U.S. Congressman Michael Baumgartner was in Washington’s 5th congressional district this week. A Republican, Baumgartner was elected to the House of Representatives in 2024.
SPR's Audrey Nelson sat down with Baumgartner to ask him about his first term and dig into some of the most pressing issues in our region.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
AUDREY NELSON: So we're coming up on the two year mark for your time in Congress. What do you see as your biggest accomplishments over that period so far?
MICHAEL BAUMGARTNER: Well, the thing that I'm most pleased that happened is the reduction in fentanyl deaths, both here in Spokane and across the country. I think that's been the greatest thing to happen to our community since I've been in office.
AN: People across the region right now are worried about affordability. What do you think has to be done to address these concerns and to bring gas and grocery prices down in Eastern Washington?
MB: Well, I used to teach economics when I was at Harvard. I was a teaching fellow, but you don't have to be a Harvard economics professor to know that there's supply and demand. And if you want prices to go down, you need to increase supply.
So, you know, whether it is energy resources, where we now have America producing more energy and gas than anywhere else in the world, or housing — and we still need to work on getting more housing on the market. I was very pleased that [Congress] voted to extend permanently the [Low Income Housing Tax Credit].
So all those things will lower the cost of living for folks. But really it is that idea of creating more supply so that prices can come down.
AN: Pivoting here to federal aid, as Spokane recovers from wildfires in August, what are you doing in Congress to try and secure federal aid for recovery?
MB: You know, while we have our political differences, I think we've worked well with Gov. Bob Ferguson and Sen. Maria Cantwell on trying to work together to do what's the best thing for our community.
AN: Obviously the goal would be to prevent something like this from happening again. What role should Congress have in preparing for and preventing future wildfires in the region?
MB: Well, one of the things we really need to do is reduce our fuel loads in our forests. Being able to access our forests will help not only create jobs in natural resources and in mining and logging, but also reduce these fuel loads, which have become dangerously high.
And that's going to become even more important if we continue to see additional heating of the climate and climate change. It really is important to get those fuel loads down.
AN: In June, you introduced a bill that would make sure large-scale data centers don't unload water and infrastructure costs onto taxpayers.
How can business and AI competitiveness goals be balanced with safety and affordability?
MB: Well, I think it's a really important community conversation. And right now communities are confused and uncertain about data centers. And not really just the data centers, but really the whole AI supercomputing capability, and what does it mean for them? So it's important that policymakers meet voters where they are. And I think having pauses on these things to have conversations — I think that's really important.
You know, at the same time, there's a lot of good things that can come out of supercomputing ability. Like the idea to have earlier diagnosis of cancer by bringing in more data and analytics to your healthcare concerns, which obviously people can understand how important that would be — both for health, but also for cost and expense for our economy.
AN: A big focus of these upcoming midterms has been mail-in voting. President Trump has attempted to overhaul the mail-in voting system across the US, including in Washington. And in recent weeks, the Supreme Court has rebuffed several of these efforts. Most recently, the court ruled that Washington doesn't have to turn over its voter rolls to the federal government. What's been your response to these rulings?
MB: Well, I do think that there's been a lack of — a reduction in trust of elections that Congress needs to work on restoring. You know, people — our republic, our representative democracy doesn't work if people don't trust the elections.
Now in our federal system, in our Constitution, you know, one of the strengths of America is that we are a union of states. So in our system, the states tend to make their own election laws.
I wish that Washington state voted in person. I liked that system better when I was a kid. You know, the folks who won Olympia have decided to go to vote by mail. So we want to have a safe vote by mail system and one that folks can trust.
So I think one of the most important things we could do to restore trust right now is just to give everybody confidence that only American citizens are voting in our elections.
AN: You've raised concerns in the past about the national debt and deficit spending. Is there a realistic path forward on managing the debt?
MB: Well, there's going to have to be, because trends that can't continue won't. You know, we did do some real important reforms this year that will help cost savings. We made sure that people on food stamps who are able to work have to — have a requirement to work or volunteer.
A lot of money gets sloshed around by the federal government, and particularly during the COVID shutdown and after the COVID shutdown, government loosened a lot of the checks and balances on how we spend that money. And we got to tighten up a lot of those things, because there's a ton of savings to be had there.
AN: I want to be sure to ask you — you recently received President Trump's endorsement. Or re-received, I should say — he's already endorsed you. What's your response to his support?
MB: Yeah, I mean — the president — obviously it's nice to get acknowledged by the president, but that's something that’s really determinant in our election, because it's the folks out here who I work for.
