Conservative with fringe views, Democrat with union background face off in race for state Legislature

It’s hard to imagine a pair of candidates more diametrically opposed than the two men vying for an open representative seat in eastern Spokane County.

Democrat Ted Cummings, a union advocate and longtime Kaiser Aluminum employee, and Republican Rob Chase, a former representative and Spokane County treasurer, are running to represent Washington’s Fourth Legislative District. It stretches from Spokane Valley in the south and Elk to the north, and from the Idaho state line to Newport Highway.

One of the few similarities between the two candidates is that they’ve both appeared on numerous ballots before, albeit never as opponents. Chase and Cummings have run for positions at the local, state and federal level over the years.

Cummings hopes November will bring his first successful campaign, and the first election in decades in which voters in the heavily Republican district will send a Democrat to Olympia.

He believes his opponent’s fringe views will help sway party-line voters to cross the aisle, despite being a vocal critic of the Republican Party and its transformation under former President Donald Trump for years.

“His views, in my opinion, would just be ridiculous or weird if he was a private citizen,” Cummings said. “I think his views as an elected official, though, are harmful and dangerous.”

In many ways, Chase represents much of what Cummings laments about the modern version of the Republican Party.

“We need to have serious people in there, people that will use science, use data and be able to work in an organized fashion with every party to make real improvements for the lives of the people in the Fourth,” Cummings said.

Johnathan Curley

Chase hopes voters will return him to the position he was elected to in 2020, after he lost the seat two years later to the more moderate Republican in the race, Rep. Leonard Christian. He feels he has unfinished business in Olympia, after spending only one 60-day session in the Legislature due to the pandemic and his refusal of the COVID-19 vaccine.

“I wasn’t allowed to leave my room in the John L. O’Brien building, where my office was, but still, you got to stand up for principles,” Chase said. “I think that I was a lot more worried about the vaccine than the virus, and I think time will show that I was right, because you have to represent the people.”

Chase is no stranger to voters in the district, after previously serving in the Legislature and as Spokane County treasurer from 2010 to 2018. Over the past few decades, he’s unsuccessfully run for the state Senate, U.S. House, Spokane County Board of Commissioners and most recently, the Spokane Valley City Council.

Johnathan Curley

Chase’s campaign slogan this time around is “Truth Matters,” which is meant to represent his commitment to honesty, and for standing for what he believes in. It also harkens to his frustration over perceived censorship of conservative views in recent years.

“I’ve got ‘Truth matters’ on my sign, so that way, if I’m wrong, prove me wrong,” Chase said. “If I’m wrong, then I’m honestly wrong.”

Cummings finds that sentiment hard to believe, given Chase’s penchant for theories and beliefs disproven in court proceedings, federal, state and local investigations, and in research conducted by scientists around the world.

“I’m all about wanting to serve the people to make this community better, but we have to do it by using facts, science, data,” Cummings said. “Mr. Chase’s slogan is ‘Truth matters,’ and he’s absolutely right. But his concept of truth is really just perception, and his perception is wrong.”

In an interview with The Spokesman-Review, Chase said he believes climate change is a hoax, that the 2020 election was stolen and even local elections cannot be trusted. He also believes the FBI was responsible for the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and framed Trump supporters.

Chase also once likened the COVID-19 vaccine to Nazi medical experimentation in a social media post, alleging it was created by “Eugenecists (sic) who want a smaller Global population.” He doubled down on the statement, saying “It’s true,” when asked if he regretted using that rhetoric.

“If you read Robert Kennedy’s book, that’s exactly what he said, too, and he had researched everything,” Chase said, before sharing an anecdote about how he used Ivermectin to treat his own bout with COVID.

“I felt better almost immediately,” Chase said. “And everybody I gave it to felt better, too, especially the Vietnamese community. I introduced it to them, and they all were taking it.”

Ivermectin is a drug used to treat parasites in humans and animals. During the pandemic many people used the animal version of the drug to treat COVID. The Federal Drug Administration says using the animal version is dangerous and that studies have found ivermectin ineffective at fighting COVID.

Chase’s post was removed from Facebook after it was determined to contain misinformation disproved by a federal judge, health experts and medical ethicists. He said that removal was an example of the censorship conservatives are facing.

