Jessica Bateman, Lisa Parshley ready to provide orderly succession in 22nd LD

Last month, Sen­a­tor Sam Hunt (D‑22nd Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict: Olympia) announced that he would not be seek­ing reelec­tion to the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate this year, cre­at­ing an open seat in a reli­ably blue district.

When sen­a­tors retire, it’s very com­mon for one of their coun­ter­parts in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to move across the rotunda.

Of Hunt’s two coun­ter­parts, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jes­si­ca Bate­man has decid­ed to run for the Sen­ate, with her seat­mate Beth Doglio telling McClatchy’s Shau­na Sow­ers­by she’s hap­py in the House and plans to stay there.

Bate­man wrote in a state­ment that she is “excit­ed about the oppor­tu­ni­ty” to work with law­mak­ers in the oth­er cham­ber of the Wash­ing­ton Legislature.

Bate­man has Sen­a­tor Hunt’s endorse­ment. In a state­ment, Hunt wrote, “As an Olympia Coun­cil mem­ber, 22nd Dis­trict rep­re­sen­ta­tive and com­mu­ni­ty leader, Jes­si­ca has demon­strat­ed a keen aware­ness of the needs of our com­mu­ni­ties and been effec­tive at get­ting results that move us all for­ward. She has my full sup­port to rep­re­sent the dis­trict as our next State Senator.”

In an inter­view with the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, Bate­man stressed her long­stand­ing rela­tion­ship with Sen­a­tor Hunt. “When I even­tu­al­ly ran for city coun­cil, he was the sec­ond per­son that endorsed me,” Bate­man said. “So I have a long, very famil­iar, and very pos­i­tive work­ing rela­tion­ship with him.”

Bate­man sees Hunt as a men­tor, and although she acknowl­edges they have dif­fer­ent leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ties, Bate­man wants to hon­or Hunt’s com­mit­ment to pub­lic ser­vice and hopes to learn from his lead­er­ship style.

“In addi­tion to being an effec­tive leg­is­la­tor, he’s known for being kind of an incred­i­ble human and real­ly work­ing well with peo­ple and being real­ly lik­able, and I think that that real­ly helps when it comes to get­ting leg­is­la­tion passed and being effec­tive,” Bate­man said. “And that’s some­thing I def­i­nite­ly hope to emulate.”

Bate­man is also endorsed by Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mar­i­lyn Strick­land, whose con­gres­sion­al dis­trict encom­pass­es Washington’s 22nd, as well as Wash­ing­ton Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Den­ny Heck. Both high­light­ed Bateman’s work on hous­ing pol­i­cy and repro­duc­tive care in their endorsements.

As a rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Bate­man has focused pri­mar­i­ly on hous­ing and home­less­ness pol­i­cy.  “We absolute­ly have to have afford­able hous­ing for all Wash­ing­to­ni­ans.” Bate­man said. “It’s the largest line item in any fam­i­ly’s bud­get, and young peo­ple need to be able to see a future in the com­mu­ni­ties where they are.”

Bate­man is well known for hav­ing  spon­sored leg­is­la­tion to ease the cre­ation of miss­ing mid­dle hous­ing – House Bill 1110.

Bate­man col­lab­o­rat­ed with Sen­a­tors Trudeau, Kud­er­er, and Sal­daña on HB 1110, and she hopes to con­tin­ue these rela­tion­ships if she is elect­ed to the Sen­ate this fall. The bill passed with broad bipar­ti­san sup­port last year.

Bate­man cur­rent­ly chairs the Health Care and Well­ness Com­mit­tee, and in addi­tion to House Bill 1110, Bateman’s cam­paign web­site pro­motes her work on remov­ing bar­ri­ers to build tiny homes and secur­ing a $1.2 bil­lion bud­get carve­out to address the hous­ing cri­sis statewide. Pre­vi­ous­ly, as a city coun­cil mem­ber, Bate­man worked to des­ig­nate Olympia as a sanc­tu­ary city to shel­ter migrants.

