Priorities

Women's rights and the accessibility of reproductive healthcare, including birth control, are under attack. And even though our rights are currently protected in Washington, the attacks we've seen in states like Florida, Texas, and Alabama show that all it takes is a simple shift in the political dynamic of the state to put all of us at risk. The reversal of Roe v. Wade is what ultimately pushed Tiffiny back into politics, knowing that our current representative has actively voted to block access to reproductive healthcare by voting against SB 5768 in 2023, and has consistently voted against bills that establish equity and opportunity for women in the workplace, such as Washington's landmark Paid Family and Medical Leave program. When Tiffiny was a state representative in Oregon's 32nd district in 2019, she voted to create a Paid Family and Medical Leave program in that state because it levels the playing field by giving all people, especially women and lower-income people, the opportunity to take leave for life's most important events, such as recovering from the birth of a child, dealing with an serious health condition, or caring for a family member with a serious health condition. Tiffiny will do everything possible to ensure that women's rights and reproductive rights are protected in our state, including moving to enshrine a woman's right to choose in our state's constitution.

Tiffiny supports pathways to credentials, apprenticeships, and post-secondary education. For most good paying jobs, a credential is required or highly recommended. How can we ensure more people can obtain the required knowledge or education to obtain a well paying job or transition into a higher paying job later in their career?

First - every young person should have opportunities to learn about and prepare for careers while they are still in school. That includes investing in counselors who can help guide students to career and education pathways.

Second - Tiffiny knows we must invest in our community and technical colleges to provide economic mobility for all and provide opportunities for high school and adult learners to build critical career skills.

Third - for our early-career workers, we should expand work-based learning opportunities at the K-12 and community college level especially in career areas which have high job growth and pending retirements.

Fourth - for adult workers, we can support individuals making career transitions into jobs in industries that are facing significant retirement and worker shortages – including state employment, healthcare careers, teaching, supply chain, clean energy, and others.

Affordability is a pressing issue not only for families at risk of homelessness but also for working families striving to secure stable housing amid rising costs, especially near areas with a high number of available jobs. As more of us become tenants—possibly for life due to the unattainable nature of down payments and mortgages—it's clear that the housing crisis affects a broad spectrum of people.

Addressing this crisis requires more than just increasing the number of available homes. New housing developments must also include essential infrastructure—such as parks, grocery stores, schools, and transportation—to support growing communities and enhance quality of life. Moreover, implementing rent stabilization measures is crucial to prevent displacement and provide tenants with greater stability and predictability in their housing costs.

The state has several avenues to tackle this issue, and Tiffiny looks forward to working with all stakeholders, including city and county leaders, to make it happen. Investing directly through initiatives like the Housing Trust Fund, implementing land use regulations that promote diverse housing options close to opportunities and amenities, and providing tenant protections and homeownership support for low-income and historically marginalized communities are essential steps. Updating our land use laws is crucial to moving beyond zoning practices that favor single-family homes—a legacy of discriminatory policies. Such reforms, including rent stabilization, are necessary to ensure fair access to affordable housing, promote equity, and mitigate environmental damage caused by urban sprawl.

Our current system of allocating funding to school districts on a per-student basis is not enough to actually fund most school districts.   Students and teachers should not be at the mercy of the passage of bonds or levies.  Why is it so hard to pass a levy to provide the basics for our children like new or renovated schools, special education classes and the appropriate number of staff to teach or provide support to students? 

Here’s why - to pass a bond, our state constitution requires that 40% of people in a district must turn out to vote (based on the last general election) and then 60% of that number must vote to pass a bond.  So you can, with a simple majority (51%), elect a state representative--but you need significantly more to clearly tell our children how much we care about them and their education.  Some school districts do just fine--especially when they're able to pass bonds to supplement state money--but many really struggle under the current model, especially if their communities are reluctant to pass a bond or levy.  

If there is a single universal value that we can all agree on, it's that every child in our state, regardless of their zip code or background, deserves a high-quality public education.  As your next state representative, Tiffiny wants to lead efforts in the legislature to revisit this funding model to find ways to fund our school districts more equitably.  She also wants to make it easier for communities to pass bonds by initiating the constitutional change necessary to amend our state constitution to make the 60% bond passage requirement revert to a simple majority.  Between the two efforts, we can do a whole lot to help our kids get the education and attention they deserve in our classrooms!

Many of our neighbors have healthcare coverage that is not affordable and leaves them with little left to pay other monthly expenses. The legislature and healthcare systems must work together to ensure that people can access affordable healthcare in their community and that the staffing levels are appropriate for the demand. This will require a comprehensive and coordinated plan between the healthcare providers and the education programs to ensure that training programs are aligned to demand. We already face shortages in nursing and mental health providers and like the general population, our healthcare providers are also aging.

Healthcare For All

Every day there are Washingtonians who need to prioritize whether to buy groceries for the week or pay a doctor bill. Every open enrollment cycle, Washingtonians (and their employers) are faced with higher health insurance costs, forcing many people into crippling high-deductible plans, just to remain covered.  Every day, there are Washingtonians who decide not to seek needed care because they're worried about how much it will cost.  And even with good insurance--an unexpected illness, injury, or chronic condition can still bankrupt a family.  

