Tri-Cities newest legislator faces challenger focused on economic class disparity

Matt Boehnke is looking for his second term representing District 8 in the Washington state Legislature, a seat he won with 67% of the vote running against a Democrat in 2018.

This time Boehnke, a Republican, is being challenged by a member of The Alliance Party.

Larry Stanley said he decide to run when no Democrat came forward to give voters a choice.

Boehnke says he wants to limit bureaucracy that stifles job growth. He would continue to promote higher education and research, which create good jobs.

Stanley says he wants to address the economic class divide.

He favors providing every citizen with $500 a month as a universal basic income and access to health care through a public option on the state’s healthcare exchange. He also is concerned about the cost of housing.

Matt Boehnke

Boehnke, a Kamiakin High graduate, says his experience separates him from Stanley.

He retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel and returned to the Tri-Cities, where he has served in the Kennewick City Council, as an Energy Northwest cyber security manager and Columbia Basin College cyber security professor.

In his term in the Legislature he secured $8.3 million in the state budget to help leverage a federal investment of tens of millions of dollars in a new national grid energy research facility at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland.

The project is expected to attract additional funding and researchers to PNNL, while helping modernize the nation’s utility grid to make it more resilient, secure, reliant and flexible.

He also introduced a series of bills seeking to bolster Washington’s space industry and position the state as a leader in the new space economy for both civilian and military populations.

He sees potential for the state of Washington to play a role in the federal Space Force established as part of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.

His bill directing the state’s Department of Economy to foster the development of the new space economy in the state and look at geographic distribution of potential jobs and training opportunities in the state passed the House but not the Senate.

He has criticized Gov. Jay Inslee’s management of the COVID-19 crisis, saying there was a lack of leadership, accountability and transparency.

Larry Stanley

Stanley also has deep roots in the Tri-Cities as a Hanford High graduate who is currently a winery tasting room manager.

His work experience has ranged from church pastor, to teaching English in Asia, to customer training at Amazon.

Stanley said Inslee’s management of the COVID-19 crises could have been better, but at least was guided mainly by science rather than hearsay and conspiracy theories.

To tackle the anticipated state revenue shortfall he favors a combination of budget cuts, with an eye on those that would not harm “normal people,” and raising taxes on those with the most wealth because they can best afford it, he said.

He would fight to keep budgets intact for education, health and transportation.

As a lawmaker, he would promote ways to encourage construction of lower cost housing while builders often are more motivated to build more expensive homes that have a larger profit margin, he said.

He sees himself as setting a course as a politician who would put the state before any political party and would value solutions over ideology.

“Both major parties only focus on making the other side lose so that we all end up losing in the end,” he said in the Washington state Voters’ Pamphlet.

In the August primary election, Stanley took 17% of the vote and Boehnke had 82% of the vote.

The general election is Nov. 3.