State Rep. Mary Dye and her election opponent focus on economic issues

Republican state Rep. Mary Dye has strong support in southeastern Washington based on the results of the August primary.

Dye, who has served in the Legislature for nearly a decade, won 66% of the vote against her Democratic opponent, Patrick Miller. Since there were only two candidates, however, both move on to the November election.

The 9th District has long been a Republican stronghold, sprawling across all or parts of Spokane, Lincoln, Adams, Franklin, Garfield, Columbia and Asotin counties. Dye has held the Position 1 seat since she was appointed in 2015. She kept the seat by winning elections, the last time when she was unopposed in 2022.

Miller, who grew up in Spokane Valley and Medical Lake, returned to the area in 2015. He decided to run for state House because no one else had filed to challenge Dye, he said.

“Who am I to complain if I don’t step up and do it myself?” he said.

Miller, a retired computer security expert, said he believes rural communities are being overlooked in Olympia and wants to see better access to day cares, grocery stores and health care in small communities.

“I’m not seeing movement in the Legislature to address those issues,” he said.

He supports offering incentives for those types of businesses to open in small communities. In some cases, commercial buildings in small towns sit vacant because it’s too expensive to make upgrades to bring buildings up to code, Miller said. He supports creating a program to allow owners to phase in needed upgrades over a period of years to avoid steep upfront costs. Such programs would allow for more economic opportunities, he said.

“I think a lot of economic needs are not being met,” he said.

Dye, who helps manage a third-generation wheat farm, said she’s running for re-election because there’s more work to be done.

“I think it’s important to stick with what we start,” she said.

For years Dye has been working to launch the Odessa Groundwater Replacement Project, which is the construction of pipeline to bring water to towns and farms in the Odessa Subarea of the Columbia River Basin. The aquifers in the area are declining and many wells are unusable.

Pipeline construction is underway in the southern project area, and Dye said she’s working to get funding for the northern area. The project is key to maintaining farm productivity in the area, she said. “The ones they’re working on now will be on during the 2025 growing season,” she said. “Water is everything.”

Among the 30 towns affected is Lind, which made fighting a large fire near there last summer difficult, Dye said. Firefighters had to rely on water that was trucked in. “Lind’s municipal wells have been depleted,” she said. “When we had the fire, there wasn’t any water to fight it.”

Dye also worked for years to pass a bill that would allow local fire departments to get reimbursed by the Washington Department of Natural Resources for the cost of airplanes deployed in the early hours of wildfires, before state resources are typically used. The bill was passed and signed by Governor Jay Inslee in 2023. “It took me eight years to get it through,” she said. “They’ll extinguish so many of those fires before they get out of hand.”

Dye said she hopes to continue the work she’s been doing in the Legislature. “I’m in it because I love the work I get to do for my constituents,” she said. “I love that I get to make a difference, whether it’s large or small.”

Miller said that if he’s elected, he will listen to people on both sides of the political aisle and work to make their lives better.

“I’m promising to be an actual representative for the community,” he said.