Michaela Kelso is making another run for the Washington state House in the 6th District. She lost to Republican Jenny Graham in 2022 and 2024. Graham is retiring from the legislature and Kelso is back again, but not running for Graham's seat.
Kelso is a native of Germany. She met an American serviceman stationed in Germany and moved with him to the United States, where she enlisted in the U.S. and began her own military career. Now they have retired in Spokane, where SPR's Doug Nadvornick interviewed her.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
DN: What was the process for you to decide to run this year?
Michaela Kelso: So the decision in my head to run this year was made two years ago because the the district has not in reality been properly represented in my mind. I have looked at what Jenny Graham and Mike Volz have been doing in the legislature over the last eight years that they've been in office and the record is dismal. So that's why I ran the first time and that's why I ran the second time, because I felt that I wasn't being represented and truth is the Republicans in the district weren't being represented. If you're in office for eight years and you manage to pass less than six, I'm sorry, less than 10 bills in eight years in office, are you really representing us?
And so the last two times I ran, I didn't have any other opponents besides Jenny Graham and I know the district is extremely Republican. So I mostly did it to give people options, so that they can see you have other choices than holding your nose and voting for the one person or not voting, the races where no Democrat ran. The undervote was significant in other districts. So I know that I gave people an option and this year, I got to be honest, once I heard Mike Volz wasn't running, I was like, okay, I'll run for that seat, because you know Jenny obviously didn't want to go anywhere. But then Jenny said she's not going, I still stuck with the position one seat because I can do math.
DN: So this is the chance to talk about what are the issues that are most important to you. You're telling me that the Republicans aren't doing the job. So where would you put your focus?
MK: Well I think, first and foremost, what our people are needing is affordability. I see so many Facebook posts and articles about how we pay too much in taxes and we're not getting enough in return, how prices have gone up.
In ’23 I think it was, I helped write a resolution in support of rent control bills because the housing prices here had gone up and the research that I did at that point showed that during the pandemic, 18 months from March of 2020 until later in ’21, housing prices here in Spokane had gone up 35 [percent]. Down south in Walla Walla, they had gone up even further than that and that wasn't because people were making more money. It's because we had such a great influx of people who realized that our cost of living was lower than where they came from and they could now work remote. So the locals were basically priced out of the local housing market because people could come from California or the west side or wherever they came from and simply outbid people very easily like that and it has stayed that way.
Housing is the largest single expense that most people have and it has gone to the point where it is no longer a third for many people, it's half of their income. My own kids, one of them had to move back home because during the pandemic, they had such a hard time finding a job or keeping a job and they held out as long as possible. But when the option was visit them for their birthday at their car or let them move back in, I let them move back in, of course I did.
DN: So what can the legislature do to alleviate that? I mean the legislature has been run by Democrats for years here in Washington.
MK: The rent control bill was a good first start, but we simply do not have the inventory that we need. I drive through my district on a near daily basis and I see a lot of apartment complexes go up and I like that. But I look at them and I'm like, who in the world can afford to live there? I know my kids could not. Somebody can afford and so that's good. These people that can afford to live there, they will have a place to live, but we do not have enough affordable housing.
I believe the last point-in-time count for our homeless population was 1,100, which is actually almost 100 less than last year and our numbers have been going down, but we need to find a way to provide affordable housing at every level and we don't have that yet. The last one of my kids is living with roommates now. The last place they afforded on their own was in a very bad area of town and it was half their income and it was not a good place to live. It was over a thousand dollars for a one-bedroom apartment and it was not a good place to live, not a safe place to live, and definitely not worth a thousand dollars plus utilities and everything else. If that is the best we can do on a thousand dollars…you got to make at least three thousand dollars a month if you're only supposed to spend a third of your income and you're barely making that if you're making minimum wage.
DN: So who pays to make affordable housing affordable? Does the state subsidize builders to be able to create it?
MK: So we need to look at a number of things. For one thing, if we build a block of affordable housing, you put people in there that have low income and that kind of works for a method of segregation. So that is not necessarily the best way I see forward, that the state helps builders build affordable housing blocks.
I think a much better way, that helps integrate all income levels and does not relegate the poorest of the poor to the worst neighborhoods and the worst housing, is if we ensure that wherever homes are built, apartment buildings or whatever you want to build, that they include a certain percentage of affordable housing options. I'm not saying they have to rent them out below cost but they need to keep in mind having options for people of lower income. That is, I think, a fairer way of making it and it would probably be also less expensive to subsidize by the state. Subsidization may be necessary.
I'm also looking at other fees that builders have to pay. I do believe builders should be responsible for, if they're developing a large area like the Meadworks project that is up by the Costco that's in my district, that's 200-300 acres and they're going to put 1,400-1,500 housing units on there. Should everyone in that zip code be responsible for paying for their water hookup and their electricity and their sewer systems? No. That is something that the builder needs to consider when they're the developer.
But there are other things that can be done and I'm not the expert in that. I always say I'm not afraid to ask the people who are the experts, so those are just some ideas I'm throwing around in my head. I do not know if they'll work.
DN: So besides housing what are the other issues top two or three on your list?
MK: Well, unfortunately these days for some people, the next highest or the highest expense these days is medical, health insurance rates now that the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act have gone by the wayside. People are staring into their empty wallets. It's like eat or insurance, eat or insurance. That's not a choice anybody should have to make.
Additionally, we have our rural hospitals. The 6th has a large rural area. Two-thirds of the voters in the 6th live in rural areas. Only one-third lives in Spokane town and so iwe need to make sure that our rural residents can access doctors where they live. They don't have to drive into town. We need to make sure that they can afford to buy the medications that they are being prescribed and so that is the other thing, that we support our medical facilities, that we make medical care more affordable, and on top of that, truly accessible. Just because you have health insurance doesn't mean you actually can afford to go to the doctor.
Then the next thing is education. We need our kids to be well educated because they need to take over this country. I mean, I’m 56. They need to take over this country. I’m not wanting to do this until i'm 70 or 80. I’m actually happily retired from the military and would love nothing better than to just remain happily retired. But the kids need to get a good education.
We need to make sure our schools are well equipped and not falling apart. I was so disappointed to see all those school bonds failing except for the one for Spokane schools and that passed because they put it together with the Spokane parks bond. Our schools shouldn't have to go begging every few years for more money. It’s not a sustainable way and i see again Facebook posts in groups, people are like i'm not paying for that, they just need to you tighten the belts and i'm like, we get more and more kids going to school. Yes, property values are going up, but our property taxes are not really going up that much.
DN: Tell me about an elected official you admire and why.
MK: My ultimate hero is Elizabeth Warren. I should say I became aware of Elizabeth Warren when I was stationed at Fort Hood. I was issued an additional duty. It’s not really issue. They say you're gonna go do this job on top of what you're doing and there was command financial specialist and you're responsible for educating soldiers on basically financial knowledge. You're not telling them what to invest your money in, but you help them budget their income. You help them figure out what is important to fund and what is not and I just had so many soldiers, they had no idea that the five dollars here and the five dollars there and the three dollars for that big gulp drink, how much that was costing them. Part of that training I learned about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren's brainchild, and I was like, oh my god, that is so good. That is such a great agency to have and then I learned that it was her brainchild and that she has been an advocate for financial literacy and for protecting consumers from predatory lenders and predatory banks and businesses for so many years and so that is one of the reasons why she is a really great person to follow.
