LONGVIEW — Longview’s series of election forums will include debates from all the candidates for four major offices on the November ballot — with one notable exception.
The Civil Dialogue Project and Lower Columbia College will host the debate series on four consecutive Wednesday evenings beginning Sept. 11. The debates will be held at the Wollenberg Auditorium, the same place and with a similar format as the City Council election debates last year.
The debate series starts off with one night for each of the Cowlitz County Commissioner races: first Steve Rader and Mike Reuter for the Commissioner 1 seat on Sept. 11, then Steve Ferrell and Amy Norquist for Commissioner 2 on Sept. 18. Following that will be the 19th District Senate race between incumbent Rep. Jeff Wilson and Andi Day on Sept. 25.
Steve Warning, retired judge and Civil Dialogue Project founder, said it is important to have events where voters can get a more in-depth sense of who they’re voting for. To that end, Warning said one change from the city council debates is that the candidates will not see questions in advance.
“We think it’s important for voters to see the candidates in a more extemporaneous manner, I guess, and to test their knowledge on the issues they’re going to address,” Warning said.
The final debate on Oct. 2 was supposed to be a 3rd Congressional District face-off between Democrat Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and repeat Republican challenger Joe Kent. The Kent campaign turned down the invitation, though Gluesenkamp Perez is still expected to attend.
Warning said Kent’s campaign had asked questions about the format of the debate before, but never gave a specific reason for not participating. Kent’s campaign did not respond to an email requesting further details by deadline.
“We thought we had resolved all of those questions, then we got the decline,” Warning said. “We’re still hoping Kent eventually agrees to appear as well.
Gluesenkamp Perez’s campaign called out Kent in an email blast for backing out of the debate and a meet the candidates event in Vancouver on Aug. 25.
“Being a Member of Congress requires honest conversations and deep community engagement, not hiding in safe-space town halls,” her campaign said in an email.
