We endorse: For Congress, these four will fight for Pierce County in other Washington

Comfortable with your U.S. representative and the congressional boundaries you live in? Get ready for a shakeup. The ink will barely be dry on the 2020 election when appointed commissioners start carving up Washington’s congressional maps. The redistricting process, done after the census every 10 years, is a bloody mess of geopolitical surgery, and the patient must be sewn up by the end of 2021.

Before that happens, Washingtonians have one last opportunity to vote in their districts as redrawn a decade ago. For the four congressional seats that intersect in Pierce County, we endorse Rep. Kim Schrier (8th District), Marilyn Strickland (10th District), Rep. Derek Kilmer (6th District) and Rep. Adam Smith (9th District).

Let’s start with the two competitive races and end with the two that feature long-tenured incumbents in safe Democratic seats.

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In the 8th District, a hodgepodge of politically purple territory that covers both sides of the Cascades, Schrier is finishing a promising first term. She’s a Democrat in a district long held by moderate Republicans, a newcomer who helped flip the House in the 2018 midterms when Rep. Dave Reichert retired.

Schrier, 52, is known for being one of only 17 physicians in Congress — and the only female doctor. The Sammamish pediatrician brings keen insights to the ongoing health care debate, but she knows her district well enough not to espouse Medicare for All, instead backing a more modest public option under the Affordable Care Act.

What’s less known but perhaps more remarkable is how she’s dived into farming and farmworker issues on the House Agriculture Committee. Schrier has teamed with Eastern Washington Republicans more than once, including fighting for funds to buy surplus crops to supplement food banks during the pandemic. Speaking with our Editorial Board, she appeared nearly as well versed on low-till farming as rural health care.

Republican challenger Jesse Jensen, 37, has an impressive background, too. A former JBLM Army Ranger and Amazon program manager, Jensen gives voice to moderate ideas in the Reichert vein. The Bonney Lake resident told us he wants to expand rural broadband and supports reforming but not defunding police. He’d be a more compelling candidate for the Legislature in 2022 than for Congress in 2020. The district isn’t well served breaking in rookies every two years.

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The 10th District is the only open seat in the region this year, and former Tacoma mayor Strickland would be an excellent heir to Rep. Denny Heck. It’s a young district that spans Thurston and Pierce counties, born in the 2011 redistricting when Washington gained an extra seat in Congress.

The two who advanced to the Nov. 3 ballot are Strickland and state Rep. Beth Doglio; we interviewed them as part of a crowded primary field this summer. Both are Democrats, a clear sign of which way this district leans. Both have solid elected pedigrees, and either would serve capably; it all depends on whether voters want to drive in the left lane or the center lane.

Doglio, 55, is rock solid on a host of progressive issues and earned her bonafides as a climate activist before climate change was a cause celebre. The Olympia resident wants to get rid of health coverage tied to employment and “unequivocally” supports Medicare for All. A bill she sponsored would have taxed Washington CEOs based on their companies’ employee income gap.

Strickland, 58, is accurately labeled the more business-friendly choice, owing to her two years as CEO of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. While some see that as a bad thing, we think it lends her good perspective on the post-pandemic recovery in a year when Washington has shed 140,000 jobs and $8.5 billion in taxable business income.

More to the point is that the Eastside Tacoma resident and two-term mayor would carry the torch for local government on Capitol Hill. Strickland would fight for infrastructure funding just as she fought for stable funding to fix streets and fill potholes in Tacoma. She’d negotiate compromises as she did her city’s $12 minimum wage. That she’d be Tacoma’s first congresswoman and Washington’s first Black member of Congress is a consequential milestone.

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In the 6th District, which runs from Pierce County to the Olympic Peninsula, Kilmer has earned a fifth term. The Gig Harbor Democrat and former state legislator is at the head of the class in the unsexy business of government reform, trying to fix a broken Washington, D.C., on everything from honest political ads to lobbyist transparency.

Kilmer, 46, co-chairs the Bipartisan Working Group and has been rated in the top 40 of the 435-member House for reaching across the aisle. It’s almost as if Speaker Nancy Pelosi pulled him aside and said: I’m focusing on partisan warfare. You handle the boring but important stuff.

The Port Angeles native also defends 6th District priorities such as natural resource protection. Kilmer told us he was proud this year to achieve one of his long-term goals: a permanent funding source to address a backlog of national park repairs.

His Republican foe is Elizabeth Kreiselmaier of Gig Harbor, an education researcher whose “clean up the House” platform includes school and health care choice. Because she didn’t respond to our invitation to meet with us, we could not consider her for endorsement.

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Likewise, the 9th District is an easy call. Smith, the senior member of Washington’s House delegation, continues to effectively represent the Central Puget Sound. The Bellevue Democrat goes into his 12th election facing little threat, as usual, in a very blue district.

For the fourth straight time, Smith’s Republican challenger is Doug Basler of Kent, an ad executive, conservative media host, diehard Trump backer and coronavirus skeptic. Basler didn’t respond to our invitation request, so we couldn’t consider him for endorsement.

The 9th District illustrates just how disruptive redistricting can be. It was redrawn and moved north 10 years ago and now includes only a small corner of Tacoma. That meant Smith had to move from his longtime home.

But Smith convinced us in his endorsement interview that he’s still attuned to Pierce County interests. When Democrats took the House last year, he became chair of the Armed Services Committee, giving him influence on matters affecting JBLM and our region’s defense-subsidized economy. He’s also a firm voice of conscience and common sense against for-profit immigration detention facilities such as the Northwest ICE Processing Center on the Tacoma Tideflats.

Who knows, after another messy round of redistricting, maybe he’ll move south again.

ABOUT OUR ENDORSEMENTS

The News Tribune Editorial Board interviewed candidates and did other research before making our picks for the 2020 election. Endorsements are intended to promote civic discourse and encourage voters to dig deeper. Board members in this set of interviews include: Stephanie Pedersen, TNT president and publisher; Matt Misterek, editorial page editor; Karen Irwin, editorial writer; Matt Driscoll, local news columnist; Pamela Transue, community representative and former president of Tacoma Community College; and Jim Walton, community representative and former Tacoma city manager. Read more about the candidates in our online Voter Guide.

This story was originally published October 19, 2020 at 9:30 AM.