The race to replace Rep. Mike Volz in Washington's Sixth Legislative District is a crowded one. Six candidates have joined the race for the August 4 primary election. Only two will advance to the November election.
One is Isaiah Paine, the public affairs and strategy officer for the Spokane Home Builders Association. He talked about why he wants to be an elected official in Olympia with SPR's Doug Nadvornick.
This interview lightly edited for length and clarity.
Isaiah Paine: I’ve got four kids. I want a Washington they can afford to and want to live in in the future and I think like a lot of people doesn't feel like it's going that way. Right.
Recent survey, 70% of people in Spokane are thinking about leaving the state, right? It's not a good thing. We all have friends who have moved to other states and I don't want it to be like that.
I think Washington's a great place and I'd love to call people who have moved or other friends that I have and say, hey, you know where you need to be? You need to move to Spokane. It's amazing here and I do feel that way. There's a lot of great things about Spokane. We have great community and opportunity here, but it's not what it could be nand that's what I'd ove to work on and build a better Washington.
You know, I had an opportunity a few years ago with the company I was working for to relocate and we really thought about it. We looked at it, but we felt like Spokane's home. We feel like we're supposed to be here and so, in that choice of, well, do we leave and is the grass greener somewhere else or do we stay and try to fight and make it a better situation for everyone? So we decided to stay.
I didn't really know what fight would look like at the time. But you know, about a year ago when when state Representative Mike Volz was running for treasurer and knew then that he wouldn't be able to continue in both roles after this year, started having a lot of conversations with different people and got encouraged to think about running for office and so thought about it, prayed about it and here we are. So we're entering the fray and trying to make a better community, a better Washington for our future.
DN: So as you go to Olympia, what type of influence do you hope it have?
IP: I hope that I just give good ideas and everybody would listen and agree. It's not necessarily how it works. I've been working on housing policy for a while now and there are some places where there can be agreement.
There's certainly a majority of Democrats in the legislature running, as a Republican, and so, being able to bring really pragmatic, good government, reasonable positions forward, like for example, working on permit timelines for housing.
We are in a housing crisis. We need more houses now and we have places where there's delays. The legislature looked at that and said, yeah, Hey, we should make sure that government's working efficiently, that things are being done timely and if they're not, we're going to put some teeth into it. So I think there are ways where we can work pragmatically to make government work more effectively and efficiently for people. What drives that for me is home ownership. It's a value that I hold.
Home ownership is the gateway to the middle class. All sorts of socioeconomic indicators go up with home ownership and so it’s really a passion point for me, Right now only 18% of people in Spokane can afford to purchase a home. That's not good. I think the average person ought to be able to purchase a home if they choose and so making sure we have that opportunity for our community is really important to me.
DN: So even if you talk about faster timelines for permitting a lot of other things, does that still drive the cost of a house down enough that more and more young people like you are going to be able to go out and buy houses for your families?
IP: We know that just over a hundred families are priced out every thousand dollars in cost. So reducing it little by little does help people, but certainly there's more that we could do more that I'd like to go work on and get agreement on,
Right now only 3.74% of the state's landmass is considered buildable, where we allow people to build a lot of that's already built out. I'm not arguing that it should be 80% or even 50% or 30%, but it's a very low percentage. So the way we view opportunity for people, and I think we feel that acutely here in Spokane, I think it's a message that I want to go carry because we just have to look across the border and we saw exponential growth.
In the year 2021, the city of Post Falls permitted more units than the city of Spokane and the county of Spokane combined. Why is that? A big part of that was land availability. We saw this kind of relief valve and pressure relief of the housing demand that we had and that went over across the border. But now those prices have pretty much equalized.
It is certainly more expensive to build in Washington state. We have some pretty restrictive codes, especially our energy codes, where we estimate it's $80,000 to $100,000 more expensive to build in Washington state than Idaho. That doesn't help people. Right now about a third of the cost of a home is fees and regulation. I don't think it should be zero, right. Safety is good. We should have some measures. But when on average you're looking at $140,000 plus just to get the paperwork through and not going towards the square footage or the land or anything like that, we're certainly out of balance and I think that's true across the border.
We talked some about housing, but we're certainly out of balance in our state and I think we're starting to see that even some folks who I wouldn't typically agree with on some issues. For example, we saw former Governor Gregoire say the state doesn't have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem.
Looking at the income tax, and I don't want to put words in her mouth, but, from my perspective, the legislature is tone deaf on this issue. They're passing things that are driving jobs and investment out of our state. That's not good. That's not what we want and when it comes to affordability, when it comes to getting back to housing, people need to have good jobs in order to be able to afford to purchase a home and afford to be able to support their families and so when we're driving that investment out and we're also driving some of that tax revenue out, when we're pushing all of our housing across the border, that's property tax, that's sales tax, that's certainly gas tax. I don't think anyone who lives in Idaho is buying gas in Washington state, but they are occupying Spokane jobs. They're a part of our community and so I think we need some recognition of that and some conversation, better conversation in Olympia of how some of these policies that, while for the representatives over there, it may make sense for their communities, it disproportionately negatively affects Spokane. And so we need to work more diligently to make sure that we're not disadvantaging one part of the state because of the way another part of the state thinks.
