When it came to deciding who were the best candidates for legislative races across the region, this has been a difficult year for The Times editorial board.
For months, the board has highlighted problems in Olympia around ballooning state spending, historic tax increases and poor budgeting practices.
With these concerns in mind, we listened to dozens of incumbents and their challengers explain how they would move the state forward.
In some cases, we went with the current officeholder, especially given the alternative. In others, the newcomer made a compelling case for change.
There were a few races, however, where neither candidate made the grade, and we could not provide the board’s seal of approval. That bucket includes a number of lawmakers whom we endorsed in the past.
Here’s how we made our decisions.
36th District, Senate
The state Senate’s point person on taxes, Noel Frame of the 36th Legislative District in Northwest Seattle, is a verbose defender of all that went down in Olympia in recent years.
Trouble is, the editorial board has grave misgivings about where the state ended up when it comes to taxes and spending.
Back in 2022, when the state was flush with cash, it was one of the few that did not provide broad-based tax relief. Frame, appointed to the state House in 2016, was elected to the Senate in 2022.
Frame said she has been “very clear-eyed, very focused on reforming the upside-down and regressive tax code.” But every major tax ends up growing government and leaving much to be desired when it comes to sales or property tax breaks.
Funny thing, Frame doesn’t seem to realize the mistrust she is sowing.
“If I’m raising taxes on our high-income households, or high-income companies, or whatever it is, I’m doing something at the other end of the spectrum, working families tax credit, small business tax credit,” she told the board. “So the millionaires tax, at $3.5 billion a year of revenue, was also paired with about a billion dollars a year in tax cuts.”
Do the math: $3.5 billion in new revenue; $1 billion in tax reduction. Washingtonians have every reason to fear that the push for progressive taxes will end up bloating Olympia without meaningful improvements to their pocketbook.
Frame told the board she invokes legislative privilege to avoid the state’s Public Records Act. Part of the reason for hiding her email and other communications, she said, was to avoid looking stupid if she asked staff for clarifications on complex legislation.
The board believes all government communication ought to be open to scrutiny.
Frame’s opponent, Republican Jillian England, is not up to the job.
If majority Democrats don’t want to be accused of the bait-and-switch when it comes to promising tax reform, Frame and other budget leaders must change their ways.
45th District, House Position 1
Democratic Rep. Roger Goodman can hardly be accused of being naive around the problems facing the state, particularly in matters of criminal justice.
Goodman has represented the 45th District, spanning Kirkland to Duvall and Woodinville to Sammamish, for nearly 20 years. He should use his seniority to guide younger lawmakers toward pragmatic solutions.
He appears more interested in his legislative reputation than leadership.
Goodman told the board he’d once brought forth a bill that would require the courts to justify in writing the pretrial release of defendants in felony cases. He was met with fierce resistance from his own caucus.
“My reputation suffered for a while,” he told the board. “I’m much more careful about what I bring forward to the caucus.”
The editorial board wishes Goodman, head of the Community Safety committee, would show more of a spine with his fellow lawmakers.
What might make Goodman have more political courage? Perhaps children’s lives, when their parent or guardian is addicted to fentanyl. Yet since 2023, he’s refused to even hear a bipartisan bill — one that routinely passes the Senate with a near unanimous vote — that would give prosecutors more authority in cases where children are endangered. That includes a path to treatment for the addicted adult. He won’t even give it a vote, at least so voters can see which lawmakers vote against.
Goodman gives the same excuse: that the bill is a redux to the failed war on drugs. Yet his rhetoric hasn’t helped stop the dramatic rise of children ingesting fentanyl in Washington state, which rose from two in 2020 to 30 in 2024. That’s a lot of peril that could be avoided.
As such, the board cannot endorse such a candidate. His opponent, Republican JoAnn Tolentino, did not meet with the board.
30th District, Senate
Sen. Claire Wilson, D-Auburn, is seeking reelection in the 30th Legislative District. Like most of her Democratic colleagues she voted for the income tax on millionaires to patch an expected $13 billion budget shortfall. She also promised to reject any attempt to lower the income threshold. When asked whether the state has a spending problem or revenue problem, she replied “revenue.” Despite predictions by budget analysts that the state could expect only a 1% increase in revenue in 2023-25, she joined with her caucus to assume 4.5% revenue increases.
