Meeting with Krishnadasan, Caldier made politics less partisan for me | Opinion

My name is Pearce Eyford, and I am a senior at Bellarmine Preparatory School. Currently, I work at the YMCA and help run the shower program, enabling those in need and the homeless to have a shower and snack. I wanted to see how the people in power locally create change that benefits those in need.

Getting to sit down and meet with Senate candidate Michelle Caldier, I found her to be an open and honest, thoughtful, caring and driven representative. She comes from a trauma-filled life. She was left with blindness in one eye from complications during birth, grew up in foster care, ran away at 17, had a baby at 19 and went blind in the other eye due to glaucoma in her forties.

Caldier worked hard to go to dental school with a child, eventually devoting some of her practice to aiding senior citizens in assisted care. When Medicaid dental benefits to people in assisted care were cut, it led to her becoming involved in politics.

Despite her troubles, Caldier possesses a driven can-do attitude and pushes through with energy, stating, “People either like me or they don’t.”

She plans to aid vulnerable parts of the community through special needs and school-related funding, wants to protect abused women in prison from facing more sexual assault related experiences so these women are less “beat down”, and wants to negate the effects of inflation that Washington families face. ldier Cadoes not let a political divide affect her and connects with all Democratic and Republican representatives. She is bold and not afraid of a ruthless political landscape.

Through Caldier, I learned how making our state business-friendly is interconnected with helping lower-class citizens of our society and how “Our state isn’t very good for businesses.”

By reducing taxes on business, we can undo the effect of the state “pushing out producers of the economy” like small businesses who can’t afford to run, which in turn affects how much money the government is able to collect from taxes and what it can fund. Caldier gave the impression of being down-to-earth and a person who doesn’t let external pressures fold her convictions.

While meeting with her Caldier’s primary opponent, Deb Krishnadasan, I learned of her motivation for being a representative: School funding and protecting people economically. She served two terms on the Peninsula School Board, eventually becoming president, where she formed a public school advocacy group and successfully passed funding campaigns for district education programs and to build and modernize several schools.

Krishnadasan left me with the impression of being a hardworking and compassionate individual who takes on more of a centrist view, saying, “People are happy that I’m looking at both sides.”

She works well connecting with Democrats and Republicans, recalling a time when doorbelling where someone had told her, “You won’t want to talk to me.”

Krishnadasan used this as an opportunity to connect and talk over common issues, finding out they both are supporters of law enforcement and how she can aid them. Krishnadasan teared up recounting that a woman told her, “I’m afraid I’m not going to have food for my daughter.”

Krishnadasan plans to aid with the SNAP and Medicaid cuts from the federal government by utilizing the state’s rainy day fund to fight for the rights of people. Krishnadasan will “fight for food assistance”, recognizing SNAP recipients will receive $66 less a month and argued the lack of funding in programs like SNAP, Medicaid and funding in schools will have to be filled by the state.

The greatest experience I had while doorbelling alongside Krishnadasan was witnessing the impact senators can make. From one family, we heard about the suicide of their teenage son and how they wanted legislation to protect against cyberbullying.

Another family we came across had recently gone through a house fire, alerting the possible need for electric vehicle charging safeguards. Through these interactions, Krishnadasan learns of issues that locals might face and connects with them on an emotional level and in support of the community around her.

This is one in a series of five op-eds submitted by students of private teacher Mimmi Beck, who interviewed local politicians.