Bateman and Pierpoint compete for 22nd District House seat
In the 22nd Legislative District this election, voters are asked to choose between two familiar names for position 2 in the state House of Representatives: Dusty Pierpoint and Jessica Bateman.
Bateman, a Democrat and Olympia’s mayor pro tem, has a track record of local civic involvement and long list of endorsements and wants to bring her experience to the state level. Pierpoint, a Republican, is a retired Lacey Police Chief motivated by current events who sees this as his opportunity to continue to serve his community and use his problem-solving prowess.
One of them will soon step into a seat that’s been held by a Democrat for decades and is being vacated by state Rep. Beth Doglio, who served two terms and is now running for Denny Heck’s seat in the 10th Congressional District.
In the primary election, Pierpoint came out with roughly 35% of votes to Bateman’s 33%. The rest of votes were split among three other candidates who ran as Democrats, including one self-identified Democratic Socialist.
Who’s supporting each candidate
Pierpoint, 56, worked at the Lacey Police Department for over 30 years and served as Chief of Police from 2005 to 2018. According to his campaign, he’s also served on the board for the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC), worked with the regional Crime Stoppers, was a Rotarian, and worked with the TOGETHER! organization.
He told The Olympian in a phone interview that he believes his experience as police chief, working across multiple jurisdictions, and working on an accreditation program for WASPC would be valuable when addressing challenges at the state level.
As an example, he said he was selected to work directly with North Thurston Public Schools when Lacey started its School Resource Officer program. It took time to build trust, he said, and started off slowly with safety planning and getting buy-in. Today, he considers it one of the best community policing programs.
“In law enforcement, we take an oath to uphold the constitution. In the Legislature, you take an oath to uphold the constitution,” he said. “The basis for all is equal treatment, fairness, and justice. That’s what I was always striving for, that things were done legally.”
Before serving on city council, Bateman, 38, served on the GRuB board and Olympia Planning Commission, was a community organizer, a member of the local union WFSE 443, a legislative aide, and community impact director with the United Way of Thurston County, according to her campaign. She now works as a policy analyst for community health centers in Washington.
She’s been working actively to improve lives in Thurston County, she said in a phone interview, and believes her work and experience demonstrate the district’s values.
“It’s really important Legislative District 22 has an experienced, progressive leader who can work to uplift all of our community,” she said.
Some of Bateman’s contributions and endorsements reflect her wide range of experience with local organizations.
She has raised over $79,200 in reported campaign contributions, according to the state Public Disclosure Commission. Seven organizations and committees make up her top tier of donors who gave $2,000, including Community Health Network of Washington, Washington Multi-Family Housing Association PAC, Justice for All PAC, three unions, and Washington Education Association PAC.
Bateman’s endorsements include Democratic politicians such as Heck, Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal, Attorney General Bob Ferguson, the 22nd LD’s Sen. Sam Hunt and State Rep. Laurie Dolan as well as Doglio, and many local officials.
The extensive list of organizations backing Bateman includes several unions, Equal Rights Washington, Humane Voters of Washington, Olympia Indivisible, Planned Parenthood, National Women’s Political Caucus of Washington, Washington Housing Alliance Action Fund, Washington Democratic Latino Caucus, and Washington Conservation Voters.
Pierpoint is working with less than half Bateman’s funding — he has collected over $35,400, according to the PDC. His biggest single donor, giving $5,000, is the House Republican Organizational Committee, followed by small contributions and the Thurston County Republican Central Committee.
He’s endorsed by several former police chiefs along with current Thurston County Sheriff John Snaza and former Sheriff Gary Edwards, who is running for re-election on the county commission.
Pierpoint also has the support of a handful of local officials and Republican politicians such as former Secretaries of State Sam Reed and Ralph Munro, along with state Rep. Andrew Barkis and former State Sen. Dino Rossi.
Organizations backing Pierpoint include Mainstream Republicans of Washington, Log Cabin Republicans of Washington, and Washington State Farm Bureau PAC.
At this point in their campaigns, the candidates have made multiple public appearances, responded to The Olympian’s voter guide survey, been interviewed by The Olympian’s editorial board, and been interviewed by at least one Olympian reporter.
In public discourse, Bateman and Pierpoint maintain a civil dialogue and seem open to discussing new ideas. But there’s also a sizable void between how they each think about issues important to constituents in the 22nd district, which lies entirely in Thurston County.
Housing and homelessness
Both candidates count addressing homelessness among their top priorities.
Pierpoint often points to the need for “measurable results” attached to money spent on programs and specifically lauds a program in Marysville, which he says gives people who are homeless and struggle with substance abuse the option for treatment instead of spending time in jail.
In The Olympian’s voters guide, he also mentioned the need for programs to address underlying causes such as addiction and mental illness, and he advocated for making it easier for people to build additional units on their property and reducing “fees and permit costs in exchange for low-cost housing.”
Asked about people who are homeless who don’t come into contact with law enforcement, he told The Olympian editorial board that there needs to be more social workers, more mental health professionals, addiction specialists, and more people to help others find housing.
