LD 21, House 2 Tue. Jun 18, 2024 0:11 - Unidentified Speaker Okay, does everybody still hear me okay? Yeah. I can hear you fine. 0:16 - lilyortiz All right, that's better. 0:18 - Jon Bauer Okay, good. Well, Bruce, Lillian, thank you both for joining us. We do appreciate it and we've had some really some good discussions with other candidates and seeing a lot of tough choices for voters here. So we're glad to take some time with you. Bruce, just as a sideline, you should be getting a call from one of our reporters. She wanted to make sure what time you were going to be in an interview with us. So she was going to reach out after today's interview. 0:59 - Bruce Guthrie Yeah, Janelle emailed me and I've responded back. I can't quite do it at one, but we're in communication. Okay, good. All right. 1:06 - Jon Bauer I wanted to make sure that you knew that she was looking to talk to you. Thank you. 1:13 - Bruce Guthrie Good. 1:14 - Jon Bauer Well, Bruce, why don't you start us off and tell us about yourself and why you're running and what you feel you would bring to the position? Well, I'm Bruce Guthrie. 1:27 - Bruce Guthrie I'm 61. I've lived in this district since 2008. I moved to Bellingham, Washington from the Midwest back in 1994. 1:39 - Bruce Guthrie I have an undergraduate degree from Cornell University. I have an MBA from the Northwestern University Kellogg Graduate School of Management. And I have a master's in teaching. So I'm basically a sales and marketing executive. Who has a second career as a math and science teacher. 2:02 - Bruce Guthrie The experience of being a teacher in the state has taught me a lot about education in the state. And so that's one of my top issues. I think the existing government school system is racist in its effect. I don't think it's intentionally racist. And I think school choice would go a long way to helping alleviate that racist problem And I think my opponent is perpetuating that system. And unintentionally, I obviously don't want to call her racist. She's not. But I think her policies are unintentionally racist. And I think school choice is one of the solutions to that problem. Okay. 2:44 - Jon Bauer Is it something about the public school system that you feel is Is the problem, or what? 2:54 - Bruce Guthrie Well, the fundamental problem is that there's no competition, and therefore there's no accountability. The people who are stuck in the educational system, they're stuck. They're not like me. I send my three kids to three different private schools. 3:10 - Bruce Guthrie Because I'm not poor, I'm able to do that kind of thing, but it's not fair that the system gets them stuck. If there were competition, then the schools would have to improve or the kids would leave. We're getting a little bit of that. We can see the growth of homeschooling, which I applaud wholeheartedly. I'm an atheist, and I know that homeschooling is largely a Christian phenomenon, but I am a huge fan of homeschooling. And I'm a huge fan of private schools. I send my kids to some of the most left-leaning private schools that you could possibly have. I'm sure that Lillian would feel very comfortable in those communities, but the education's dang good. And the reason for that is that we are treated as customers instead of as, well, as though we were trapped. It has an incentive to improve. And the government schools try to do away with competition in order, I mean, maybe it's in order, but it's so that one of the effects is that they don't have to improve. So it's a fundamentally flawed system. I view it this way. Government schooling is a failed social experiment. 4:29 - Bruce Guthrie And as long as we perpetuate that, we're going to have poor blacks and Hispanics in urban areas who are permanently disadvantaged for the rest of their lives. 4:42 - Bruce Guthrie It's horrible, actually. And Lillian Ortiz herself, who you will endorse in this campaign, is perpetuating this system. And it's a massive social injustice. 4:56 - Bruce Guthrie Okay. 4:59 - Jon Bauer Lillian, I'll give you a chance to respond to that, but maybe just start out with an introduction, talk about why you're running for re-election and what you would hope to accomplish in the next term. 5:17 - Bruce Guthrie Thank you, Jon. 5:18 - lilyortiz Yes, I have lived in Mockatiel since 2004. I've raised my children in this community. And I have a master's in public administration and a master's in counseling. I have ran as executive director of mental health center. I've also been a high school counselor for 21 years. I have been in the trenches. I am a product of the public school system that gave me an opportunity to succeed. And at the same time has failed many students. I agree with Mr. Guthrie that we oftentimes fail our most vulnerable children. I also agree with Mr. Guthrie in that I am a strong proponent of the public school system. Before I get into that, let me just say that I ran because of the lawsuit that was happening against education 11 years ago. 6:22 - lilyortiz and being in the trenches, I heard the stories of the families and I was very moved by wanting to make sure that the dollars we were gonna invest in education was reaching out to our most vulnerable kids. That is something we've been working on. It's something that continues to be a need and that we have to continue to address. I also am very passionate in human services as a mental health counselor, as someone who's worked with foster children and in human services her whole career. I'm very passionate about those services that serve our most vulnerable in our community. I also am a very strong supporter of our workforce. Our small businesses give our communities like mine an opportunity to succeed. And our workforce, protecting our labor and workforce also give opportunities for a living wage