The candidates vying for the 18th Legislative District House Position 2 seat diverge on how to address some of the biggest issues facing Clark County, including education, homelessness and the effort to replace the Interstate 5 Bridge.
Democrat John Zingale, 43, is a Vancouver Public Schools teacher. Republican John Ley, 66, is a retired airline pilot. Both candidates ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the 18th District in 2022. The 18th District stretches from Hazel Dell to Battle Ground.
Zingale lost a 2022 bid for the House Position 1 seat to Rep. Stephanie McClintock, R-Vancouver.
This is Ley’s fourth run for a seat in the 18th District. He is facing felony voter fraud charges related to his 2022 run for the House Position 2 seat. The case stems from a voter registration challenge alleging Ley did not live in the 18th District. The issue went to court, and Superior Court Judge David Gregerson ruled Ley was an ineligible candidate. His trial was scheduled for this month but now has been moved to Feb. 24.
Ley owns a home in Camas, formerly part of the 18th District, but maintains that it is being rented out and that he lives permanently at a Hazel Dell apartment. An additional voter registration challenge was filed against Ley this month. It was dismissed by Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey.
Reason for running
Both candidates cite a single issue that galvanized their campaigns.
The 2018 Parkland high school shooting sparked Zingale’s political ambitions. Now, he is running to provide a voice for his students who are concerned about future school shootings.
“I got tired of saying, ‘Well, the adults aren’t doing the work for you,’ ” he told The Columbian’s Editorial Board. “If I’m going to talk about being civically active within my classroom, I think it’s time for me to be civically active and represent them and their families.”
Zingale wants to ensure that Washington schools provide mental health services and counseling. He supports enacting a simple majority for passing bonds and levies.
“Vancouver Public Schools specifically got a federal grant last year to put a mental health specialist in every single secondary school, and I saw a remarkable change in my students,” he said. “I would love to see that program expanded statewide, because the students in Vancouver shouldn’t be the only ones benefiting from something like that.”
He added that he would support gun-control legislation in the interest of making schools safer, and that he does not believe arming teachers would solve the problem.
Ley got involved in Clark County politics through his opposition to the Columbia River Crossing project in 2010. Now, he is running to halt the current iteration of that project, known as the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program, which he calls his “signature issue.”
He opposes the inclusion of tolling and light rail and argues that the proposed replacements will not reduce traffic congestion. He writes about the project for a conservative website, ClarkCountyToday.com.
“We are way behind in planning for a third and a fourth bridge corridor,” he told The Columbian’s Editorial Board. “It’s shameful that we haven’t started and begun the planning. It’s like, we can do more than one thing at a time.”
In 2022, Ley chose to run in the 18th District because it would give him a say on the I-5 Bridge replacement. He specifically wants a seat on the bistate legislative committee, a group of legislators from Washington and Oregon involved with the program.
Regarding Zingale’s key issue — school shootings — Ley argues that police officers should be present at public schools, and that Olympia should help cover the cost of providing them.
“They engender a sense of trust and respect from the children and the young adults there, as opposed to making them think that all police officers or law enforcement are bad,” he said.
As for Ley’s key issue, Zingale supports the current effort to replace the I-5 Bridge. He pointed to the March collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
“If we end this project now, the next time we’re going to be dealing with this is when we’re like Baltimore and pulling that thing and maybe even some bodies out of the Columbia River,” he said. “If we kill it again, it’s just going to get even more expensive in the long run.”
Homelessness
Ley argued that unaffordable property taxes contribute to a lack of affordable housing and that homelessness is overwhelmingly an addiction problem.
“The core of it is people — when they are addicted to drugs or alcohol — can’t make logical, rational decisions,” he said.
He opposes the housing-first model and argues that people experiencing homelessness need to be offered treatment first. He added that Olympia has thrown money at the problem without addressing its core issues. He wants local governments to be more involved in providing solutions.
“We need to modify our Growth Management Act and allow the expansion of urban growth boundaries so that you can add new land that is also cheaper, that adds to the supply of land, and let the private sector go out,” he said.
Zingale refuted the idea that homelessness is largely an addiction issue.
“What’s happening right now is people are being priced out of their homes,” he said. “Addiction can happen as a by-product, because people are trying to make sense of what’s happening to them, but to flat out blame that is wrong.”
He argued that the rent stabilization bill that failed during the last legislative session needs to be reassessed. He also supports Vancouver’s Safe Stay Communities and wants to see a similar model expanded statewide. He added that the state should work to keep people from becoming homeless in the first place, and that the state should focus on building more housing.
“We need to start building,” he said. “And if it takes the direction of the state to lead us that way, I think it might need to happen.”
Other issues
Ley supports the four Republican-backed statewide ballot initiatives, which would repeal the state’s cap-and-invest carbon emissions program, long-term care insurance, capital gains tax and regulations to discourage natural gas use. Zingale opposes those initiatives.
Regarding Ley’s election fraud charges, Zingale said: “We will let that play out. But I can say emphatically that I live in the 18th, I work in the 18th, I’m raising my family in the 18th, and that’s why I want to represent the 18th.”
Ley argued that the charges are politically motivated.
“This is a form of ‘lawfare,’ not unlike President Trump has experienced,” he said. “In the end, I believe I will prevail in a court of law.”
Election Day is Nov. 5.
