Transcript
Speaker: Hi, welcome everybody to the Mercer Matters podcast. I'm your host, Ben Sharp. And with me today is Ellie Nguyen, who is running for state representative as a Republican for the Legislative District 41, Position 1, which includes Mercer Island, parts of Bellevue, Newcastle, Issaquah, and part of Renton. She is running against incumbent Democrat Janice Zong.
Speaker: And before we dive in, I just want to remind all of you, please click subscribe to the show and your favorite podcast platform so you can be alerted when the new episodes drop. And if you're new to the show, my goal is to have a discussion with each candidate during the election season to give you a chance to learn more about them and and hear from them and their positions on issues that affect you in their own words.
Speaker: If you enjoy the show, please share it with a friend on social media to help get the word out because that's how we do things these days. So Ellie, without further ado, welcome to the show. I appreciate you joining. And and as I tell try to tell everybody, I appreciate you more than anything, throwing your hat in the ring to run for office and put yourself out there. And I know it's it's a lot of work. It's a lot of time outside of, you know, I'm sure you have ah a day job and a family and everything else. And so thank you for running for office.
Speaker: um I wanted to start ah maybe giving you opportunity just to introduce yourself, a little bit of your background, and what's brought you to run for office in this election cycle. Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm Ellie Nguyen, and I'm running you know District 41. My background is my education. I have a bachelor's in religious theology, master's in divinity of practical ministry, and then my JD law degree. um I'm not running for office to gain power or, you know, for recognition or even a political title. I am truly running because I believe that public service is a responsibility that has always been ingrained into me from my father when he was the legal counsel to the president of South Vietnam.
Speaker: He's always just instilled in me of leadership and just, you know, helping people whenever they need help or want help. um I'm also a people person, so I just feel, you know, i just love people. As a conservative Christian, i just really just love all walks of people and diversity of people. I also believe that Washington State deserves leadership that puts people first before politics. And I'm also running really to protect our children and our future grandchildren. from these out of touch politicians in our state.
Speaker: I have watched government ever since. I really got involved in politics when Obama ran for office and I've done a lot of, lot of research on Obama.
Speaker: And I've just watched government become increasingly complicated, expensive, and just disconnected from the people that they're supposed to truly serve. So, you know, I'm running to ask the tough questions, to challenge Olympia's reckless spending, to audit the government, to demand transparency and to protect our constitutional rights, and just to restore common sense to Olympia.
Speaker: I just really believe that we should really not have to fight over common sense issues. And I'm just, I'm not here to play any political games. You know, I can work on both sides of the aisle. And I just, you know, want to hear from what people, you know, want to do better for our state. I'm here to listen. Like I said, to hold government accountable and to really fight for the people that I will be representing.
Speaker: So, yes. Awesome. Well, thank you very much for that introduction. I think to get to get into it, you mentioned that you know your view is that the politicians in the state are are out of touch. Right. um you know what What are the primary issues that that you think voters care most about?
Speaker: And maybe you know where are the politicians that are in the office today most out of touch? Well, I really believe that the left has really lost all sense of reasoning. I really believe that they are, they have dominated really the Democratic Party. They want to confuse our children through the public school system, through healthcare,
Speaker: They're trying to instill Sharia law. um I believe there's now like there's there's quite a few candidates that are running for office who support Cairo, C-A-I-R-O, and they are a terrorist organizations. I believe there's oh i don't know his last name, but that one of the candidates is Osman. I do know that he is fully in support of Cairo, which is a terrorist organization. And um the left, you know, they've just, they want to protect more rights for undocumented immigrants than their own citizens and veterans. I mean, I believe that's just really just an absolute disgrace. um
Speaker: You know, echoing what I said about they're confusing our children with this transgender ideology. I just don't think that they have a right to their pronouns.
Speaker: I mean, you can identify with all you want, but you shouldn't have a right to have your own pronouns. It's not a disability. You wanted to identify yourself as a man or a woman. If you're a woman, you want to identify as a man or vice versa. That's fine.
Speaker: Have at it. Live your life however you makes you happy. But just, you don't have a right to this. It's it's not a it's it's not a right. It's a lifestyle of what they're choosing. And natural law is natural law. It's governed by the universe. Whether you have faith in God or whatever religious belief you have, we are born female and male.
Speaker: That's it. There is no other gender. And, you know, the public school system has just truly just, yeah, really have confused our children. And I'm just here to just really serve, not to not to be served, but really serve and just just, you know, like my campaign slogan, just make it make sense. That's that's really what I'm here for. I really believe that,
Speaker: There is a let me look at the voter pamphlet here. It is oh yeah House bill 1296 1296 it's parental rights. It's basically um they're not giving any voice to the people at all. They're trying to put this bill into place and it's to restrict the parents and we're not trying to restrict the parents and then initiative 26001. If you go on page 17 at the bottom right, it's very deceptive. It clearly says that, you know, um if we vote no on this, that means that we're not going to have any parental rights.
Speaker: But yet if you look further into the bill, which let's say section one, three, a, it clearly says that if we vote yes on this initiative, it's for the parents to examine the textbooks, curriculum, supplemental materials used in their children's classroom. Section one, three G says to receive immediate notification. If law enforcement personnel questions their child except in cases where the parent or legal guardian has been accused of abusing or neglecting children. So it's basically saying that police officers can question your children without the consent of the parents.