job for families. And so I strongly support that as well. I'm sure we'll get into other questions, but let me just say that in regards to education. I don't take it lightly, the charter schools, the private school conversation. I have traveled all of the United States looking at what's happening in our private school system. I don't know if you gentlemen know, but in Louisiana, who has done an experiment with privatizing their school system and competition for seven years, just called it off and said it was a failed experiment and they're going public. I have seen private schools, some in areas that have succeeded well, and I have seen many that have failed, including in our own state. I just ask for accountability. I want to make sure that when we are using state dollars, that the board is accountable, that we have accountability in a system, because I see many private schools across the United States that leave out our Latino and Black kids, leave out our special ed kids, leave out our English language learner kids, because they get to select their customers. They get to select those with money. They get to select those that make them look good and have their A's and their 4.0 GPAs. And it is kids that look like me that are left out often. And I want a system. I want to force the system to work for everybody. I don't want segregation. I also see charter schools that are just for Black kids, just for Latino kids. And of course, and they're doing great. But I think they're missing out on the cultural experience of living in a global society. And I want an education system that is going to work for every child, whether you're poor, whether you have a disability, whether you don't speak the language, our education system must serve everybody. And that is what I continue to fight for. OK, good. 9:16 - Jon Bauer I want to continue, as long as we're launching into this, Continue on this, Lillian, I want you to, we've of course had a lot of effort put into the McCleary fix. Can you give me an assessment of how well that's worked and whether lawmakers need to go back into that and make adjustments or wholesale changes or what's necessary? Yeah, absolutely. 9:50 - lilyortiz Yes, we do. Because we're behind the eight ball again. So the minute we passed McCleary, it took so many years to pass it, that we already started to fall behind in funding the programs, the money that we needed to invest into our educational system. And yes, we need to go back and do that. And we were having those conversations and looking at how we were funding schools and then COVID hit. And that stopped everything, as you know, because we're now playing catch up to COVID and what that has done to our public school system. And so as a result of that, it is on the table. As you know, I serve on the Education Committee. It has been on the table before COVID. It is on the table again, looking at how do we fund there are gaps, like our sub-days that we pay for our teachers and our school system, our para-educators, how do we get them up to par? How do we continue to fully fund special education so that our neediest kids and our English language learners, how do we make sure? So we're making strides in closing the opportunity gap, but it's not closed. And until it is, until we've gotten there, we've got work to do. 11:04 - lilyortiz Okay, thank you. 11:06 - Jon Bauer Bruce, back to you. I want to go a little deeper with you on education. And to begin with, what you see is how this would work. Would we give parents the vouchers for them to use either in a charter or a private school or make the choice to go to a public school? How would that work? 11:29 - Bruce Guthrie I promise to get to that, but first I have to answer some of the points that Ms. Ortiz made. What I want to know is, despite the McCleary work, and despite the fact that per-student funding has been going up faster than inflation, why are test scores continuing to go down? Does she know, despite all of her policies, all of her work, why are the measurable outcomes declining? This in spite of the fact that the average private school tuition is less than the average that we spend per student in the government school system in Washington state. Why is that? We're spending more and her solution is to spend more money, right? Well, that's really what the WEA wants. That's really what the school bureaucracy wants. You know about the growth in non-teacher support staff in the schools? It's dramatically outstripped the grade of growth of the actual numbers of teachers. And so what we see is increasing class sizes. I send my middle boy to a private school. It's an IB school. It's the most left-leaning, liberal place, flies all the pride flags. And welcomes people of any race with full-ride tuition scholarships. It's completely income independent, and they are trying to build that racially diverse community that Lillian Ortiz herself advocates. And the class size is 14. 13:12 - Bruce Guthrie The educational outcomes are better. Her system is a failure, and it's a failure with racist effects, despite her rhetoric, and despite, I think, her good intentions. I'm not calling her racist, but the system she advocates, which mostly advocates the politicians in Olympia, and the WEA Union, and the administrators, it doesn't benefit the students. The students are better benefited in a system that has competition. So that's what I advocate. 13:46 - Bruce Guthrie I have short-term policy things that would improve things at the margin, and I have a kind of a long-term goal. Short-term, anything that helps parents and students choose their school, that's a step in the right direction. So charter schools, vouchers, those are all great ideas. Those are all steps in the right direction. 