Dozens of new faces are likely to join the Washington state legislature when lawmakers reconvene in Olympia in January. All 98 House seats and about half of the Senate seats will be on the ballot this November.
Among the candidates running in Pierce County are a Democrat and a Republican, both of whom are small business owners.
How does this shape the prospects they plan to bring to Capitol Hill if elected, and why do small business interest groups take different positions on certain voting activities?
“It’s not a butcher knife, it’s a scalpel.”
Cam Severns is an insurance agent by trade. A few years ago, he bought out the company he worked for. He and his wife also went into real estate. This year, he has added another role as a candidate for the Washington state House of Representatives.
“I have my own business to run and I do this full-time as well,” Severns said. “So it’s almost a 16-hour day of work, right?”
Mr. Severns is a Democrat serving the 25th Congressional District in the Puyallup area. His small business is part of a larger economic driver across the state. Small businesses with fewer than 500 employees account for 99.5% of businesses in Washington State and employ 49% of the population.
“Small business owners are integrated into every aspect of society, right? From your coffee shop, if it’s obviously not Starbucks, you might go to the farmers market on a Saturday. . All of those people are small business owners,” Severns said.
Severns said he wants lawmakers to understand that there’s a big difference between a company with 500 employees and a company like his insurance company with just a few employees. .
“Imposing regulations on small businesses that large businesses have no trouble meeting is effectively forcing them out, and they won’t be able to survive,” Severns said.
“That’s why I’m a big fan of carve-outs: ‘Hey, you have 500 employees and I have five. We don’t need the same regulations, right?’ I think we can legislate with a scalpel instead of a butcher knife.”
When Severns speaks to voters, he hears many talk about the high cost of living in the North West.
“We hear a lot about housing becoming more affordable,” Severns said. “You know, ‘We’re making a lot of money, or we’re two professionals and we’re making a lot of money.’ We don’t even know if we’ll be able to buy a house.” .”
“What really drives our economy?”
Pierce County’s other state representative candidate is Republican Mark Herr, who is running in the 28th Congressional District. After serving 18 years in the Army, a friend sold him a carpet cleaning van. This led him to acquire three more businesses in Olympia and Tacoma.
“I believe that it’s small businesses that are really driving our economy at the local level, and there’s kind of a ripple spreading out from there,” Herr said.
Like Severns, Herr hears concerns from constituents about how difficult it is to afford housing and food, as well as other issues that are expensive to address.
“There’s the cost of fuel and groceries, and then there’s the fentanyl crisis and other drug-related issues that are out there, and then there’s the issue of addiction,” Herr said. “So, for us, there is no single problem to solve. Our lives today are affected by all these things.
“And about these issues,” Hell continued. “It’s that they don’t understand how much money you make or how prestigious your position is. They attack the soul.”
“People are feeling it at home.”
One of the laws passed by Congress in 2021 that has been blamed for soaring fuel prices and has become a focus for small business lobbying groups is the Climate Change Action Act.
The law requires major polluters, such as fuel suppliers, to pay for releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, generating more than $1 billion for investments in clean infrastructure.
Initiative 2117 on the November ballot seeks to repeal this law.
One of the supporters of this initiative is the National Federation of Independent Business. Patrick Connor is the organization’s Washington director.
“In general, people feel their wallets are doing better every time they fill up their gas tank, buy a bag of groceries, or decide not to eat out at a restaurant because things have just gotten better. “It’s too expensive,” Connor said.
Some analysts say companies taxed by climate change laws are passing those costs on to consumers. However, it is unclear how much.
The Coalition Against Initiative 2117 recently gathered at Pier 62 in Seattle.
However, not all organizations representing small business interests agree on I-2117.
Amy Dreyer runs the political arm of the Vashon Chamber of Commerce, which supports small businesses on the island. Islanders for Ferry Action advocates for investment in Washington’s ferry system, which is critical to Vashon’s economy.
“Many dealerships won’t come to Vashon anymore because they can’t afford to have their drivers sit on the pier,” Dreyer said.
Tens of millions of dollars have already been set aside from the Climate Change Act to modernize the ferry system. Dreyer said rolling it back would be a major setback in the ferry modernization process. And for the companies her organization represents, it could mean the difference between staying afloat and closing up shop.
“These new boats are out for bids. We’re all the way to the end. We’ve got the schematics done, right? So going back to square one now will only delay us,” Dreyer said. . “We have already been struggling for four years with the economic impact of the ferry crisis, and a delay of another two to three years is completely unacceptable.”
If voters pass Initiative 2117, supporters say it could bring some relief to small business owners and everyone else. But the next Congress will still face the challenge of finding funding to solve many of the long-term and costly challenges facing the state.
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