Dimas, Kallinen and Mendoza vie for open 14th District House seat

Candidates running for Washington's 14th District House of Representatives open seat, from left: Chelsea Dimas, Andy Kallinen and Gloria Mendoza. (Yakima Herald-Republic)

This article was first published by the Yakima Herald-Republic.

The race for state House Position 1 representing the new 14th legislative district is wide open with no incumbent this year.

The 14th District was redrawn following the 2020 census, and redrawn again following a successful lawsuit challenging the map based on the Voting Rights Act, arguing that it discriminated against Latinos.

The new District 14 covers east Yakima, Sunnyside, Granger, Mabton, Grandview, most of the Yakama Reservation, and stretches out westward to Lyle and eastward into part of Pasco.

State Rep. Chris Corry of Yakima is the current Position 1 seat holder, but after the redistricting, he is running for a House seat in the 15th District. To find out which district you live in, visit bit.ly/14thdistrictmap.

Three candidates are vying for the seat: Democrat Chelsea Dimas of Sunnyside, a communications specialist; Republican Andy Kallinen of Lyle, a park ranger; and Republican Gloria Mendoza, the former mayor of Grandview and owner of a vocational school.

Ballots were sent by mail to registered voters last week for the Aug. 6 primary. Washington has a top-two primary, meaning two candidates with the most votes, regardless of party, advance to the general election.

The Position 2 seat candidates are Democrat Ana Ruiz Kennedy, Republican Deb Manjarrez and Eddie Perez, who didn’t list a party preference. With only two candidates for the Senate seat, both will make on the general election ballot: Republican Sen. Curtis King and Democrat Maria Beltran.

The base salary for a state legislator is $61,997.

As of Wednesday, Dimas has raised $38,978, Kallinen has raised $2,295 and and Mendoza has raised $95,369, according to the Washington Public Disclosure Commission.

The Yakima Herald-Republic spoke with candidates Dimas and Mendoza in person, and with Kallinen over Zoom. Interviews have been edited for length and clarity. Answers appear in alphabetical order.

Why are you running for this office and why are you the best person to best represent the new 14th District?

Dimas: My community knew I was running before I knew. There was this assumption that I was running — they were asking me “when are you going to announce?” After thinking about it for a while, I was like, OK, let’s do it. If the community wants me to, I’ll do it.

I feel like I’m the best person for this position because I’ve been working in community, with community, for a long time. I’ve been rallying and protesting since I was a kid, alongside my parents for issues like farmworkers’ rights, workers’ rights, and immigrant rights.

I’m truly a part of this community, I’ve grown up with this community, and I’m doing it for them.

Kallinen: I’ve been praying about the direction of our state as a frontline government worker. I’m privy to a lot of mechanizations that are going on within government at the state level.

Every day as a ranger, I’m interacting with people from all over the state … talking to them and hearing their sentiments. I just felt that someone has to do something different.

We just want to live our lives and not have government interfere with us. It’s just not happening.

I think I’ve got more experience and training and background in the issues and leadership than the other folks. I’ve had 30-plus years in law enforcement in a unique role as a law enforcement officer, where I’m greatly mixed in with natural resource issues. I work with (Department of Natural Resources), I work with Ecology.

I have those connections and 20-plus years of military leadership.

Mendoza: I’ve been very involved in our community for many years. Before my experience starting a business, I worked for a nonprofit organization and then in 1999 I started GMC Training Institute.

I’ve been involved in local government for over eight years. I know this district very well. I love the people of our community and I am ready to go represent them in Olympia. I believe I would do an outstanding job representing this district.

Would you support increases in state funding to education and/or changes to the state’s funding formulas for K-12 education?

Dimas: I’m running to make access to education and K through 12 funding accessible for everybody. We’ve been dealing with budget cuts across the state, but especially here in our area.

The recent news with the Yakima School District having their budget cuts was really frustrating for me. I think there needs to be investment in our teachers, our educators, school staff. A cook, a janitor, all of them deserve fair pay.

I will be fighting for more funding for K through 12.

Kallinen: I thoroughly enjoyed my public education. I think parents deserve a choice. We saw that with the pandemic and school lockdowns and how public education was adapting to that, a lot of parents seeking other options.

The DNR uses these trust lands that are used for timber harvest timber sales and grazing leases that generate revenue for our education system. I think we need to increase our timber harvest in a methodical and deliberate way and our forest replanting.

We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. So if we’re making that money, and our education system isn’t improving, we’re spending it on something else that’s maybe not as important. So we really need to look at where we’re using the dollars we have in addition generating some more education dollars through more deliberate forest management practices.

Mendoza: I would absolutely support increasing money for education, but I would oppose raising taxes to do it. I think that there is money in the budget to support our education system.

How will you be voting on the three state initiatives on the ballot and why?