14:11 - Bruce Guthrie If I had my fantasy, my long distance fantasy that would happen over maybe 50 years, I would like to see each individual government school building turned into a private non-profit organization with a parental board, just like a non-profit org. I'd like them all to charge tuition, and I'd like the state, based on property taxes, to give a full ride voucher to the bottom half I don't know how to determine the bottom half. You could base it based on some computation of income and assets, but the bottom half, the poor people would get a full ride voucher they could take anywhere they wanted. Over time, I'd like to see that voucher system privatized as well, but we need a separation of school and state. The same thing that gives us, and as I said, I'm not religious, but what we have in this country is an incredibly vibrant religious tradition. There are more religious people in the United States, for instance, as a percentage than there are in England. England has the Church of England. It has no separation of church and state. And religion has not done as well as in the United States. It's done as well in the United States because there are all these sects competing with each other. If you don't get the kind of thing, whatever that thing is that you want from your local church, you go to another one. It's competition that's the thing that makes products and services better in quality. And the reason we have declining quality in education is because they're trying to make it a monopoly. 15:54 - Unidentified Speaker Okay. 15:56 - Jon Bauer So, again, your vouchers, charter schools, it sounds like you're saying we don't have to outline something on that right away. 16:11 - Bruce Guthrie Uh, well, I, I advocate, uh, vouchers and charter schools. I mean, but as, as a first step, as a first step toward full privatization of the government school system. Okay. 16:27 - Jon Bauer You know, I have kids in private schools and there were treated like customers and they know we could leave. 16:34 - Bruce Guthrie And so there's an incentive to improve. And we don't have this bloat of support staff promoting political causes like DEI in our schools. It's just a political cause. You know, I'm anti-racist as well. But what we have is the politicians in Olympia, including Lillian Ortiz herself, forcing their politics on our kids via the education system. I'm a teacher. I'm a math teacher. I've been asked to change my math problems so that they promote a political agenda within the word problems. But where are you teaching? Currently, I'm not teaching. I was a sub recently, the Northwest School on Capitol Hill. I did a lot of subbing there. I've done some subbing in the schools that my kids go to, University Prep, Evergreen School, and this awesome little IB school in Linwood called Soundview School. 17:42 - Bruce Guthrie For that, I was a teacher at Western Washington University in their business school, taught in the College of Business and Economics. 17:51 - Bruce Guthrie I have a lot of coursework in economics and one of the reasons that I oppose governments getting into these things so much is that I've studied economics. I know that the free market works better than centralized government planning. And that's what we learned when the USSR collapsed in 1990, that a centrally planned government economy produces horrible cars and horrible happiness and horrible prosperity for the poorest. And I want us all to be free. I want to defend the right to freedom of everyone. 18:27 - Jon Bauer She wants to expand the power of government. 18:36 - Jon Bauer William, I want to go back to you for a moment just to give you an opportunity. Bruce asked, perhaps rhetorically, asked why with increased spending we're not seeing an improvement in test scores or just basic academics. 19:00 - Jon Bauer I'm not asking you to take full responsibility for that, but Why do you agree that we're not seeing improvement? Or is this a result of COVID? Or what's the problem that schools are facing right now? 19:20 - lilyortiz Jon, I would say that across the state, we have seen a lot of improvement. I get the reports. It's been increasing. Is it increasing to where we want it? No. And I'll tell you who we're leaving behind. Those that can't compete. Mr. 19:37 - Bruce Guthrie Guthrie says he's a customer, he can pull his kids out. 19:41 - lilyortiz That probably matters to his school. You know what wouldn't matter to his school? The parents that have come to me that have said they've been in charter schools and their kids had a learning disability and they were encouraged to move their kid out. Their child was pushed out because they were making the school look bad. The child was special ed. The child that didn't speak English, who was not given the proper services. The parents that were low income and couldn't meet the hours and the mandates that the school was making on them and so they were not entitled to all the services. Those are the, so yes, in some ways I do support mandates because I want to mandate that every child get a free and appropriate education because that is in the constitution in the state of Washington. That every child will get a free and appropriate education. Why aren't our test scores because we serve all kids. We serve those kids with very large social emotional issues that walk in our door. We serve those that are homeless and living in a car, sleeping in a trunk of a car. We serve those that have been sexually abused. We serve those that are hungry. We serve those that parents just lost their job and mom is dying of cancer. We serve all kids that walk in our door and the services that we want to put in, here's where, I don't know if I'd call it racism, but here's where our discrepancy in our public school system. Those parents who can compete and have the loudest voices and have money