Most people don’t pick a political party because of what they believe. They believe things because of the party they’re in.
I’ve spent enough time around campaigns, and in the halls of our state Legislature as a board member of the Statewide Poverty Action Network, to tell you that sounds about right. When beliefs follow the team, governing takes a back seat to keeping the team together.
Passionate and determined advocates like our former board president, Juanita, who has experienced poverty and everything that comes with it firsthand, come to Olympia every session. They know what they need and they say so plainly. They testify, meet with legislators, and come back the next year to do it again. Both parties usually listen. Both parties usually express concern. The bills that would actually change something quietly die in committee.
I’ve seen it play out since I joined the board 14 years ago. It’s a pattern, and the pattern has a logic.
A politician can spend a career advocating for people living in poverty without ever being held accountable for results. The advocacy becomes the point. The outcome is optional. What gets rewarded isn’t solving the problem. It’s being seen fighting it. The fundraising appeal goes out at eleven at night. The bill never moves.
This isn’t a values problem. Most of the people I’ve known in politics mean what they say. It’s a structure problem. A system that measures success by winning elections can lose sight of what the winning is supposed to be for. Good intentions go in. The problems stay put.
You can see it clearly in the affordability crisis. The problem isn’t complicated. People need places to live. We aren’t building enough of them. Fixing it requires decisions that some organized, reliable voters won’t like, so those hard decisions get punted. Both parties hold forums. Both parties issue statements. The rent keeps going up.
That’s not ideology. That’s a calculation. And it gets made so routinely that most people inside the system don’t notice they’re making it.
Both parties talk about working people constantly. They appear in every speech, every piece of campaign mail, every fundraising appeal. What they appear in less reliably is the decisions. Solving people’s problems carries political cost. Talking about their problems is free.
The team exists to win, not to govern. Governing is what happens between elections, when fewer people are paying attention. The people left waiting are the ones who needed something done.
Showing up and speaking out matters. People like Juanita know that better than most. And sometimes it still isn’t enough. Sometimes the decision has already been made, and the testimony is a formality in a process that leads back to the same place.
The fix starts with holding the people we elect accountable not for how loudly they fight, but for what they actually produce. Not for the speech, but for what happened after. Vote. Show up at town halls. Ask the hard question: what did you actually get done for the people who needed it most?
Both parties will tell you they’re fighting for you. The people saying it mostly mean it. But meaning it and doing it are not the same thing inside a system that rewards one and ignores the other.
The work that matters isn’t picking the right team. It’s demanding that whichever team wins actually does something with it.
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Rob Richards is a Navy veteran and former congressional staffer who has been an active community member in Thurston County for over two decades. To submit an opinion piece to the Thurston Chronicle, email news@thurstonchronicle.com