Dur­ing Bateman’s time as a state rep­re­sen­ta­tive, the House tran­si­tioned away from hav­ing bifur­cat­ed com­mit­tees to address hous­ing: the Local Gov­ern­ment Com­mit­tee wrote zon­ing laws while a sep­a­rate com­mit­tee focused on home­less­ness and rent pol­i­cy. Bate­man cur­rent­ly serves on the new­ly com­bined Hous­ing Committee.

Bate­man told NPI she cred­its many of the recent hous­ing bills passed in the House to hav­ing a sin­gle com­mit­tee to address both zon­ing laws and home­less­ness. In what she describes as “the year of hous­ing,” the Hous­ing Com­mit­tee was able to pass a num­ber of stalled bills. Bate­man said of this suc­cess: “I think a big part of that was because leg­is­la­tors were hear­ing all of the holis­tic, the prob­lem and the solu­tion in that one committee.”

With two com­mit­tees, Bate­man believes leg­is­la­tors on the com­mit­tee that hears zon­ing pol­i­cy are unlike­ly to make osten­si­bly unpop­u­lar changes to land use because they don’t hear from con­stituents that can’t afford rent or have aspi­ra­tions of home ownership.

In the Sen­ate, Bate­man sees the pos­si­bil­i­ty of assist­ing with anoth­er restruc­tur­ing to merge the bifur­cat­ed com­mit­tees into a sin­gle Hous­ing Committee.

She also hopes to serve on the Health and Well­ness Com­mit­tee, con­tin­u­ing to work on leg­is­la­tion she helped pass in her cur­rent position.

Mean­while, Bate­man has endorsed Dr. Lisa Parsh­ley, who is a cur­rent Olympia Coun­cil Mem­ber, to suc­ceed her in the House.

Addi­tion­al endorse­ments for Dr. Parshley’s cam­paign came from cur­rent and for­mer Olympia May­ors Don­tae Payne and Cheryl Shel­by, as well as local lead­ers from Thurston County’s largest communities.

“On the Olympia City Coun­cil, I’ve applied my per­spec­tive as a vet­eri­nar­i­an, sci­en­tist, and small busi­ness own­er to ana­lyze com­plex prob­lems and pro­mote the health and well-being of our com­mu­ni­ties,” Parsh­ley said in her cam­paign announce­ment. “In the State Leg­is­la­ture, I will con­tin­ue to lead on build­ing healthy com­mu­ni­ties root­ed in our shared val­ues of equi­ty, oppor­tu­ni­ty, and safe­ty for every 22nd LD neigh­bor and beyond.”

Like Bate­man, Dr. Parsh­ley says she’ll pro­vide a leg­isla­tive focus on tack­ling home­less­ness and afford­able hous­ing. As a city coun­cil mem­ber, Dr. Parsh­ley helped devel­op Thurston County’s first Human Rights Com­mis­sion and extend Olympia’s sanc­tu­ary city sta­tus to include repro­duc­tive rights and healthcare.

In an email exchange with NPI, Parsh­ley iden­ti­fied four major areas of focus, all of which have been declared emer­gen­cies dur­ing her six years on city coun­cil: home­less­ness, the opi­oid cri­sis, racism, and cli­mate change. Parsh­ley high­light­ed her work in col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­er city coun­cil juris­dic­tions to address these issues, and Parsh­ley feels moti­vat­ed to take the next step by run­ning for House.

“I want to take all that I have learned in the last six plus years, work­ing on the front line of so many inter­sect­ing issues fac­ing our com­mu­ni­ties, to the leg­is­la­ture where I can bet­ter impact and reduce the bar­ri­ers to the work of so many com­mu­ni­ties in Wash­ing­ton,” Parsh­ley wrote, lay­ing the foun­da­tion for her cam­paign for the seat that Bate­man has held for the last few years.

In his retire­ment let­ter, Sen­a­tor Hunt remarked, “It is time for some­one else to climb in the sad­dle.” Democ­rats are now seek­ing to estab­lish a clear and order­ly line of suc­ces­sion, allow­ing resources and atten­tion to flow to oth­er dis­tricts where the par­ty has oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow its majorities.