tend to get what they want in our public school system. They are loud voices and they are listened to. And so rarely do you hear we're going to cut a lot of AB or IB programs or we're going to cut Right now, I just heard a complaint that subs for English language learners were being pulled, that teachers were being pulled from providing English language learner services to sub because there weren't enough subs in an area. That's a civil rights issue because those children are being denied the services that they are mandated to have. Those are the kinds of things we can't account for or regulate in a private system. And it needs to be mandated so that it doesn't happen across the board. And we need to make sure that the child who comes in who's traumatized is going to get free and appropriate services. And we are going to put dollars into that as the others. Political agenda. Here's my political agenda. No child should be in school that should be bullied. Every child should be in school that is treated with the respect And the kindness that they deserve and every child will get a free and appropriate. And and i've had parents who say well, you know when you when you say that that means that you know if a child says he's gay he's allowed to say that. Whatever a parent wants to teach a child is okay with me. What I also want to say, though, is that that child does not have the right to come into school and bully anybody else. So that means that if his classmate says he's gay, he is not allowed to make fun of him. He is not allowed to stick his head in the toilet. He is not allowed to beat him up after class. And we have heard every one of those stories. So for me, what I say is, Kindness, respect, no bullying, no harassment for whoever you are and with whatever you walk into that school building has to be a mandate. We have to have a safe climate, not because Lillian wants a safe climate, although I definitely do and I want that for my children, but because all the research says that social climate makes a big difference in how safety and how safe a child feels will make a difference in how they produce. If you go into work yourself and you feel like you're in a hostile environment, people aren't respecting you. Believe me, as a woman and a Latino woman, we go through all of that. You tend to not produce like you do if you are in the competitive group, which is the one with money, with a voice, with the ability to make sure that homework's done on time and all those things. You are being, they want you there. And I guarantee you our public schools work the same way. Public schools do not want to lose that honor roll student. But meeting the needs of everyone that's vulnerable and hurting is hard. And yes, COVID made that even harder, and we're still reeling from all of that. But social emotional issues are a big issue for our kids, especially when you are mandated to serve them all. 24:25 - Bruce Guthrie Can't hear you, Jon. Can't hear you, Jon. 24:30 - Bruce Guthrie Jon, I can't hear you at all. 24:32 - Unidentified Speaker All right. 24:32 - Jon Bauer Are you hearing me now? Now I'm hearing you. OK, good. Sounded like you wanted to respond. Yes, please. 24:38 - Bruce Guthrie I was counting. She said the word mandates nine times. She doesn't understand. She wants to rule by force. You know, the ring of power in the in the Hobbit, it's the power corrupts she and every good person. And I'm not disparaging Lillian Ortiz self. If I'd been in her position with all that power, I would be corrupted, too. She has been wearing the ring of power and she wants to rule through mandates. And it not only corrupts her, it doesn't work because freedom works better. So let me tell you about my three kids. My eldest kid is on the autism spectrum. He's gay. My middle boy is on the autism spectrum and has ADHD. My youngest daughter is bi and has ADHD. My eldest boy went to Mukilteo Elementary, where he was bullied, and where the teachers had had all of the passion sucked out of their teaching style by a bureaucratic system. We were so glad that he was able to get into one of these left-leaning, secular private schools, where he experienced much less bullying, where his special needs were accommodated much better than with the old IEP system, which was a major pain in the keister. The private schools have served my kids so much better and I want to extend that privilege down to the poorest and she doesn't. She wants to force the poorest into this failing system that doesn't compete and has no incentive to improve. Furthermore, she talked about power. That she put forward this idea that the wealthy parents have excessive power. Well, that's baloney. If you're a wealthy parent and you come to a school board meeting, you talk and talk and talk and nothing happens. The people who have real power in this system, and she's pointed out something very true and interesting, we should look where the power is. She has the power. Oops, I'm pointing the wrong way. I'm in mirror image. She has the power. The WEA has the power. The Olympia has the power. The school administrators have the power. The school boards are mostly just rubber stamps. I've run for school board. The school board is not the way to change things. It's been emasculated. It's been put in a position where it can't damage the agenda that's coming from the left from Olympia. So power is exactly the problem. She wants more of it. I want to decentralize the power so that it's accountable to the customers. It's accountable to the parents. These schools that I send my kids to, they're looking for BIPOC people. They want to have a more inclusive community. These are some of the most left, you can't find a Republican at these places. Evergreen School, and they promote a global perspective They're very pro-LGBT, and the government schools, they talk about that stuff, but then they fail at their core mission, which is to teach kids reading, writing, and arithmetic. And this is creating disadvantage disproportionately to BIPOC people for the rest of their lives. 