Otherwise, law enforcement is who ends up handling the call, he said.
Bateman pushes back on this perspective. In a phone interview, she said she believes getting arrested “shouldn’t be a prerequisite to get access to services.”
In response to the voter guide survey, Bateman named investing fully in the Housing Trust Fund, which provides capital financing via loans or grants to affordable housing projects, as the most important step the state can take to address homelessness.
She co-chaired Olympia’s Home Fund campaign, which resulted in a voter-approved sales and use tax increase of 0.1 percent for a dedicated fund for housing, shelters and support services. In conversation, she casually produces statistics that paint the picture of homelessness and housing in the Olympia area, along with the multitude of strategies she believes are required to address it.
A few statistics she cites:
- 46% of Thurston County renters are considered cost-burdened, which means they pay more than 30% of their income for housing, according to a Department Commerce statistic from 2015.
- The 2020 point-in-time census found the top reason people report becoming homeless in the first place is an eviction or loss of housing.
- According to a University of Washington report, Black people are much more likely to be evicted in Washington state than white.
In the interview with The Olympian’s editorial board, she brought up eviction protections at the state level, renter protections, rental assistance, more permanent supportive housing statewide, and cities planning for affordable housing through the Growth Management Act among the strategies she supports.
Climate change and the environment
The outgoing Rep. Doglio is a senior adviser at clean energy nonprofit Climate Solutions and founding executive director of Washington Conservation Voters. She’s been vocal about her work on state legislation aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions and curbing the effects of climate change.
Bateman seems poised to step into that role, pledging not to take contributions from the oil, gas, and coal industry and voicing dedication to the issue. The first sentence in the “Climate Change & the Environment” page of Bateman’s campaign website is even identical to the opening line of Doglio’s legislative “Issues” page: “The science is clear.”
She advocates specifically for passing Clean Fuel Standard legislation, which has faced resistance from opponents who predict it would increase gas prices. On her campaign website, Bateman also supports efforts to preserve and protect Puget Sound.
“Puget Sound recovery efforts require increased state investment to prevent pollution from urban stormwater runoff, protecting and restoring habitat and species like our endangered Orca population, supporting healthy water quality and thriving species and food web,” it reads.
In her interview with The Olympian’s editorial board, she stressed the importance of clean buildings, including investing in retrofitting buildings to make them more energy efficient, and to keep energy efficiency in mind while creating needed housing units. She also connected clean energy to land-use planning and how cities grow — “mass transit is predicated by density,” she said, and helps cut back on greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.
Pierpoint does not list the environment as one of his priority issues on his campaign website, but the topic came up in a recent radio appearance of both candidates with Ken Balsley of Olympia’s KGY and in The Olympian’s editorial board interview.
He told the editorial board he believes the marketplace will increase the use of clean energy, and that the state should encourage that by offering incentives.
With Ken Balsley, the topic arose in the context of recent wildfires in Washington state. While Bateman said it was obvious the fires are related to climate change, Pierpoint said he does not believe climate change is responsible for the fires, instead blaming forest management.
In the KGY conversation, Bateman pressed Pierpoint to say whether he believes carbon dioxide emissions caused by humans are increasing and causing climate change. His answer was not clear.
“I don’t agree with the whole climate change direction, no,” he said. “Can we do a better job? ... Everybody wants a clean environment, but I don’t think that climate change is causing all of the issues we’re having...”
Asked to clarify that point by The Olympian’s editorial board, he said he does believe humans contribute to emissions and he assumes we’re the predominate cause.
Budgeting and taxes
The most recent forecast projects a state revenue shortfall of over $4 billion through mid-2023, which is better than predictions earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic, but still poses a huge challenge for the 2021 legislative session.
Pierpoint stands solidly on a platform of “no new taxes” and has said he doesn’t want to put additional stress on people who are already feeling the economic impacts of COVID-19.
In an interview with The Olympian, he said he believes the state needs to be more fiscally responsible with the money it’s already getting. To pay for programs, such as those he’s suggested may be effective in the fight to end homelessness, he has almost exclusively suggested evaluating programs to ensure only effective ones are funded.
In contrast, Bateman has said she would advocate for federal relief funding and look to address predicted shortfalls by reforming the state’s regressive tax structure — an ongoing effort in the Legislature.
She also supports “progressive taxation,” such as taxing excessive CEO salaries.
“We can create a more equitable, sustainable tax system by reforming our tax code and utilizing taxes on capital gains, pass-through business profits, and excessively high salaries,” Bateman wrote in a voter guide response.
Those steps should come before cuts to programs that serve the most vulnerable, she has said.
Learn more about the candidates online
In The Olympian’s online voters guide, you can find the candidates’ answers to questions about police accountability and racial justice, gun-related legislation, sex education, and other topics.
The radio interview with Ken Balsley of KGY mentioned in this story is available for listening online.
For more information on candidates’ campaign funding and spending, go to the state Public Disclosure Commission’s website.
This story was originally published October 14, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
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