Maria Beltran and Curtis King vie for state Senate seat after redistricting

State Sen. Curtis King has represented the 14th District for 17 years. Maria Beltran says it's time for a change.

Beltran, running as a Democrat, grew up in Yakima and was the first from her farmworker family to attend college, graduating from Yakima Valley College and Gonzaga University. Since, she's been involved in politics, working for state House Democratic Campaign Committee in Olympia and was the youngest board member for OneAmerica, an immigrant rights nonprofit.

King, a Republican from Yakima, has championed his bipartisan approach and the relationships he's built over the years. From 2015 to 2017, King was chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, ironing out a $16 billion, 15-year plan with senate Democrats. He is now the ranking Republican on the Transportation Committee and the Labor and Commerce Committee. He believes he's still the best candidate to serve the newly drawn 14th District, which required him to move after the boundaries were redrawn earlier this year.

Whoever is elected will represent the Lower Yakima Valley and surrounding area in Olympia. The 14th District was redrawn following the 2020 census, and redrawn again following a lawsuit challenging the map based on the Voting Rights Act, arguing that it discriminated against Latino voters.

The new 14th District covers east Yakima, Sunnyside, Granger, Mabton, Grandview, most of the Yakama Reservation, and stretches out westward to Lyle and eastward into part of Pasco. The base salary for a state legislator is $61,997.

Ballots will be sent by mail to registered voters on Oct. 18 for the Nov. 5 general election.

As of Thursday, Beltran has raised $472,181 and King has raised $514,387, according to the Washington Public Disclosure Commission.

The Yakima Herald-Republic spoke with Beltran and King in person. Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Why are you running for this office and why are you the best person to best represent the new 14th District?

: I'm the proud daughter of Mexican farmworkers who came to the Yakima Valley in search of a better quality of life, and they came here. The Valley was a place where if you were ready to show up on time and work hard, you'd be able to get a job out in the fields.

I'm the oldest of three. When we were growing up, my parents worked all the time and even though they worked all the time, they couldn't afford child care. So during the summers and weekends they would take me out picking with them. I'm really grateful for that experience because at an early age I saw how hard my parents worked with so many other community members out in the fields, out in the orchards.

That inspired me to go to school and work hard to try to break out of this cycle of poverty.

With the support of my family and this community, who believed in me and invested in me, I became the first to graduate high school. I went to Davis. I then got my associate's from Yakima Valley College and then I transferred to Gonzaga. After I graduated from Gonzaga, I packed my little Honda Accord and it came back here. I didn't have a plan, but I knew that I wanted to make a difference here, and I knew that the skill set that I had learned at Gonzaga, I wanted to bring some of that experience back here to make a difference. ...

The core of this has always been about making a difference, and that's why I'm running. I'm running to be a strong voice for Central Washington. For a very long time, folks have felt left out and so I think I'm in a very particular position to make a difference because, one, the struggles that people are currently living are the struggles that I witnessed growing up living, and those are still struggles, they're still prevalent with my parents. My parents still work in agriculture and you know they're struggling to pay for rent and buy groceries. The struggles of this district are still my struggles. Not only do I have this lived experience, but I also have this professional experience of working in Olympia and working in Congress and working at the local level. That's allowed me to hit the ground running. I think when you put together my professional and lived experience, I think it will make me an exceptional state senator for District 14.

: I've worked very hard over those 17 years to establish relationships and have people understand where I come from and how I work, and that I'm honest. If I say I'm going to do something, I do it, and that has led to some of the successes that I've had.

I have those relationships established and they seem to be working very well. It doesn't mean I always get everything I want. There was a study done the first of after session of this year, and it was "who could get a bill passed in in the Legislature." I happened to be the highest ranking Republican and I was No. 6 out of all of the legislators in the state.

I work with both sides of the aisle, and I try to get things accomplished and done.

I still think that those relationships can help me work on a lot of the challenges that we have not only in our district, but around the state as well.

Would you support increases in state funding to education and/or changes to the state's funding formulas for K-12 education?

: Yeah, absolutely. I think especially in this district, we're seeing so many budget cuts throughout our school districts and the new 14th District. I'm an example of what happens when we invest in public education and in Yakima County, almost 30% of the population is under the age of 18.

These are our kids, they are our future and I want to make sure that we are investing in them. You know, studies have shown that the more we invest in early childhood education, the better kids are off in the future.