28:18 - Jon Bauer I appreciate the passion from both you and, and, and the background that you both have in education, job of a legislator though involves more than than education and I do want us to touch on some of those issues. Other issues. Starting with Mr. Guthrie, I wonder what other focus you might bring to the position? What would you want to be focusing on? What committees would you want to serve? 28:47 - Bruce Guthrie So I have three other issues besides education. One is taxation. I think that state government has gotten way too big and that the stuff that it does, it generally mismanages. If you look at any of the statistics about government outcomes like traffic congestion or any measurable statistic, homelessness, The more money they spend on something, the worse it gets. So reducing taxes and reducing spending much more in order to keep the budget balanced is number one. Number two is transportation policy. They're building trains and buses, and I drive around all day. I'm one of these weird people who, when I pass a bus or a train, I count the number of people on it. And I realize that's not scientific. It's anecdotal. Very rarely are the buses and trains more than 10% full. And that indicates that the transportation options that the government is trying to provide for us, people don't want. 29:55 - Bruce Guthrie Instead, what do people want? They want traffic to be easier on I-5. It's one of the top 10 worst commutes in the country, and it's controlled by Olympia. So she can say we're spending more money on transportation. Most of it's going into transit that people don't want. And the problem is getting worse. 30:16 - Multiple Speakers Well, but I don't know that building more lanes is going to do anything to alleviate that congestion that you're talking about. 30:24 - Jon Bauer What do you mean? 30:25 - Bruce Guthrie You expand. So I teach electrical engineering sometimes and you expand the size of the wire and you can get more current through it. 30:32 - Jon Bauer Well, that's true for electricity. I don't think it's true for traffic. I've seen some studies that show that the more lanes you add, the more you encourage more traffic, and you end up with the same amount of congestion over time. 30:47 - Bruce Guthrie Are the citizens customers who should be served? Well, certainly. Because the customers are demanding more lanes on I-5, and the city of Olympia, Lillian, is saying, no, you can't have that. We want to force you into a mode of transportation that you don't want. Right. That's what's happening. And my fourth issue is term limits. Power corrupts. The longer someone, a good person elected to office very soon becomes corrupted by the power. And if we have term limits, I think this should be Lillian Ortiz self's last campaign. I think I would love to be responsible for helping to term limit her. Um, and, uh, we, we have career politicians who have been corrupted by, you know, when they offered Gandalf the ring, Gandalf recoils with horror because he knows that someone with his powers also possessing the ring would become a horrible, a horrible dictator, a horrible demon. Lillian Ortiz self has been holding the ring too long. Okay. 31:59 - Jon Bauer Lillian, I want to go to you and talk about those issues that you have been and intend to address aside from education. 32:11 - lilyortiz Yeah, I just want to say, first of all, I'm a little shocked by Mr. Guthrie's sense of or explanation of power and Olympia has power and all of this and yet you're running for office. I'm not sure how you make, how you reconcile those two. Am I going to win? 32:33 - Multiple Speakers No, I'm still talking, please. 32:36 - lilyortiz I'd also like to say that we do balance our budget. We balance our budget every year. Since I've been there, we've had a balanced budget. Here is the caveat. As a legislature and as someone who's a woman, and a Latina. I hear from the most vulnerable communities across the state of Washington, and I am responsible for listening and for addressing those issues. Just like Mr. Guthrie said, I'm not sure who he's heard from, but I can tell you who I've heard from I've heard from those seeking mental health services. I've heard from those who are on food assistance. I've heard from those who are homeless. I've heard from those who are addicted. I've heard from those in special ed. I've heard from those who are about to lose their home and have a second mortgage on their house. I have heard from those who want traffic congestion to be slower so they can make it to work. I've heard those who want a living wage job. I have heard from all these constituents and the answers are not as simple as Mr. Guthrie says they are. The studies have shown you continue to expand lanes, you will continue to fill those lanes. I have to believe in science and the research that not just comes from the state of Washington, but across the United States. I've also heard from people who have said we're concerned about climate change, and we are more than willing to do our part. And if transit is available, if bus services is available in a timely manner and will get me there, And if we electrify our fairies and continue in that pathway. I am more than happy to use that service, and I am more than happy to get off the roads. And so we are trying to strike a balance. We get a lot of information and our job as legislators and should Mr. Guthrie become a legislature, his job is going to be, I hope, to have an open mind to look at everybody's needs, not just some and not just from one