Donovan DeLeon's campaign literature features a graphic head of a lion next to his name. The Spanish word for lion is 'Leon,' he explains.
The paratransit driver for Spokane Transit who decided late to enter the race for a Third District legislative seat hopes the lion will help him grab voters' attention in the four-way race. DeLeon is one of three Democrats — along with Pam Kohlmeier and Luc Jasmin III — and Republican Natalie Poulson seeking to replace Rep. Timm Ormsby. The top two vote getters in the August 4 primary election advance to the November general election.
TOMORROW: Luc Jasmin III
DeLeon positions himself as the true Inland Northwest native, the only person running who was born within 100 miles of Spokane (Moscow).
This interview was lightly edited for length and clarity.
Donovan DeLeon: I think the biggest thing about being from around here and going and coming to Spokane is how much it's changed because of the housing situation. I remember my friends right out of high school could go and get a job at McDonald's or Dick's Burgers and then you get an apartment, a one-bedroom apartment, and sometimes I didn't even have to share it with somebody. It was affordable. It was like 30% of your income.
And sure, everything costs a lot of money and the Third District's always been one of those impoverished districts, one of the most impoverished out of the whole state. But you could still get an affordable rent and when you're only spending 25-30% of your income on rent, you've got money to go to that restaurant down the street. You've got money to invest. You've got money to do things. But now, instead of an apartment being a third of your income, it's half your income. You could get a house for about three times your annual income. Now it's almost five. So everything's going into housing.
I think that that's why the city is struggling in so many other ways. If 20% of your check is being eaten by something that wasn't being eaten before, you're going to have harder problems. Life's going to be a lot harder and you're not going to see small businesses. When people have to choose to eat, they're going to eat at the cheapest place they can. They're going to buy from the cheapest place they can. They're not going to go support their friends, their cousins, their neighborhood, their community because they just don't have it.
My shoes, for example. I bought these shoes for about $120 and I know I could have gotten them cheaper online. But the last time I bought these, I had to buy them online because when I went in there to buy them, the shoes were $240. That's $120 for a shoe. And as much as I would love to buy locally, I couldn't do it because I can't afford $250 for one pair of shoes.
We're seeing that and we're seeing a lot of these small businesses, they're just getting crushed. They're getting crushed. And that's one of the main reasons I'm running is because I just don't see, I don't believe that I'm being represented in Olympia. I've talked to a lot of other people and they don't feel that way either.
DN: So how do you change that if you go to Olympia? You're an elected representative now. How do you address that problem that you have identified here?
DD: Well, first thing is you have to be able to identify the problems. That comes a lot from being around here and being a blue collar worker that's educated. I have three college degrees, including political science, but I can see the impact. A lot of times this legislation is passed with good intention, but it really slams businesses.
When I had a small business, I was doing all right, but then COVID came along and one of the things the city did, the state, was take away licenses or suspend business licenses that weren't essential. My business wasn't essential, I understand that. But when they suspended my license, I lost my ability to buy from wholesale. And if I can't buy wholesale, I can't resale. And so that just crushed me.
DN: Can I ask what your business was?
DD: I ran an online business called Annie's Thrift and Vintage. I originally started with vintage items and stuff like that, but then I started moving into gourmet foods and stuff, but I had to buy a certain volume. But in order to do that, I had to have a business license. As soon as they took that away or suspended it, my whole thing. And you can't just go back because, particularly online, because what happens is when you're selling a product to someone for the first time and you do a good job, they'll keep buying from you. But once that product is no longer available by you, they switch to somebody else and they'll start buying from that person. If you come back, they're not going to switch back. They don't know if you're going to disappear again. So they just stay with it. So you lose. You have several thousand customers throughout the country and all of a sudden, guess what, they're going to somebody else and trying to rebuild all that is hard.
Now, I don't think that was the intention of the legislature, but they do stuff like that all the time because they're not seeing what's going on. Being a paratransit driver, security guard, working in healthcare industry, I see the immediate impact of these things. Even something small like a 5% increase in groceries can be devastating to a lot of people and I don't think they necessarily experience that. So I think it's important. The first thing we have to do is look through these bills and say, wait a minute, how's this going to impact people? I really think you have to look at legislation and think about what you want the end result to be.
DN: So let's talk about taxation. If you go to Olympia, you're going to talk about Washington's tax system. Is it weighted toward rich people or weighted toward poor people? So what do you think about, especially the millionaire's tax that got passed this year for people who make a million dollars or more a year?
DD: Well, I think it's really hard to have a tax system that was made in 1933 and apply it to today's economy. I can't think of too many things except for maybe your toilet that might be the same as 1933.
So you have to rethink the tax code. But you can't force it on people. You have to involve the public, have them vote on stuff. Hey, would you rather have this? Would you rather have that? That way they don't feel like they're being left behind. And I think that was the biggest problem with the millionaire tax.
I'm not opposed to millionaires paying the same percentage of taxes as the rest of us. They should. But the thing is, you have to do it in a way where people can understand and they see it as being fair. People want to see fairness in taxation. I think that's extremely important.