DN: I think it should be noted that the average price of a home in Idaho is still more than it is in Washington. So does that neuter your argument a little bit that, it may cost less to build over there, for the builder, it still costs the consumer more to buy a house over there?
IP: Yeah, well, at its base, it's supply and demand, right? What happened is we so significantly reduced our supply of land. We have an artificial limit on the supply of land in Washington state, and particularly when you're looking at Spokane versus Kootenai County. What happened was all of that demand then went across the border. And so, yeah, the prices did equalize, but you're getting more house, right? You're getting more that's spent on the construction of your house in Idaho for the same price. So, yeah, I think it's a little bit of a myth to say well, the median prices are the same, but you're getting more house, right? You're spending less on fees and regulatory compliance and again, this is a Spokane problem. The housing issue is a Spokane problem that we've then exported the solution to Idaho. We shouldn't be doing that. We shouldn't export our problems elsewhere, shouldn't be exporting our jobs elsewhere either by continuing to make things less affordable and you know, taking away economic opportunity from people.
DN: So let's go to the tax system. You've talked about the taxes and there are a lot of people calling for a re-evaluation of Washington's tax system. What do you think about that? There's people who have different ideas as to what the tax system should look like, but they all say we should re-evaluate. What do you think about that?
IP: Yeah, I think it's an interesting conversation, but that's not the conversation happening. We're not talking about re-evaluating because if we did, then it would be a revenue neutral move, right? We would swap this tax for that tax. That is not the conversation happening in Olympia. The conversation in Olympia has been, how can we get more and more and more for the government to spend. So I would say that that's not really a fair characterization of the argument. If that is the position, then it's not being made in good faith. So I think there could be room to have conversations.
For example, our tax structure on businesses is extremely high. We had two of the largest tax increases in state history, first with the income tax. That does apply to everyone. You just currently get an exemption. But we know from even Democrat legislators who have said, well, we've lowered it before, so you maybe shouldn't trust that. And then the year before, we had an abundance of additional taxes on business services. We had the largest tax increase on B&O, on the billing and occupation tax for businesses in Washington State. So this isn't about how do we restructure and rebalance. It has been, how can the government get more and more and more? And fundamentally, I just don't think that's the approach. More money spent on a problem doesn't always equate, and our state hasn't equated to actually solving the problems.
So what we need is real accountability. What we need is to have legislation that passes where we say, here's the goal, here's the measurement, and oh, by the way, we're going to hold ourselves accountable to it, right? We're going to put a sunset clause on it that says we're going to go and reevaluate this and make sure that it's doing what we've claimed it's going to do. That's not happening.
I think we have to look no further than the Climate Commitment Act. We've spent a whole lot of money. We're taking a whole lot more tax out of the gas tax. And when we ask, what has this done? What has it accomplished? Well, we don't really know. What do you mean we don't know? Well, we know how much money we've given out to different entities. Okay, but what has that gotten us? There's no one even looking at it, right? So I think that's a big miss. That's something that we owe to people is to make sure that our government is doing the things that we've said we're going to do and that's not been the case enough. And in part, that's because we're, again, way out of balance.
We've had one party in significant control for a number of years and I think when that happens, you kind of have this drift where we aren't holding ourselves accountable.
DN: So tell me about an elected official you admire and why?
IP: Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I worked for in the past, Representative Kevin Parker, who was in the 6th District, and so certainly seeing him in action and his passion for the community. He worked a lot on human trafficking issues and other issues that are benefiting the community. He's a business owner in the community as well and so really had a strong understanding of what it takes to start and run a successful business and I really admire that about him. So yeah, he's a he's a great leader. You know, I'm not him, unfortunately, but you know, he's a significant influence for me.
DN: So let's talk about leadership. If you end up in Olympia, you will have, you will have bills you want to work on and things you want to work on. How do you get people to go your way?
IP: It is about relationships, building relationships with people across the spectrum. I’ve done some of that.
Talk some about housing policy. I also work significantly on the natural gas issue. In fact, there was a statewide initiative that everyone's probably aware of, or most people, that's still in the court system right now. I actually worked on with folks from both sides. I worked on something here locally in the city of Spokane, even as a precursor to that.
I think when we have good ideas, and we are able to ask the question, does it benefit our community? And what ways does it impact it? And are there unforeseen negative consequences of that that we need to be aware of? When you when you can see that clearly and present that argument, and be reasonable and pragmatic in it and really focus on the function of government, there are people who will have ideological views on it, but for the most part, you can get you can get agreement on these kinds of issues, and we're really willing to have those conversations. I've proven over my experience that I'm able to do that.
And hopefully I bring some passion and energy to be able to be a catalyst and make change.
