The filing deadline Friday settled the state of the high-stakes race for Washington’s 3rd Congressional District.
Democrat Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez running for reelection this fall. Gluesenkamp Perez’s two main challengers in the election are Republicans, Joe Kent and Leslie Lewallen. A fourth candidate, independent John Saulie-Rohman, filed to join the race last week and faces long odds against the established trio of contenders.
The Daily News recently asked the incumbent, Kent and Lewallen about two issues close to Cowlitz County: the future of the Lewis and Clark Bridge and problems facing the region’s major timber companies. The Daily News held phone interviews with Gluesenkamp Perez and Lewallen. Kent responded to questions via email.
Lewis and Clark Bridge
There have been discussions about the need to improve the 95-year-old bridge since focus shifted away from the Industrial Way/Oregon Way intersection project on the Longview side of the bridge. The Lewis and Clark Bridge closed multiple times in 2023 for emergency repairs and a weeklong replacement of its finger joints.
Those replacement discussions gained momentum in March after the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed after being struck by a cargo freighter. Sen. Jeff Wilson, R-Longview, and local experts began asking for a serious effort to make the bridge safer or explore a replacement plan.
“We saw when the (Lewis and Clark) bridge was shut down last year, people had to use helicopters to get to work. The cost to the local economy is profound if that bridge fails,” Gluesenkamp Perez said.
At the end of April, Gluesenkamp Perez joined a group of Congress members requesting to continue and fund the Bridge Investment Program. The program through the Federal Highway Administration offers competitive grants to states to repair existing bridges. In 2022 the program gave planning funds to Vancouver’s Interstate 5 Bridge and Seattle’s 4th Avenue Bridge.
Gluesenkamp Perez said the state needs to strengthen the local construction trades who would work on the bridge during any repairs or replacements. Gluesenkamp Perez pointed out that the people who were killed in Baltimore during the collapse were construction workers.
Lewallen had a front-row seat to some of the discussions about replacing the I-5 Bridge, representing the Camas City Council on the Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council. Lewallen said it was eye-opening to see how different levels of state and federal government could work together, as well as what delayed projects. She singled out the repeated efforts to incorporate public transit onto the I-5 Bridge.
For the Lewis and Clark Bridge, Lewallen said local governments need to start with a study to determine the bridge’s weaknesses and best paths forward. Lewallen said the region also needs a Congressional delegation that would push for projects in Southwest Washington.
“King County gets more of the lion’s share of attention, while down here we have some very critical needs that could use both federal and state tax dollars,” Lewallen said.
Kent said through email that the government should be paying to protect American drivers “before we go further into debt by sending hundreds of millions of dollars overseas.”
“Non-federal interstate highway bridges like the Lewis and Clark Bridge and Bridge of the Gods should be funded mostly by states with some federal funding,” Kent writes.
Timber and forestry
The timber industries have been a major focus for Gluesenkamp Perez during her first term in Congress. The representative said forest access is a major issue for her home in Skamania County and she sits on the forestry subcommittee of the House’s Committee on Agriculture.
One of the major focuses of the bills Gluesenkamp Perez has pushed for has been helping mills and timber companies find new employees. The biggest piece of that effort is the Jobs in the Woods Act, introduced with Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Oregon, to fund and establish workforce training programs for timber industry jobs.
“There are people who grow up liking something and knowing they have a gift for it, and it gets stamped out of them by a society that doesn’t value that work,” Gluesenkamp Perez said. “This creates a continuous line from what you’re doing as a local kid to finding a career in forestry.”
Kent and Lewallen focused more on the forest management side of the issue. Both candidates brought up supporting active forest management processes like controlled burns and regularly clearing underbrush. The Washington Department of Natural Resources limits the prescribed burns to central and eastern Washington, where forests are drier.
Lewallen said that seeing the Nakia Creek fire burn northwest of Camas in 2022 drove home the need for different forestry practices. The Nakia Creek fire was human caused and largely affected forests owned by the state Department of Natural Resources.
“There’s a liberal misconception that a hands-off approach is the best way to preserve and protect our environment. That’s not based on science or what we see at the local level,” Lewallen said.
Kent believes the government should also work to “onshore mill and timber processing” at U.S. companies, including halting exports of raw timber, he writes.
Gluesenkamp Perez also passed a forestry bill in 2023 to help Native American tribes directly enter forestry management plans with the Department of Natural Resources.
