KENNEWICK — Washington’s Democratic Latino legislators and candidates condemned the state Republican Party on Monday for sending “vile and offensive” text messages to Spanish-speaking voters in the Yakima Valley and Tri-Cities.
The text messages, sent in Spanish on Friday, made false claims that three Democratic Latina candidates in the 14th District want to “eliminate the Spanish language” and “support the chemical castration of your children in school without your knowledge or support.”
Maria Beltran, who was targeted by the messages in her campaign against incumbent Republican state Sen. Curtis King, called them “some of the most vile and offensive lies we’ve seen in Washington state politics.”
She was joined at a morning news virtual news conference by Sen. Rebecca Saldaña of Seattle, Rep. Julio Cortez of Wapato and Rep. Sharlett Mena, who grew up in Tri-Cities but now represents Tacoma.
Beltran said the messages attacked her Catholic faith and Mexican heritage.
“They accuse me of awful, flatly untrue things,” she said. “I’ll read just one part of this horrific text: ‘Maria Beltran, Ana Kennedy and Chelsea Dimas … hate you, they hate your family, they hate God, and they hate the truth. Don’t let them represent you!’”
“What the Washington Republican Party is doing is an attack on our fundamental right to vote and have fair representation,” said Cortez.
“These lies and hateful attacks have no place in our democracy, and I, too, call on the members of the Republican Party across the entire state to do what’s right and disavow these attacks.”
Also on Monday, Washington State Democrats filed a Public Disclosure Commission complaint against the Washington State Republicans, claiming libel and defamation.
The Republican candidates from the 14th District issued a joint statement Monday about the messages.
“We disavow the text. Our campaigns had nothing to do with it. None of us had any prior knowledge it was being sent. It does not represent our views,” said the statement from King, former Grandview Mayor Gloria Mendoza and Deb Manjarrez.
However, Jim Walsh, Washington State Republican Party chairman, justified the text messages, telling the Washington Observer newsletter that he based the comments on the Democratic candidates’ responses to a Planned Parenthood survey about reproductive rights and transgender care using drugs known as puberty blockers.
A story by the Spokesman-Review explained that one of those drugs is a synthetic hormone also used to treat prostate, breast cancer and, in some states, to chemically castrate sex offenders.
Republicans hold three seats in the 14th Legislative District, but Democrats are eager to flip them after a federal judge redrew Washington’s map of legislative districts to give Yakima Valley Latinos a fairer shot at electing candidates of their choice.
The only incumbent running in the new majority Latino district is King, the four-term Yakima resident who was drawn out of his district but opted to move 1.5 miles away from his previous home so he could run again for the Senate seat.
He’s being challenged by Beltran, the Yakima Valley native who’s worked most recently as a deputy director with the House Democratic Campaign Committee.
In the race for Washington House, Dimas faces Mendoza and Ruiz Kennedy of Pasco faces accountant and orchardist Manjarrez.