So for me, I want to make sure that we're investing in early education, that we're investing in K-12 education and that we are bringing state resources to invest in apprenticeship and technical opportunities. ... I'd say like it's a multiple step process, right? We've got to make sure that we go back to the basics and make sure that we're fully funding public education, and that includes special education.

So I'm ready to plan and work really hard to make sure that we're not only investing in one thing, but that we are investing from start to finish to make sure that we're keeping that young talent here because not only is this district very young, but we are also facing a lot of workforce shortages here.

So I see this opportunity where we invest in education. And we train where we see the need and we create those good paying jobs here. So folks don't have to make tough decisions of going to the west side or moving across the country to seek those jobs that are not here locally. I also think you know, we got to make sure that we are protecting our agricultural jobs and making sure that we're finding a well balance between meeting the future needs, but also protecting the industries that have made this economy the economy that it is.

: When the Republicans had control in the Senate, we had more than 50% of the funds that were allocated to education out of the operating budget.

We need to get back to what our priorities are and look at where we're spending the money and are we being successful and where we spend it. Now that covers a multitude of areas, not just education, but according to our constitution, our No. 1 priority is education.

Money isn't always the answer to having a successful education system, but it needs to be looked at. In my opinion, we have a real challenge with our education because of COVID and how we reacted to COVID and tried to instruct our young people through Zoom. You can talk to teachers now who will tell you they had students that turn it on, you'd see their face and then you wouldn't see them for the rest of the day. Their computer was on there, everything was working. But you didn't know if they were there or not there.

I firmly feel that those young people are behind. We've done them a real disservice and we got to figure out how we're going to get them caught up and back up to the level of education that they need to be at. That's a real challenge for us.

I would also say that particularly I think in the younger people that had not really been in school for very long, they are having a hard time adjusting to the structure of a classroom and having to work with other kids and do what the teacher tells them to do because they didn't have to do that when they were on their computer during COVID. All those factors come into play. ....

When I got there in 2008, our budget I believe was $23 billion. So here we are 16 years later and our budget is some $70 billion. It's tripled in those 16 years. So don't tell me we don't have enough money. We seem to get more and more money all the time. We've got to figure out how we're going to spend it, where we get the biggest bang and the best results for the dollars that we're spending.

I ran three school levies. I know what it's about and I know how hard it is, but you know, I care about education. I care about our young people. I really care about making sure that when they get to kindergarten or first grade, that they're ready.

How would you address the housing affordability and homelessness crises as a legislator?

: That is one of the top priorities in this district. You know, the wages and what folks are making in the districts haven't kept up with the cost of living, including rents and mortgages. ... I want to work with both the private and public sectors to make sure we have a plan to meet the demand because we know that if we have more housing and more rental options than the prices will hopefully be more stable.

Last session or a few sessions back, they eased up on some of the zoning laws and restrictions. So for me, you know, exploring all possible options to make sure we are meeting the threshold of the demand.

I think when it comes to homelessness. the first step for me is to make sure that renters are able to fully pay their rent because the first step of many when you end up homelessness is that you're not able to afford your rent. Then you have to move into your car. Your car eventually breaks down and then you end up on the streets. So I think we got to make sure that people are able to stay in their house, afford their rent.

For the folks who are unsheltered, I think we got to make sure that we are building transitional housing for them with wrap around services.

When it comes to the homelessness issue, it's a constellation of all the different issues that we're seeing — behavioral health, mental health, substance disorders, unaffordability.

I look forward to finding bipartisan ways to fix this, especially areas in our district. We're not the west side, we're not Puget Sound. I want to make sure that I'm working with everyone regionally and locally to make sure we get it right.

: We tend to want to equate this to housing, "Oh, we've got to have low income housing." Well, it's far more than housing, in my opinion.

Most of these people have addictions or they have mental illness. We need to get them the treatment that they need for whatever addiction they may have or their mental illness. We've got to start treating that as well as providing them a place to live. I mean it's a whole program, not just one element of it. And we tend to shy away from being able to do that.

We have examples of where counties have bought hotels and they've moved these people in because they needed a place to live. Well, we've had to tear those hotels down because they used them to create fentanyl and once you do that in the facility, it's worthless. So it's got to be a more comprehensive program. It's a very expensive program, but if you really want to solve the problem, that's how I think you do it.

