State House in the 45th Legislative District. Raised in rural Oklahoma, Chandler was the first in his family to attend law school. He has served as a public defender, General Counsel for a tribal health system, and now works as corporate counsel supporting technology and AI products. Chandler is running to make housing and childcare more affordable, strengthen public education, build an economy where opportunity thrives, and ensure government delivers real results. He believes in pragmatic, outcome-focused leadership that brings people together to solve problems rather than score political points.
Making housing and childcare more affordable, strengthening public education, and protecting the core services Washington families rely on. Every budget decision should be guided by one question: are we improving people's lives?
If additional revenue is necessary, I support making our tax code fairer by asking those with the greatest ability to contribute to pay more, while protecting middle-class families and small businesses. I also support modernizing our tax system, including replacing Washington's regressive Business & Occupation tax with a corporate income tax.
If reductions become necessary, we should start by eliminating programs that are duplicative, ineffective, or failing to deliver measurable results and not by cutting frontline services.
Washington should continue protecting secure, accessible elections while improving transparency and public understanding of how the system works.
We should also make civic participation easier by expanding voter education, supporting civics instruction in schools, improving access for voters with disabilities and limited English proficiency, and encouraging participation in local elections, where turnout is often lowest.
Public confidence depends on both security and trust. Elected officials should defend legitimate election results, avoid reckless claims that undermine faith in democracy, and ensure election administrators have the resources and independence necessary to do their jobs well.
The most effective public safety strategy is one that is tough on serious crime while also addressing the underlying conditions that allow crime to take root. Washington should ensure law enforcement has the staffing, training, and modern tools needed to respond effectively, while maintaining strong standards for accountability and community trust.
We also need to invest in behavioral health treatment, addiction recovery, and crisis-response systems so police are not left as the default response to every social emergency. The state should focus resources on repeat violent offenders, organized retail theft, domestic violence, and gun violence, while expanding proven prevention programs for young people.
We have to treat reliable local journalism as essential civic infrastructure. When communities lose local reporters, people have less information about their schools, city councils, public safety, and how taxpayer dollars are being spent and misinformation can fill that vacuum.
I support ambitious state action to support local journalism, including a dedicated public-interest journalism fund, tax credits or grants for hiring local reporters, support for nonprofit and community-owned newsrooms, and expanded coverage in rural and underserved communities. The state should also strengthen public-records access and ensure government information is available promptly and in usable formats.
I would support greater transparency, including earlier release of proposed maps, clearer explanations of the data and criteria used, and more meaningful opportunities for public input before final decisions are made.
I would also support clearer statutory standards that prioritize equal population, compliance with applicable laws, protection of communities of interest, geographic compactness, and political competitiveness without favoring incumbents or political parties.
Affordability. Too many people are being priced out of the communities where they work, raise their children, and hope to build a future. Housing costs are at the center of the problem, but it's also childcare, utilities, groceries, and other basic expenses.
State government should make it faster, easier, and less expensive to build more homes, while ensuring growth is responsible and supported by adequate roads, schools, utilities, and transit.
The state should also expand access to affordable childcare, strengthen public schools, and continue investing in transportation infrastructure. Every policy decision should make it easier for people to build a stable future here.