perspective. But all of them and most of them that you really have to fight for are the ones who have no voice, the ones who are voiceless, the ones who have no power. And it makes it hard for me as a Latina woman. Why? I thought maybe I'd run for four years and step away. Why have I ran for 10? Because as a Latina woman, when I got there, I feel like representation matters and I was the only Latina. There. When I got there, there was 28% women. The issues that I was representing as a mom, a mental health counselor, and an educator, I was the only one of two educators sitting on the education committee. No one else was sitting on there. The only mental health therapist who had a practice, who worked with the Department of Children and Family Services, who worked with foster children sitting at the table. And I found it hard to walk away. I am now in a position of leadership as the majority caucus chair, and I've got to tell you I am going to use any ounce any day that I have to continue to fight for equity to continue to fight for those who don't have a voice and to continue to fight for these issues, because they're bigger than just transportation or, or talking about child care. We're talking about businesses say we need you to take care of this child care issue because we don't have enough employees and we need our women back in our workforce. We're talking about taking care of our state's obligation with our foster children in a child welfare system that has been here for 100 years doing the same thing and trying to challenge it to do something different. We are talking about mental health services and localizing them and bringing them down to the community and bringing diverse therapists to the table that can reach out to different cultural groups that make a difference. We're talking about bilingual education, the bill I just passed to provide bilingual ed to try to meet the needs of our English language learners and other students to have a global perspective. We are talking about all of that, and it's not one single issue when you go up there, you've got the whole plate on your table and you have to decide early on two things. Who are you going to represent and give a voice to? And two, are you going to serve your constituents? And what is the one issue? What are the issues you're willing to die on? The issues that you say, I'm sorry, I'm not going there. If I lose my election, I lose it. But this is an issue for me. And I believe I've been true to all of that. 37:13 - Unidentified Speaker Okay. 37:15 - Jon Bauer Good. Other issues that you intend to focus on coming? Yes, for sure. 37:24 - lilyortiz We have worked really hard on protecting reproductive rights in our state. I will continue to fight for that. My colleagues continue to fight for that. We have seen this really tragedy that's happening on a federal level and in other states. And we have passed some strong legislation. We want to make sure we continue to protect that issue. 37:50 - Jon Bauer So that is a constitutional is a constitutional amendment necessary. 37:55 - Multiple Speakers It might be. 37:56 - lilyortiz And we that's something that we are talking across the aisle or talking to the attorney general's office and the governor's office. We're seeking legal counsel. Absolutely. We may be looking at that, but protecting the drugs that come into our state and what we have, protecting others coming into our state, protecting our doctors who provide the services, the whole gamut we continue to fight for. I am proud to be endorsed by Planned Parenthood because I believe strongly in the rights of women to control their own bodies. We will continue to do that as well. Climate change is something that we continue to look at everything from our transportation system to our waterways and our airways and working with our tribes and trying to make sure that we do it in the most effective way possible. We should be having some new legislation coming out on that this session as well. 38:56 - lilyortiz Obviously, mental health education, those are child care, human services, services for juvenile, all of those are services that I'll continue to work on as well. 39:10 - Jon Bauer Okay, good. Bruce, do you want to address the issue of abortion and what the state's response should be to the federal discussion? 39:21 - Bruce Guthrie Yes, I totally will, but first I need to respond to some things that Ms. Ortiz said. Okay. 39:27 - Multiple Speakers Well, it's sort of a question. 39:29 - Bruce Guthrie If her leadership is so good on the issue of the very poorest, why do we have more homeless people now than we used to? Seems to me what's happening is you subsidize something, you get more of it. You tax something, you get less of it. They've been subsidizing the problem instead of really getting to the root of it and solving the problem. Her leadership on the issue of the poorest is horrible. And your job, John Bauer, is to hold the powerful accountable. That's why you're the fourth estate. And you're going to endorse her in this race in spite of the fact that she's doing a horrible job by all the objective measures. And I have another thing I need to talk about in that small business. Her policies of keeping the schools closed longer than just about any state, her policies about closing small businesses like bars and small restaurants and health clubs, damaged small businesses in this state. It's her policy. She talked about having leadership on the issue of supporting small business. Her policies are the ones that have been destroying small business. And you're going to continue to endorse her in spite of the fact that her policies on that have been a total disaster. And it makes me wonder, are you really just trying to curry favor with someone in power? 