Healthcare should be a human right, and we must continue to work towards the goal of 100% access for all Americans. The more we provide access, the healthier and happier we all become – with the added benefit of reducing costs in the long-term. That is why Tiffiny supports a universal health care model, and she will work to create a comprehensive plan that responsibly moves us to a single-payer system that will reduce Washingtonians' healthcare costs and ensures that everybody can see a doctor or get the treatment they need without having to worry about whether or not they can afford it.

Whenever Tiffiny is talking to our community members she hears about the rising cost of living, particularly the cost of housing, healthcare and basic needs like putting food on the table.

Home ownership is challenging for a significant portion of our population and rental prices keep going up. We need to build more housing and find ways to make housing more affordable and attainable to working families. We must work together to find solutions to our housing crisis.

Our economy must work for the middle class, not just for corporations. We’ve seen recently how corporations keep raising prices while taking in massive profits. We need to protect consumers from price gouging and have a tax structure that requires big corporations to pay its fair share.

The majority of jobs in our district are with small and mid-sized businesses, and union jobs with local, state and federal agencies. We must invest in our local businesses and local economies to keep people working close to home and investing in their local communities. Both her and her husband are proud union members and she believes working families are at the heart of this country. Tiffiny will always fight for equal pay for equal work and for policies that strengthen the middle class.

Our district has infrastructure that is critical to healthy communities and economies. The infrastructure priorities for me include:

Rural Broadband: Families all over our district experience differing levels of connectivity. Whether you live in rural Gig Harbor or the Key Peninsula or Olalla, you should be able to study, work from home or access information. Broadband is essential infrastructure and is key to ensuring equitable opportunities for all.

Gorst: We need to support the Gorst Coalition which has brought together state and federal resources to address the safety and traffic challenges in the interchange.

Narrows Bridge Tolls: Tiffiny would push for legislation that eliminates the bridge tolls that create a financial burden on working families in our district.

Purdy Bridge: The population on the Key Peninsula has greatly outgrown the two lane bridge that is one of the few ways in and out of the peninsula and we need a solution. This must become a priority of our county and state officials.

Fox Island Bridge: Like Purdy, the Fox Island Bridge needs to be replaced and a coalition of state, county and federal partners need to work together to fix the bridge without adding tolls.

Highway 16 at Wollochet Interchange: Anyone who’s driven onto highway 16 from the Wollochet interchange knows that that stretch of road is dangerous for people merging onto the highway or those on the highway who are forced to come to a complete stop for entering cars. Regular accidents lead to lives being endanger and Gig Harbor city streets being snarled by traffic avoiding the accident. Tiffiny knows we need a better solution than the current interchange.

Today our ferry system is overworked and understaffed. It’s common for ferries to be out of service due to maintenance or a lack of staff. Cancellations or delayed sailings impact our communities, particularly in Kitsap County, that regularly use the ferry system to travel to work, school, appointments or to visit friends and family. Our ferry system is underfunded and the staffing is dependent on people closer and closer to retirement age.

Tiffiny's plan would include working with Representative Greg Nance from the 23rd Legislative District (our neighbor to the north) who introduced bipartisan legislation in 2023 to “right the ship” at WSF. His legislation includes: Building a 21st century fleet of ferries with federal funding help; training and retaining a 21st century ferry workforce by making it easier to hire and retain staff and building more training facilities including locally in Bremerton; transparent, accountable leadership including a stable leader at cabinet-level and clear and transparent success metrics. These priorities are critical to getting our ferry system back to providing reliable transportation to the people of our region and require a legislature committed to work together and with our federal partners.

It's impossible to overstate just how beautiful our state is and how lucky we are to live here.  Protecting our environment, especially in the face of climate change, is a top priority for Tiffiny. 

She will work with local and tribal governments, community groups, schools, labor, and industry to protect the Puget Sound, our forests, parks and waterways.  She also knows we must protect our local family farms, which are so important and feed our communities and provide a livelihood in our rural areas, from urban sprawl and the impact of drought on the agricultural economy. 

We must protect our waterways that provide a habitat for animals and are critical for salmon restoration. 

One of the biggest threats to both human and wildlife here in are state is wildfires--a threat which has only increased as climate change has had a more prolific effect on our daily lives.  Wildfires are devastating to lives, property and our forests  and wildlife. Our summers are hotter and drier and our infrastructure is not prepared for the impacts of climate change.  Tiffiny will work with our local, state, federal, and tribal partners to ensure that we are prepared. We must continue to educate our communities about the danger of wildfires and what they can do to prepare their homes and businesses.   And we must address the infrastructure challenges we face due to climate change - from rising waters, to roadways not designed for emergency situations, to creating more resilient communities through a transition to more renewable energy sources and adding air conditioning and insulation to homes - we can’t wait until a climate emergency happens here to act.