You do it with a comprehensive plan that addresses all of the concerns that they have, as well as provide them a place to live. And once you, once you get them back to some semblance of normality and have a place to live, then you work them back into society where there are a contributing part of society and not a just a drain on our society. I think it's got to be more comprehensive than what we've been doing.

Would you support changes to Washington state laws dealing with abortion, contraception or in vitro fertilization?

: I don't see us making any amendments to those protections. We don't know what this election will look like, so I think we always have to be cautious and make sure that those individual rights and freedoms are protected and that most importantly, that we are funding healthcare clinics and these are clinics that everyone uses. I think for me foremost is protecting people's individual rights and freedoms and making sure that we continue to finance our health care clinics across the district.

: We have had a law since 1970. That law has not been changed. I don't see any reason for it to change. This has become a political issue, but in the state of Washington we've had this law and it and it's worked. Some people don't like it, some people do. But I think we live with that law. I took an oath when I when every time I got elected, I had to take an oath that I would uphold the laws and the constitution of the state of Washington. That's what I plan on doing.

Should farmworker overtime protections be revisited?

: I spend so much time at the doors, two to six hours, just talking to people across the 14th District. I know firsthand that domestic workers are here and they're ready to work full time.

They want us to make sure that we're looking out for their interests. I think it's really important for us to protect our workers and to make sure that they're getting properly compensated. My mom works at a warehouse. My parents used to work in orchards and as farmworkers. So for me, I want to make sure that we're protecting our workers and that we're paying them a good compensation.

I wasn't in the state Legislature when that bill was passed. I will always be open to revisiting and making sure that if we craft a policy that isn't working, we're able to collect feedback from everybody and that we're able to work together. It has to be a holistic approach between what is the striking balance between workers and the industry.

My approach in the state Senate will be to make sure that I'm getting holistic perspectives and if we pass the bill that we didn't get right the first time, that we're able to have a good conversation and making sure that the second time around we get it right.

: We need to have a seasonality part of that bill. I believe that every other state that has overtime for ag workers has a seasonality portion to that bill. What I offered in the bill that we ran was that there would be 12 weeks at the discretion of the farmer, with proper notice that during these 12 weeks you would have 50 hours before overtime kicked in.

When you're in harvest, you're in harvest. If you look at hops, they run 24/7 until they're harvested. Because you've got to get them in at the right time. It's the same way with cherries. You know, once they start to ripen, you've got to get them off the tree. That's where I think we need to have some more protection to help the farmer get that those crops in because they don't control the price that they get.

I think we've gone too far. Our fruit growers, all of them, big, small and middle size, they're all struggling because the prices aren't good and again, they don't control the price. We've got to do something to help our farmers.

How would you approach legislative requests for Yakima Basin integrated water plan projects and repairs of the Yakima Tieton canal?

: I think YBIP (the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan) is a national model of what happens with different stakeholders come together and they collaborate to address not only short term, but long term needs. And this is a model that I hope we can replicate when it comes to like housing issues and agricultural issues, especially forest fires. I love that plan and I think it's an example of how we should be doing things and I think we need more of it. We need more bipartisanship, we need more collaboration.

I look forward to playing my little my part in that and making sure that we're striking the balance between balancing the needs of the Yakama Nation, the 14th District includes the entire reservation. We've got to make sure that as we are thinking about water infrastructure, maintaining forest land that we are including the Yakama Nation apart of those conversations always. Infrastructure is an issue that I'm really, really passionate about. It's one of the top priorities that comes as I'm talking to people across the Lower Valley. You know there's a lot of cities that shared with me that they're paying really, really high prices for water and I think it has to do with the dilapidated water infrastructure system that we have.

I think we haven't been investing enough of it in money to maintain it. So then you know what happens when you don't invest in repairs at the end of the day, the bill is going to be bigger and higher. .... I'm excited to get to work on those issues and bring a lot of that much-needed money into the district.

: I look at what the need is, where that money has to come from and how much money is available and what are the priorities that we have. It's a matter of trying to determine what are the priorities and what are the costs of the various projects.

When people come and ask me, "we need money for this project." I'm going, "OK, well, you're not going to get enough money to fund the whole project. So are there elements of it that will help you get started?"

That's the way I approach it. I look at what are the needs, where the money coming from, what are the chances that we're going to get some of that money and then try to allocate it to the best use of where that money could go to help continue moving forward with whatever project it is.