40:51 - Jon Bauer I'm not going to respond to that. I will tell you, and this is something that I tell all of the candidates that we talk to, even when we do favor one candidate over the other, We make every effort to represent all candidates fairly, and not so much tell voters who they should be voting for, but tell voters, here are the candidates, you make your own choice on this. 41:23 - Bruce Guthrie My bet with you is that you endorse her. But let me talk about the abortion issue. I'll bet you 500 bucks you endorse her. My opinion on abortion, so Christina is pro-life. Lillian Ortiz self advocates abortion rights all the way up to the day of birth. Both of those two positions are extreme. What we should have is a completely legalized abortion in for some period in the middle. I don't know if you want to cut the line at 14 weeks or 16 or 20 weeks. It's kind of an arbitrary thing. And I would be flexible on where that was going to be. But 99% of abortions are early-term abortions, and I defend a woman's right to do that. And I also would want to defend abortion when the life of the mother is at risk, or elevated risk to the life of the mother. Late-term abortion should certainly be allowable under those circumstances. But my position is in the middle. I have a centrist position. I'm not extreme like Lillian or Christina. 42:34 - Jon Bauer What's the libertarian position on that, on abortion? 42:38 - Bruce Guthrie Well, libertarians are divided on this. Just like there's a diversity of opinions within the Democratic Party on this issue, there's a diversity of opinions within the Republican Party on this issue. There are a few pro-life libertarians. They honestly believe that God puts a soul into the conceptus at the moment of conception. 43:02 - Bruce Guthrie you know, I'm a science teacher, and Lillian RT self has evoked the mantle of science, but I'm an actual science teacher. And in my opinion, what we have is potential life until the brain complexity is sufficient enough to to support consciousness. Now, the science doesn't tell us yet what that point is. And it's probably a different point for every single fetus. So unfortunately, there's going to be some arbitrary line. And Yeah, I'd be good with 14 weeks, I'd be good with 20 weeks, somewhere in there. Okay. And you're basing that on? When the brain is sufficiently complex enough to support consciousness. Okay. That's when something goes from being a potential human being to being an actual human being. And I think that point happens before birth. I've had three babies, and I've seen the way they come out. And they have personalities from day zero. 44:00 - Unidentified Speaker Okay. 44:01 - Jon Bauer I want to give you another chance just to outline any other issues that you would be addressing. 44:11 - lilyortiz Jon, if I may, I'd like to say that in the issue of we're failing our poor, I don't think there is any state in our union, in our great nation, that has been able to find an answer to meeting the need of everyone who is struggling out there. I think there are states that are trying to do better than others, and I think there are states that really are ignoring some real serious issues or doing harm. And we are not any different. I think it's a panacea and a fake reality to think that I came to Olympia thinking I am going to solve every issue of every person who's poor and hurting. If I had a magic wand, I would do it in a minute. My heart's there. I would love to do that. I think people, most people would, I would hope, want to do that. It's a very complex issue. What I do fight for is, you know, at the end of the day, I've got to look at people and explain why we cut services that they needed to survive on, why I cut housing vouchers, why I cut food services, why I cut, you know, food subsidy, why I cut their opportunities. And I have to explain that. And so that is what we struggle with every day is, you know, where do we put money in that will have the biggest impact, serve the most people while knowing that we're leaving so many behind because there isn't enough money to go around. And because we don't raise taxes in our state. And so we know that there are those that are hurting and we can't meet that need. So we're constantly juggling who is the neediest and how do we help them and try to get the most bang for our money. But at the end of the day, as a legislator, I have to look at constituents and say, I'm sorry, we closed down your service. And I have to be able to explain why. And because I want to lower taxes or, you know, whatever doesn't really apply for my constituents. 46:21 - Multiple Speakers They want to know how are they going to make it the next day that that local mental health center are closed down, that their daughter kept their daughter alive. 46:31 - Bruce Guthrie Where are they going to go for services? 46:33 - lilyortiz I mean, it's where the rubber hits the road. And it's those kinds of things. As far as small businesses, I can't tell you the support we had from small businesses during COVID. Were there some that were mad? You know, this state, we were polarized in some of these issues. But I will tell you, we were at least 60%. And small businesses coming and talking to us and saying, I don't want to put my employees through that because small businesses It was their family working there. It was their cousins. It was their friends and neighbors. It was their family who was working in these shops of 10 and 12 people. And they didn't want them in danger. They were asking us, can you please mandate masks? I mean, these are my family members getting sick here. And it was personal to them. We heard from them much more than we heard from large businesses. Large businesses wanted you know, let's stay open. Small businesses were saying, please, our family members and our