by David Mendez

State Senator Jesse Salomon and State Representative Lauren Davis weren’t shy about the difficulties the state is facing going forward on Sunday, as they led a town hall at Shoreline City Hall. Residents of the state’s 32nd legislative district — which includes Shoreline, Mountlake Terrace, Woodway, Lynnwood and Seattle — packed the city’s council chambers to hear from the legislators.

The two ran down a list of legislative accomplishments — Salomon touted his work to chip away at housing costs through reforming building codes, while Davis spoke to her work developing programs to support domestic violence survivors and to reform behavioral health programs. (The two recently sent out mailers recapping their legislative work.) 

But the state’s wobbly budget cast a shadow over the event. Anyone keeping a eye toward the state capitol has heard that legislators are making hard decisions about their funding priorities, and that a key issue going forward is generating revenue, including tax policy.

“It’s not sustainable, the situation that we're in, and so we really need to think about a wholesale restructuring of our tax code,” Davis said. “I think we made a significant step forward this year, but there's a heck of a lot more to do.”

In March, Governor Bob Ferguson signed the state’s “Millionaires Tax” into law — a tax on annual household wages greater than $1 million, with the first payments due in 2029. But given the long runway until that tax begins filling state coffers (and barring any successful challenges to the tax at the ballot box), lawmakers will still need to find ways to cover priorities in the state’s budget.

Salomon said he’d like to more closely examine programs that aren’t carrying their weight — or doing what they promised. He serves on the Joint Legislative Audit Review Comittee, which reviews spending and budgets to ensure programs are effective and efficient.

“I don’t think we have a robust enough system to catch problems,” he said, referring to the Digital Navigator Program, a $92.5 million initiative that, according to a state audit, neither properly vetted grantees, nor paid attention to how grant money was spent. The Digital Navigator Program was shut down by the state’s Department of Commerce in January.

“I fear there’s embezzlement happening, criminal embezzlement, and we’re just not looking at it enough,” Salomon said. “I can say I tried. I think it would be great to have a broader partnership in my caucus to do it.”

As for revenue, Davis — a public health policy expert — looked toward ”sin taxes,” or excise sales taxes on substances. Washington has taxed products like beer and liquor since the 1930s (a $1 per barrel tax was enacted on beer in 1934; hard liquor began being taxed at 10% of wholesale in 1935), with new taxes levied on gambling, tobacco and cannabis over the years.

“It’s well documented in academic literature, if you increase the price of a pack of cigarettes, people smoke less; if you increase the price of alcohol, people drink less,” Davis said. “I see an advantage to that of people drinking less or smoking less or using less cannabis. But you would generate additional revenue, obviously, through the fee increase or tax increase on those substances.”

Many constituents were looking for answers to their worries that the Trump-led federal goverment is overstepping and putting people at risk. One person asked how the state is going to enforce a law banning ICE agents from wearing face masks while on patrol; another asked how legislators could ensure Washingtonians will protect statewide mail-in voting.

In both cases, Salomon said that he believes that Washington State — and its executives, such as Attorney General Nick Brown and Secretary of State Steve Hobbs — would adamantly and zealously defend the state and its systems.

Washington is one of 23 states suing to block an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that seeks restrict voting by mail. The United States Supreme Court is also expected to decide whether or not states can accept ballots that arrive after election day — which may throw primary elections that count on mail-in ballots (and last-minute ballots that arrive under a grace period) into turmoil.

When reached after the town hall, Solomon said that his constituents’ concerns with the federal government stuck with him.

“They’re focused on wanting to feel that they have an effective, confident government that looks out for a fair system of laws while we are under, I guess you could say, a constitutional attack by the federal government,” he told The Osprey. “States, within a broad constitutional allowance, run their own elections…it’s actually dangerous for the federal government to start getting involved, because then they’re going to try to tune it the way they want it.”

Davis came away from the town hall struck with a desire to learn how best to support businesses and how she can encourage economic development in the district.

“There’s a lot of rhetoric right now about big companies and small leaving the state, are not going to do business here and..you can’t oversimplify it to, oh, we passed taxes,” she said. “It’s more complicated than that, but it would also be naive to suggest that those have no impact. So how do I make sure that we’re not making our businesses so unfavorable that we don’t have jobs?”

As the town hall wrapped up, a man named Dan Adams stood up to speak, reading aloud a list of pointed questions to the legislators, because, as he said, he believed his questions wouldn’t be selected to be read aloud and he would “[have] to play hardball.”

Over the next few minutes, as people began to filter out of the room or line up to chat with the legislators, Adams accused the legislators of supporting legislation that he says violate the state constitution, including a ban on law enforcement wearing masks on duty, as well as the Millionaires’ Tax. He grew frustrated that the legislators seemingly refused to hear him out — until Davis spoke with him for about ten minutes, for which he later gave Davis credit.

Davis figures that’s just part of the job, she said while she spoke generally about the day’s turnout.

“We hjave a very curious, educated community. I find tremendous value in hearing what’s on peoples’ minds and hearts, and my job is to try to, as best I can, collect all of that and act on it,” Davis told The Osprey.

The town hall marked the beginning of campaign season in earnest, as the legislators-turned-candidates look to Washington’s Aug. 4 primary election.. Both Salomon and Davis are up for reelection this year. Salomon will face off with Davis’s 32nd District colleague, Rep. Cindy Ryu. In turn, Davis is being challenged by Imraan Siddiqi, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Washington. Washington’s primary election falls on August 4; votes must be submitted by 8 p.m. on election night.