Top 4 gubernatorial candidates speak to KIRO 7

WASHINGTON STATE — For the first time in 12 years, Washington voters will pick a new governor, after Gov. Jay Inslee decided not to seek reelection. The field to replace him sports numerous candidates, with four main contenders bubbling to the top in several of the most recent polls.

Former Republican Congressman Dave Reichert and outgoing Democrat State Senator Mark Mullet are seeking to carve a path with support from moderates. Democrat Bob Ferguson is leaning on his resume as Attorney General and Republican Semi Bird hopes an outsider will grab voters looking for a change.

Wednesday, Reichert proposed to follow in the footsteps of California Governor Gavin Newsom, promising to sweep homeless encampments from state land using the Washington State Patrol.

“When you remove people from those state rights-of-way, you have to have a place to put them,” Reichert said.

Reichert has drawn criticism for proposing singular, remote locations but said Wednesday “we are going to provide housing, but we are also going to provide services.”

That plan is something Mullet supports, saying “at this point, if you’re using drugs in public I want you held accountable, I want you in treatment, I don’t want to use one penny of our public tax dollars to enable someone using drugs, but I want us to be the financial partner for every jurisdiction.”

Mullet says he doesn’t want money to be the reason someone doesn’t seek treatment, hoping to use cannabis tax revenue to fund addiction treatment.

He also believes in increasing shelter and temporary tiny home supply by buying in bulk in order to leverage a lower per unit price. At the present, he sees Washington lacking secure addiction treatment facilities.

“I want to put them in safe, secure, addiction facilities where they might be for 30-45 days but, to me that’s the only compassionate thing we can do is give them the best chance to really beat their addiction.” Mullet said.

Bird aims to use the power of the State’s National Guard to create a large, 20-acre treatment facility that will also be operated by troops and some civilian addiction experts.

“We have a fentanyl epidemic and instead of moving people from point a to point b and putting the burden on communities, counties, and cities, we’re bringing a solution and a remedy.”

Bird pushes back against the notion that such a facility would be equivalent to ‘warehousing’ people experiencing homelessness when asked, saying “true compassion is bringing mental health treatment.”

In addition to National Guard Troops, he wants to expand a bill passed in 2024 that recognizes medical licenses earned in other states to apply to Washington’s licensing.

“We start recruiting health care professionals, yes, but drug treatment professionals and mental health professionals from other states.” Bird said.

For Ferguson one way to increase addiction treatment capacity is to simply pay the people who work in those facilities more.

“Those folks are doing critical work, and they are not compensated to the point for the challenging work that they do.”

Ferguson calls the state’s current diversion programs insufficient to addressing the current level of need.

Pay for people and for facilities, he says, is possible because of more than a billion dollars in opioid settlement money from his lawsuits as Attorney General.

Ferguson says he’s not familiar with the specifics of Newsome’s plan to clear camps but will prioritize clearing public safety or human health risks when they are found on state-owned property.

“I think the state is making progress when it comes to encampments. I think Governor Inslee and the Legislature have been helpful on that in recent times, but we certainly cannot have those when they’re a threat to public safety or to human health. We need to have a place for those individuals to go.”

Reichert wants to track outcomes for people moving through different systems to identify what is working.

“There are a lot of organization doing the same thing, a lot of wasted money to organizations that aren’t actually helping.” Reichert said, “WE start by recognizing those programs that don’t work, we start shifting those programs that do work.”

Editor’s note: All candidates were invited to an interview in the KIRO 7 Studio. Because of a scheduling conflict, Dave Reichert’s interview took place at a previously scheduled event.

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