community is hurting and getting sick and we are responsible for that. So yeah, again, it's not simple solutions or simple issues like Mr. Guthrie wants to make it. As much as there is people opposed, there are people for, and we have to balance that. And it's not an easy task to do. At the end of the day, what we were fighting for was not to lose a life. Anybody that died, the numbers that died in the state of Washington was heartbreaking. And anything we could do to try to reduce that number is what we were fighting for. Did we do it all right? I don't know that as a nation, we will be looking at this for years to come. But what I know we did in Washington was we took the precautions to try to save as many lives as we can. And I think that was our mandate. There's that. 48:27 - Bruce Guthrie Her rhetoric is very compassionate, but the effect of her policy was to be beneficial to the big businesses, the Walmarts and the Targets, at the expense of the little businesses, because the big businesses have more political clout. The big businesses are more likely to give campaign contributions. You know, the fact that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, small business was dramatically hurt by her COVID lockdown policies. Lots of people were put out of work because they refused to get the jab that they were mandating. And now what we're finding is that the COVID jab was not protective. It was maybe 30%, maybe 40% protective. And now what we're finding is the masks actually didn't help. And now what we're finding is that the six foot rule was arbitrary. And now what we're finding is that the nations that did not close their schools for long, like Sweden, had just the same amount of COVID spread. And now we're finding that it was really the elderly that were a problem and that we shouldn't have closed down the schools at all because the kids weren't getting it. Their immune systems were fighting it off just fine. So the proof of the pudding is in the eating. What we're finding is that her policies, and she has wonderful, compassionate rhetoric, But her policies actually defend powerful interests. If you actually look at what she's doing, she's defending powerful interests against the interests of the people. 50:02 - lilyortiz I'd just like to remind everyone that as a Democrat, if you look at my caucus members, especially if you look at my PDC, where I get my money, large businesses don't support the Democrats in numbers. We get very little from small businesses, working folks are what support us. 50:21 - Jon Bauer OK, we've got another interview coming up at noon, and I want to give you both an opportunity to make a closing statement. Bruce, can we start with you on that? Olympia has bad leadership. 50:34 - Bruce Guthrie Increasing taxation and wasteful spending on education, jobs and transportation have resulted in worse educational outcomes, fewer jobs, lower wages after inflation, which is partially her fault through government spending, and worse traffic. Health care and insurance costs are up and more mentally ill or addicted people are homeless despite Lillian's policies. As a father of three, I aspire for better in Washington State. We need school choice. We need more police to arrest shoplifters. We need tax relief and for the government to get out of the way of small business. I will work to lift the burden of bad government from our backs so we and our children may prosper. Okay, Bruce, thank you. 51:24 - Jon Bauer Lillian, any final thoughts? 51:27 - lilyortiz I guess I would say that I have never come from a position of privilege where I felt like I didn't need mandates to protect my rights as a woman, as a person of color. If those hadn't been there, I would have not even achieved what I have achieved. So do I believe that we should have some protections For all people to be able to rise to their fullest expectations, yes, I do. And I do because personally, I would have never gotten there. I am not the right demographic that had the doors open for her to get there if it wasn't that these mandates were in place for me and for a lot of my constituents and for those who do not have a voice. I feel like we need to continue. I feel like I still have the passion in me to continue to fight to make sure that the issues I mentioned earlier for our most vulnerable people, our working families, to give them opportunities, to give all our children opportunities to succeed, whether it's higher ed or apprenticeship programs, to be able to make living wage jobs, to be able to live in the state of Washington. I want that what I want for my children and opportunities I want for all children. I'll continue to fight everything from child care to higher ed, mental health services to substance abuse. I'll continue to fight for transportation and working hard working men and women. And I'll continue to fight for equity in the state of Washington, making sure that As a woman and as a Latina, the policies that come through, I look through that lens. I experience through that lens. And so I want to make sure that everybody has a voice at the table and that I can represent that to the best of my ability. 53:14 - Jon Bauer Great, thank you. Again, I wanna thank you both for your time and your passion. That's what we want out of our leaders and it's no small thing to run for office and to serve. So you have our appreciation for that. We will be starting to publish endorsements early part of July. We will give you a heads up by email when the endorsement for this race comes out. But again, thank you for your time. If you've got any further thoughts that you didn't get a chance to share with us, please feel free to email and we will be in contact. I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. 54:02 - Multiple Speakers Thank you. Bye bye.