“I would say I’m elementary in my learning and in my understanding of the intricacies of the budget,” the senator, in her eighth year in office, told the editorial board. “I understand budgeting, but when we’re looking at the levers and dials, I listen to the experts.”
But she didn’t.
The most disappointing action by Wilson, who is chair of the Senate Human Services Committee, came last year when two bipartisan bills were proposed that would’ve helped fix overcrowding and living conditions at Green Hill School, a youth prison.
Wilson sponsored one bill and Republican Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, sponsored the other one. Wilson insists that the bills were to pass as a package, although Braun’s got unanimous support in the Senate and Wilson’s was headed toward failure. Teams chat messages obtained by The Times editorial board reveal Wilson told a House to kill Braun’s bill, leaving troubled youths in further peril.
She says she’s committed to children, but what about youth jailed in squalid conditions? Not so much.
Wilson told the board, “There is still plenty of work to do in public health and housing, substance use disorder, treatment, mental health and behavior, gun violence prevention, juvenile justice and K-12.” She’s correct. But she is not the leader to make this happen. Her opponent, Republican Michael Rutland, did not meet the board’s criteria.
37th District, House, Senate
Chipalo Street earned the board’s endorsement in previous years. Not this time.
Currently serving in the state House representing the 37th Legislative District in South Seattle, Street is campaigning for an open seat in the state Senate to replace Rebecca Saldaña, who is seeking a position on the Metropolitan King County Council.
A Microsoft program manager and apartment owner, Street is vice chair of the House Finance Committee. Nonetheless, we found his budget knowledge and financial priorities lacking.
He disagreed with former Govs. Christine Gregoire and Gary Locke that Olympia has a spending problem. In fact, he laughably tried to lay blame on the past leaders. “While I agree that the budget has grown, I don’t necessarily think that is only a spending problem,” he told the board. “And I would like to see those leaders also acknowledge that they had a role in where we’ve gotten to.”
Please.
To plug yet another budget hole awaiting legislators next session, Chipalo, who supported the new income tax on high earners, would support an increase to the B&O tax as well as a new payroll expense tax on businesses.
In the endorsement interview, he lamented that the state still has a cap on special education funding. He said: “Evidence of us not meeting our paramount duty is that we still have a cap on special education funding, which is crazy to think that we’re not funding the students who need help the most, fully.”
Say what? Lawmakers eliminated the artificial cap on funding for enrollment of students with disabilities earlier this year. It passed unanimously, and he is listed among the 97 who voted for it.
He faces Tatiana Brown, who touts that, at age 28, she would be the youngest woman to be elected to the state Senate if she wins in November. Her future may be bright, but right now she does not possess the breadth of understanding to be an effective legislator.
46th District, Senate
Another incumbent who had the board’s previous support is state Sen. Javier Valdez of the 46th Legislative District in North Seattle.
Valdez can boast accomplishments when it comes to gun safety and trying to rein in the excesses of federal law enforcement. But it is past time that he showed greater independence from his party and its biggest contributors.
Take tort reform, for example.
The state ended its fiscal year June 30 on the hook for a record-setting $614 million to cover legal fees, jury awards and settlements for its lawsuits and tort claims.
When asked about efforts in Olympia to get hold of the problem, Valdez noted that he voted in committee for a measure sponsored by state Sen. Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond, that would have reined in ballooning tort liability costs. However, he voted against the measure on the Senate floor.
Why the change of heart? The politically powerful trial lawyers association, he told the board. Its members have a huge stake in keeping the spigot of public money flowing as freely as possible.
“When the bill finally came to the floor for a Senate vote, they (trial lawyers’ lobbyists) let us know that they did not feel it was quite right yet, and asked, you know, senators to vote no. I voted no. I’m changing my vote and voted no on that bill.”
Valdez also told the board that he supported public employees unions in their fight for pay increases, even as Gov. Bob Ferguson vowed to flatline salaries in an attempt to control spending.
Valdez’s opponent, Sandra Stephens, a Republican, did not appear at the endorsement interview.
To be considered an effective legislator, Valdez ought to stop trying to be such a faithful and blindingly loyal party man and use his electability to better serve his constituents and the state.
Editor’s note: This column has been updated to correctly state Sen. Noel Frame’s terms in the state House and Senate.