In an interview, Chase leaned against pursuing legislation to restrict a private social media company’s ability to set policies for what is allowed on their platform.

“I think there’d be harm, I guess,” Chase said. “But then suddenly forming a police force to do that is actually worse. So I think if you don’t like Facebook and what’s on it, just don’t go to it.”

On the issues

The two candidates differ greatly on their stated priorities and thoughts on legislation expected to come before the Legislature next year.

If elected, Chase said he would advance bills that would require regional strategic stockpiling in the event of a disaster, economic crash or attack, invest more in mental health treatment and remove red tape associated with development. He’s also a longtime advocate of splitting Eastern Washington into its own state, and would consider bringing the proposal forward if elected.

Cummings said his top priority would be to address the housing crisis in the state. He’s supportive of a statewide rent control measure that would put limits on how much a landlord can increase rents in a given year, and would like to collaborate with state and federal leaders to bolster the state’s housing stock, particularly for affordable housing.

He said the Legislature should be considering a wide array of solutions and working in a bipartisan manner to address the housing crisis.

“Everything should be on the table,” Cummings said. “Converting empty office buildings downtown, looking at the Growth Management Act, anything and everything, but it’s going to require us to put our political differences aside.”

Cummings and Chase both said they would be supportive of a more regionalized approach to homelessness in Spokane County in which elected leaders and stakeholders like service providers, first responders and business owners work together on solutions.

“We can address this by increasing supply, by working together, working collaboratively on a state, federal and local level, and we need to,” Cummings said. “That’s why I’m so passionate about winning this race, because I believe I’m best suited to gather or work with everyone that’s established, or come up with new ideas to increase the supply of affordable housing.”

Chase believes high housing costs are due to the Federal Reserve adopting zero-interest rate policies following the 2008 recession and the pandemic, which he said helped the economy rebound by making it easier to borrow for large purchases like real estate.

He argues the low rates agreed to during those periods have effectively locked homeowners into their current loans and houses.

“A lot of people, older people, might want to find a smaller home, but there’s low interest rates, they can’t afford to move out, you know?” Chase said.

That’s not the only bone Chase has to pick with the Federal Reserve; he’s long been an advocate for returning to the gold standard, and argues the problem with inflation and rising costs started when the central bank severed the ties between the value of gold and the U.S. dollar in the 1970s.

When asked what could be done at the state level to increase avenues to first-time homeownership and drive down the cost of housing, Chase said “it’s more of a federal problem.” He added that the state needs to “make it a lot simpler to buy a house,” by reducing the required paperwork associated with a home purchase.

“When you buy a house now, you probably have well over 100 documents you’re signing,” Chase said. “And I think when I looked into becoming a real estate agent when I first came here in the mid-’70s, it seemed like you didn’t need a whole lot more than an earnest money agreement.”

Ahead of the primary, Chase touted his record of supporting law enforcement during his stint in the Legislature, noting his votes against efforts to restrict certain practices and improve accountability for them.

He also pointed to votes in favor of bolstering mental health resources statewide, which he considers under the umbrella of public safety. He would advocate to have addiction and mental health specialists compensated on a similar scale to law enforcement. Doing so could help fill empty positions and gaps in services statewide, Chase argues.

“A policeman, he might get beat up once or twice, or maybe a few times in his career,” Chase said. “But these people that work in mental health, I mean, sometimes you get beat up once a month.”

While his focus is on affordable housing, Cummings said it doesn’t obfuscate his public safety goals of addressing crime and substance abuse. He likened it to the old adage of walking and chewing gum at the same time.

He’s supportive of the Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bob Ferguson’s commitment to use state funding to assist local jurisdictions in recruiting and hiring more law enforcement officers across the state and bolster drug task forces to fight fentanyl trafficking. Cummings said he also supports reallocating marijuana tax proceeds back to the communities they’re collected in for use in public safety efforts.

Increasing a sense of safety in the district goes beyond just hiring more officers, Cummings argued. He would like to see investments in mental health and addiction treatment services alongside the effort to bolster forces.

“We need to make sure that everyone has the treatment, and we understand the difference between criminal activity and just substance abuse and the frustration of being hopeless,” Cummings said.

The Spokane County Elections Office will begin shipping out ballots Wednesday. The 2024 General Election will be held on Nov. 5.