See here for more on each of the three ballot initiatives:

—Initiative 2109 to repeal the state’s capital gains tax
—Initiative 2117 to repeal the Climate Commitment Act
—Initiative 2124 to make the state’s long-term care program optional

Dimas: I am against all of those. That is a no-brainer for me. (Repealing) the capital gains tax is going to harm a lot of our systems we have in place, especially education. With our current situation here, that’s the last thing we need.

I’m against (repealing the Climate Commitment Act) as well. There’s been a lot of hearsay about it would lower our gas prices. I think a lot of the folks promoting this are misinforming our community. I think this specific initiative is only benefiting bigger companies and people who have more money, not necessarily everyday people. I think it is going to work against us, while also harming our planet.

I think that Washington Cares is going to be a crucial thing that we cannot get rid of. Our aging neighbors deserve more, and so I’m going to fight to ensure that they are not affected by this.

Kallinen: My brother and I just recently went through the process of helping my mom, who’s 91, who was living independently right up until around Christmas time, helping get her moved into a facility. It’s $4,000, $5,000 a month at her level of care. (Washington Cares) doesn’t even dent that. Maybe it’s not the right tool.

The Climate Commitment Act has driven our gas prices to some of the top in the nation, and it’s crushing people. If I need to go to the grocery store, it’s a 30-minute trip. I’m a working class guy that’s got old rigs. My well went bad so I haul water in my truck. It gets 10 miles per gallon and I’ve seen my gas cost go up $300 a month.

(Capital gains) is a form of an income tax. Washington has repeatedly said we don’t want an income tax and it stifles business.

We need to generate business and let people keep their money.

Mendoza: I am going to be voting for all three initiatives. I think that’s the way to go for our district.

I think that it’s important for us to lower taxes, I believe that a lot of these (programs) will increase taxes.

Initiative 2124 will allow employees and self-employed individuals to opt out of WA Cares. I think that should be the right of the individual.

Would you support changes to Washington state laws dealing with abortion, contraception or in vitro fertilization?

Dimas: I believe in reproductive rights and freedoms, so I will continue to strengthen those protections. I believe that people should have choice over their autonomy, and I’m going to continue to fight for them.

Kallinen: Personally, I think unborn babies are babies. My son was born 12 weeks premature. He was a living, breathing human being when he came into the earth. I spent a lot of time in the neonatal intensive care unit and I saw infants younger, with less gestational development than him being born and brought into this world.

So that’s my personal view, but I’m a law enforcement officer, I’m sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the state of Washington and that’s what I’ll do.

I think we need to just educate people and change people’s hearts and minds.

Mendoza: Washington state has protected abortion rights since the ‘70s. I’m pro-life, but I don’t really see that changing.

How would you address the housing affordability and homelessness crises as a legislator?

Dimas: I would be supporting all kinds of efforts to keep people in their homes, whether they are renters or owners. One of the bills that was struck down unfortunately this last legislative session was the rent stabilization bill. I will be exploring more options or supporting efforts like that.

I’m going to be looking at things like creating pathways so renters can have access to becoming a homeowner.

Having a cap on rent would be amazing. I’m a renter. My partner and I lost our home during the pandemic. We could’ve been homeless but our family stepped up and said “hey, we have space for you.”

I have dealt with that struggle, and the effects of the pandemic, and the rising costs. These are the same things that our hardworking people in District 14 are dealing with. I’m right there with them.

I firmly believe that housing is a human right.

Kallinen: One of the key pieces with housing is affordability. You know, as a ranger, I’m seeing people who are working poor, economically challenged, they’re living out of their cars.

One of the things that’s driving up our costs is the cost of building materials.

If we can harvest timber on our state lands like I’d like to see done for forest health, the collateral benefit of that is the housing costs go down because it’s cheaper to buy.

Another thing we need to do is we need to separate those working poor out of those homeless encampments, get them first dibs, them and our veterans into the shelters we have while we seek to make more space and start to cull the criminal element out of those spaces and put them back in jail where they belong. When COVID came along, we kicked a ton of people out of our state prisons and out of our county jail.

We need to build those capacities up and keep those people out of our communities and then start to separate out the folks that need help.

Mendoza: I dealt with this as mayor of the city of Grandview. I think it’s important for us to really homelessness seriously. I see that the individuals that are homeless, are usually dealing with drugs or mental health (issues), I think it’s important for us to work together with law enforcement to be able to get them the help that they need.

As mayor of the city of Grandview, I think that during my term, we had more housing development come into our city because we made it very easy for developers to come into our community. We were seeing that we were losing a lot of our educators and teachers to other communities because we had a housing shortage.

I intend to work very closely with Realtors to make that a possibility. I think it’s important for us to make these laws friendly so we can build adequate housing in our communities.

This article was first published by the Yakima Herald-Republic through the Murrow News Fellow program, managed by Washington State University.