Hillary Pham was born in Washington to Vietnamese refugees. She joined the Air Force and was stationed at Fairchild. She became an officer, a health care administrator during the COVID pandemic, later doing financial management at the base. She left the service three years ago and went to work in the Spokane County treasurer’s office, then became a legislative assistant for Spokane Valley state Representative Rob Chase. She resigned in March to run for the legislature.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Hillary Pham: I tell people, if you follow politics for long and if you're in it, you know that these opportunities of turnover doesn't happen often and so when the opportunity arose, when his (Chase's) seatmate decided not to run for re-election and that I've already gained good experience and built relationships in the legislature, it made sense to go for this. It's been done many times before, so it's something that is a natural progression if that assistant desires to run for office one day and know how things work behind the scenes. I was very thankful that Rep. Chase was supportive and we made sure that he had a very seasoned assistant to help the transition and manage his office today.
So we're doing good. I'm boots on the ground here, help where I can, but his assistant is based out over in the Olympia area.
DN: What kind of influence do you want to have as a legislator?
HP: I would say lead by example is a huge attribute of being a military officer background. You're always with the people doing the hard things and the work ethic is very important too. Integrity first, service before self, and excellence and all we do are the Air Force core values and so I live by that. I think that I'm inspiring the next generation by my candidacy and the work that I've put in so that hopefully we see more young people running for office. We see people stepping up and taking some ownership in making their communities better.
I think I'm a very positive person and the right person for this position and I'm going to be effective and efficient. I'm going to hit the ground running if elected. I know how things work and I definitely want to make sure that Washingtonians stay in Washington, that we keep our state more affordable, and that I can share these stories, especially being in the 4th district, a border district, how impactful this gas tax is on everyday lives. People are traveling out of their way, 20-30 minutes. They think it's worth it every week to go fuel up in Idaho, and we can't let our business go over there.
I just met with Spokane realtors as well and 80% of the builds in this region is now happening in Post Falls, Idaho. There was about 50 or so permits in the city of Spokane, but over 500 building permits in North Idaho.
DN: As a legislator, what are the sorts of things that you would do to try to reverse that and change that?
HP: Of course, government spending is just way out of hand. We really need to do a deep dive and hard look at what we're spending money on and is it necessary? Because the constitution, the state constitution, outlines very clearly what the scope of responsibility it is and I feel like it's self-imposed what other programs that the government has taken on that is not really a government necessity.
A lot of the social services are handled greatly by the non-profits, by generous donors. Those that are not taxed so heavily end up giving a lot more and there's research on that. We have a very strong faith-based community out here. I think the churches are doing a good job, too, of taking care of their neighbors and communities, too.
Sometimes it's divestment of what government programs that are existing and really honing into what government is good at, and that's limited scope versus just expansion.
Also, I think I'm seeing in the news that the majority party is starting to notice how the projected tax revenue is not as high as they predicted and that it's really hurting constituents who can't afford basic necessities in our state. I think there finally is going to be a swing in the pendulum there where hopefully these stories that are happening in eastern Washington prove more effective and gonna move the needle more for cutting those taxes or doing something about the spending. I'm really hoping that with the correct communication that we can turn things around.
DN: What did you think about the millionaire's tax that was approved this year?
HP: I would say that it is a gateway to expansion of taxing all and we've seen that, through failed legislation, not gonna name specific names, but there was a campaign that would have hurt a lot of healthcare professionals in our region. We are known to one of the top employers to be in healthcare, and those that were earning over $125,000 per year would have had to be taxed and that would drive away our workforce that is already very low and hard to recruit and retain providers and healthcare professionals in our area.
So I think it's detriment to the industry, to workers, to people that need these services. I don't know what it is or how we can quite reverse something so significant like this except by the initiative process that the people are signing on, which I've heard is successful this year, and we may see it in the ballot with the no state income tax. (Editor's note: This interview was conducted before the Secretary of State certified I-645 for the ballot.)
It is also unconstitutional, but we have very savvy people with legal background to make it more difficult to reverse laws like the millionaire's tax. So it concerns me because we've broken history with the amount of objection from the folks. We had in the House over 100,000 people sign in to oppose this tax, yet it still went through, and there was nearly 25 hours of debate and just amendment after amendment to drag this out.
So I don't know the exact answer, but I know that people are keeping up the good fight in the minority party as Republicans and I think at some point, I just hope the solution is not to leave the state, but to stay and fight it and to make sure that we just don't keep going in this direction. We're on the wrong track right now.
DN: Are there other things that you would you would target as a legislator?
HP: I would say education is a huge foundation to my campaign "Pursue the American Dream."
If we look at the Washington Policy Center education report card, we're seeing, instead of being in the top 10 as test scores, we're ranking in the bottom, you know, last 10. Where we see traditionally in the southern states like Mississippi, their test scores have risen very high and have beaten Washington. That's not the direction we need for the future generations.
And when I say education, it's not just K through 12 as well. That's the foundation, of course, and very important that parents have the choice to be able to raise their kids the way they want to, whether it's homeschool, charter school, private school, there's a lot of different options, even, you know, career-based education. But also the training, workforce development, being ready for the workforce is very important.
We graduate a lot of computer science and engineering students from our universities, but they don't have real life experience to be competitive to be hired by big tech companies like Google and Amazon. They end up hiring a lot overseas, especially in India, on those visas to work because they are more skilled. So is there value in this four-year degree? Are they really being prepared for the workforce or is it just another checkbox item? We really need to look into what we're teaching in the schools and is it preparing the next generation for jobs that are needed to be filled.
