Time for a change of pace: Voters should replace Jim Walsh with Mike Coverdale

Incumbent 19th District House member too partisan for district's good

When a baseball or a football team is failing, the ownership doesn’t fire all the players. It fires the manager or the coach.

But when it comes to Southwest Washington politics, three Democrats are urging voters to turn out the entire 19th District state legislative team, which is now all Republican.

Democrats Andi Day of Seaview, Terry Carlson of Longview and Mike Coverdale of Westport are running for legislative seats representing the sprawling six-county district. It stretches from Longview to the Long Beach Peninsula and up to Aberdeen. Longview is its largest population center.

Day, Carlson and Coverdale have coordinated their campaigns and built them around a common theme: The incumbent Republicans have not delivered for the district and should be replaced.

The challengers are underdogs in a district that has evolved into a Republican bastion. It is represented by state Reps. Jim Walsh of Aberdeen and Joel McEntire of Cathlamet and state Sen. Jeff Wilson of Longview.

This incumbent trio is by no means homogenous. Walsh in particular is a right wing firebrand who is the state GOP chairman. But they share many views. They have opposed all gun regulation and tax increases and are skeptical of government regulation. Of the three, Wilson gravitates somewhat closer to the political center.

They all support the Walsh-instigated state initiatives to repeal the state’s capital gains tax on the wealthy; eliminate the state’s Climate Commitment Act; and make the state’s now-mandatory long-term care insurance program (WA Cares) and its 0.58% tax on wages optional for workers.

The challengers oppose all three of those initiatives.

Today and Friday I will review the 19th District races and make endorsements. Below, read about the contest for a House seat between incumbent Walsh and Cloverdale, the Westport Democrat. A look at the Senate race between incumbent Jeff Wilson and challenger Andi Day and the House race between incumbent Joel McEntire and challenger Terry Carlson will appear Friday.

(Suggestion: Check out justfacts.votesmart.org to review the incumbents’ records on major votes.)

Coverdale v. Walsh

Walsh, who owns a small publishing company, has been a libertarian firebrand since he was first elected to the Legislature in 2016. He was a loud and persistent critic of Gov. Jay Inslee’s COVID-19 mandates, arguing that they infringed individual liberties.

In 2021, Walsh apologized on a radio talk show after a bipartisan outcry caused when he wore a shirt sporting a yellow star of David — a symbol that the Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust — during a an amti-mamndate speech in Thurston County.

Walsh is the chief architect of the ballot initiatives described above, working with Redmond billionaire Brian Heywood, who financed the petition signature-gathering efforts for the initiatives.

Walsh’s call for repealing the capital gains tax (I-2109) fits with his opposition to virtually any new tax, but in this case it runs counter to the interests of his district. Only a handful of 19th District residents pay the tax, which is projected to raise $2 billion statewide through 2029 for school construction and early childhood education, two critical needs in rural communities. Plainly put, I-2109 it is a tax break for the rich at the expense of Walsh’s struggling rural district.

Walsh’s advocacy of killing the Climate Committment Act through I-2117 also is controversial. Under the act, large emitters of greenhouse gas pay an “allowance fee” for emissions exceeding 25,000 metic tons annually. The money must go to transportation grants, “climate resiliency” projects and transtioning the state to a low-carbon economy.

Walsh and other critics say the climate law is responsible for driving up gas prices — how much is under debate — and has a disproportionate impact on the poor. Advocates say the critics exaggerate the impact on gas prices and that repealing the law would wallop state transportation funding (The state estimates it would lose $758 million in 2025, revenues it would have collected from major greenhouse gas emitters.)

Walsh, 60, is an almost ferocious opponent government mandates.

He opposed legislation to make religious clergy mandatory reporters of suspected child abuse (information from confessions was exempted).

Walsh opposed a rent control bill to cap annual increases at 7%. He joined most of his House GOP members in opposing a bill to give state legislative workers the right to collective bargain.

He was one of only seven Republicans to vote against a bill prohibiting police from hog-tying criminal suspects. He joined unanimous Republican opposition to a bill prohibiting the collection and sale of consumer health data collected by apps and websites. He opposed amending state learning standards to include education about the LGBTQ+ community.

Walsh opposed a bill to downgrade possession of a controlled substance to a gross misdemeanor, legislation that grew out of the state Supreme Court ruling making it difficult to prove felony drug possession charges.

Walsh has touted his successful advocacy of legislation to create a Parents Bill of Rights and to restore police authority for pursuits. But he has oversold their significance. Parts of the parents rights law have been challenged in court, and much of the legislation duplicates laws and rights that already had been on the books. And police have had a mixed reception to the pursuit legislation due to the dangers of high-speed chases.

Coverdale, 45, is a former military pilot and now is a Westport real estate broker. The near life-long resident of the 19th District wants to focus on expanding housing, improving rural health care and exploring innovations to boost the timber industry, such as encouraging production of wood-laminated beams.

He’s outspoken about the need for campaign finance reform and aspires to am appointment on the House Natural Resources Committee because of its oversight of issues important to rural economies.

A hunter, Coverdale says he supports the Second Amendment, but he believes in “responsible gun ownership, which includes background checks, closing the gun show loophole and restricting large-capacity clips in semi-automatic weapons.”

He takes issue with Walsh for pushing a proposal to give families state money to send children to charter schools and denounces Walsh’s advocacy of I-2109.

He also decries Walsh’s highly vocal partisanship, saying that just because he is loud and prominent doesn’t make him effective.

Endorsement: Coverdale. Walsh may be a bulwark against some of the craziest ideas to come out of Seattle, but he’s been marginalized in Olympia due to his ultra partisanship and has achieved little for the district. It’s time for a change. Coverdale would face a steep learning curve, but he is smart, articulate and personable and is a welcome alternative to Walsh’s stridency.