NWPB’s listeners ask, Washington state House candidates respond

The 2024 election is underway, and the candidates’ campaigns in central Washington are moving forward.

As part of NWPB’s elections coverage, we surveyed our audience and asked them to submit questions they would like our news team to ask candidates. Here are their responses. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Candidates Ana Ruiz Kennedy, a Democrat, and Deb Manjarrez, a Republican, are running for Washington state Representative in the 14th Legislative District, Position 2.

Ruiz Kennedy and Manjarrez were contacted for this interview. Only Ruiz Kennedy accepted the interview request.

What do you propose to protect democracy further?

Ana Ruiz Kennedy: We have our state constitution, our state laws, and fortunately our state has withstood those tests, if you will. And that is one of the areas which shows that we have had an attorney general that has been strong and we also have a Supreme Court that is protecting our constitution.

In that sense, we haven’t changed what we have. We haven’t had our democratic laws weakened or attempts to do that.

I feel protected. I feel that our democratic laws have withstood the test, especially in elections that we’ve seen … and we’re seeing that every year.

Washington State, in terms of voter registration and voting has strong laws. We are able to get our ballots two weeks ahead. We have clean elections and fair elections. So, those are the things that I think are the core of the democratic process.

How will you manage policies for visiting workers? 

Ruiz Kennedy: There are many sides to it. One is workers’ rights, one is living conditions and one is pay and compensation.

Right now, the way that our guest worker program, our H-2A program is, they’re able to have, in a sense, similar laws and rights to what our workers that live here have.

I’m talking to farmers. I’ve heard some of their concerns about the overtime pay, and I’ve heard about some of those concerns from some of the workers, where they have seen the opportunity for more hours diminished with the overtime.

So those are some of the issues that we have here locally. We still need workers, and that’s we have a shortage of farmwork labor, especially in the state. Continuing the conversation and listening to farmers and also local workers is important.

I have the support of the United Farm Workers Union. So, having those conversations and seeing, listening to them, what their workplace situations are for some of them and the lack of protections that they still have, and they are the same that many, many times the H-2A workers also have to go through.

Some of those have improved significantly, but there are still some concerns that people have. 

Listeners asked about immigration and having enough workers to support our farmers. What are your thoughts about the relation between both issues? 

Ruiz Kennedy: I think for us, in how we look at the farmwork labor need … sometimes they feel like they have been displaced.

What is the opportunity for us as a community is to introduce some CTE (career and technical education) training, expanding our CTE training so that our workers have access to these trainings and eventually having access to these jobs, as we’re seeing that the H-2A way worker program is expanding.

And also a lot of our workers, our pool of local farmworkers, is decreasing … So I think that’s where the opportunity is. 

 … Year-round farmworkers to have access and expand the access and the capacity for worker retraining program, for CTE training, and also so that would allow us to bring other industries and better-paying jobs, retirement, and those other things that (they) should be able to have access to.

Do you support health care for women, including abortion access?

Ruiz Kennedy: The state of Washington has protects and recognizes that women have free will. The word that we use is the right to choose. 

I always go back to that is called free will. In the same way that I have free will, you have, and everybody else does. And I have, we have to respect that.

That is part of the pillars of the state of Washington, understanding that women have free will and they have free will to make decisions over their own body. That part is what is clear and I will continue to support that.

What specifically are your plans to protect Pacific Northwest natural resources while balancing with business and population pressures? 

Ruiz Kennedy: That is a big question or a broad question as well. I think the lands management, and the role of the Legislature and how we work with agencies is important. 

We want to, and that is something that I think the Climate Commitment Act talks about. And that’s one of the intents of these. These law(s) and … how do we make sure that we have clean water, clean air, that we still keep our resources and we pass these down to many more generations.

There’s some more work that we could do, but it has been always at the forefront.

When you’re in the Legislature, it is a citizen elect. That means you are not an expert of everything, but you need to be open to talking to experts and to hearing, getting these feedback from (the) community so you can make informed decisions.

In this situation, I think it is important to get diverse voices at the table when making decisions. I want to turn in clean water, earth and sustainable resources for the next generations.

What are your thoughts about nuclear energy and energy alternatives to dams?

Ruiz Kennedy: That is something we have, it’s one of our strengths in this area, that we have a diversity of energy sources.

We have nuclear energy, and now we’re seeing smaller modular reactors. I think those are interesting. We are also exploring renewable energy, clean energy and hydro, so I support those. Solar, hydro and nuclear energy are sources of energy that we need to diversify.

How will you work across the aisle to solve the very real problems we face: climate change, income inequality and racism?

Ruiz Kennedy: The area where we live has some challenges when we are talking about climate change. What would happen if we repeal this initiative, the Climate Commitment Act. It would put our budget in a difficult position. When we are talking about working across the aisle, I would like to have solutions, and to listen because no one party is the owner of all good ideas. I would like to hear what their solution is to how do we fund our responsibilities.

I will tie that into income inequality, recognizing that it has existed, and sometimes, laws have been used to further separate and widen the income gap. Those are the conversations, and policies I will continue to discuss with people across the aisle. I live here in the community, I am open to those conversations. I will continue to drive those conversations as well.

We live in Tri-Cities, and I live in Pasco. In this area, Central Washington, we are predominantly Hispanic, and there’s other cultures, as well. I think when we talk about laws and make sure that when we are enacting laws, we are putting those through the lens of who is this going to affect. And when we see laws that our fellow legislators across the aisle want to enact, we could have those conversations: who is going to be affected and who has come to the table to discuss these policies and hear those voices.

What plans do you have to protect the electorate from disinformation?

Ruiz Kennedy: When we are talking about safety and public safety, spreading disinformation and misinformation goes hand on hand. 

There’s a huge opportunity that we have in the legislature in this realm to safeguard without eroding our freedom of speech, everybody’s freedom of speech.

But there are also concerted efforts to erode the truth. In my end, I see it with my opponent. There is a campaign to misinform and disinform people deliberately and essentially lie about my character … at all costs. We have been used to: ‘Oh, it’s politics, they just throw mud at each other,’ but these are dangerous.

If people are saying on my race that ‘I support defund the police’, which I’ve never had, that’s very dangerous because at the end, after the campaign, I am still going to live in this community and people already heard those messages and they are thinking that I support that and that is not true.

Or, that I support late-term abortions. Nobody has asked me about that, but that is not true.

These are paid campaigns. There are TV ads, radio ads, text messages and all these whisper campaigns. They’re very active on these. That is very dangerous and I would like to work on how do we protect safe information. 

In Tri-Cities Civility Caucus, we, both parties and leaders, get together and talk about this. I think there’s an opportunity for this organization to be more active because we’ve meet and the election happens and then you hear all these messages about Democrats are the devil and we are baby killers and all these things.

That’s very concerning and damaging and it’s just creates distrust and separation in our community.

Do you trust election integrity, and will you concede if you lose? 

Ruiz Kennedy: I do trust in the state of Washington, I do trust that we have a secure election system.

There are active campaigns of people trying to burn the ballot boxes and destroy them, and the election watchers are outside of the ballot boxes watching. That’s intimidation.

Still, I trust that we will have fair elections and whoever wins … obviously, I will accept it.