Speaker: So Bob Ferguson, whoever, oh put this initiative into place, it is if it the language is very deceptive. And I think that with parents, you know with the community, I think parental rights is very, very important. And then also, I think the the major one is the state income tax.
Speaker: Senate Bill 6346. I mean, it has been voted down at least, I believe, eight or 10 times. Now the legislator has, well, they they now have the House and the Senate, and they just decided to just go ahead, bypass the will of the people and just do whatever they want. And this is it's I believe it's about 65 pages. And if you read that, it's, I mean, if you can understand the language, it's pretty deceptive, but it's very unconstitutional. I mean, to me, it only exists.
Speaker: It has only proven to me that the last three decades of our state has been completely destroyed, destroyed by the Democratic Party. I mean, it's just tax on tax on tax. And, you know, they're they're calling it the millionaire's income tax, but it really isn't. It's really anybody that makes income.
Speaker: They're going to tax you and tax you and tax you. And it's just basically our politicians are trying to dig themselves out of Pandora's box that they have created for at least 30 years.
Speaker: So I think that's really what's really important to the community of Mercer Island, Bellevue, the surrounding area. and And I believe also affordability is just that's everybody wants lower grocery bills, you know, lower lower gas prices. and And the Democrats, they're here, you know, they want to tax the wealthy and and spend more money to address the problems.
Speaker: But the key question is how Are they going to do this in order to do this? They have to relax regulation and how will they increase the supply?
Speaker: Well, like like I said, they have to relax it, but without increasing supply, prices will rise, which will make housings rise, energy, cars, and all the other necessities, you know, that's even less affordable.
Speaker: And if policies, you know, is to make it harder to produce more goods and services, then the supply will remain limited. So the bottom line really is, mean, without significantly increasing the supply, the efforts to address affordability will eventually make the problem worse. And I don't see it as ah you know being compassionate. It's really economic illiteracy.
Speaker: that's That's my position. Yeah, no, thank you very much for kind of the overview there. I appreciate that. I ah kind of a follow question. So, you know, a lot of these issues are certainly hot button issues that that you've raised.
Speaker: Well, you know, if elected, you know, you're you're going to be joining, you know, as you mentioned, a um a fairly one-sided ah political body,
Speaker: um you know what how would you you know what strategies would you take to try to get some of the the things you want done accomplished if you were elected, you know recognizing that you would be you know somewhat of an outlier in the in the legislative body?
Speaker: Yeah, um I would. Yeah, i I'm most likely going to stand out because I'm just not I just I'm not here. I'm just really not here for any political ideology. I mean, to me, you know, having my name as an R as a Republican, it's really the foundation of my lifestyle.
Speaker: I'm a conservative Christian. I believe marriage is one man, one woman. I believe we're born man female. And I just believe that we're all God's children um and we should support one another and help one another. But at the same time,
Speaker: the ideology of the left has just been increasingly very dangerous, extremely dangerous. And I think the only way that I would know how to,
Speaker: um have a a reasonable conversation with them is just to really hear from their side. This is how I have perceived it from what I have seen and the research that I've done and formerly being a part of the Trump administration back in 2016. This is what has led me to perceive how my position is. um i just really would just would like to hear from them because a lot of times you really can't
Speaker: really believe everything that you read on the internet and on social media. You really need to have a one-on-one conversation with, you know, people of the, on the opposite aisle. So I would really just would like to hear from them, you know,
Speaker: how they see their viewpoints and see where their common ground is. Because I believe that everybody in Washington state, although we may have different political ideology, we want to have lesser taxes.
Speaker: We want our grocery bills to be lower. our energy to be lower. So I think I just would like to hear from them just to have a, to see where we can meet a common ground. And if by, you know, worst case scenario that we agree to disagree, then um I would just really take a stance on my position and just go full fledged for the constituents.
Speaker: So thank you. I, you mentioned that you were a part of the Trump administration in 2016. What, what did you do? What did you do there? Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Oh, I was just going around, um, to different States, uh, and contacting people on the phone and just getting their viewpoints of, um, what they thought of president Trump. And, uh,
Speaker: It's funny because people, you know, you hear so much negativity about President Trump because um the media is just the media really is not honest. They're really not. They really have become activists. They really have not. been because they're They're really not ethical journalists anymore. They they have an agenda. And when I would call, you know even when I would call you know to speak to people on the phone, say, are you voting for President Trump or who are you voting for? It was amazing because there were a lot of um independents and Democrats that even though
Speaker: They have a D after their name. They were telling me that they were voting for President Trump because they really, you know, appreciate what he stands for, that he's not a a politician. He's a businessman. And although he's a little bit, you know, he has kind of ah a potty mouth and doesn't have any filter. they They, you know, they were still voting for him. And it was just really, it was really, you know, nice to have a conversation even with the my you know the opposite side of the aisle of the democrat party that they were still voting for trump so that's really what i did was just really calling and um ah just calling people from different states and asking them you know talking to them probably at least no more than two minutes um just as getting their viewpoint of you know who would they who they would be voting for and stuff like that
Speaker: Okay, awesome. So I kind of next question I had, I was hoping, you know, you you outlined, you know, big picture items that you see, you know, voters caring about from your perspective, or, or you know, issues in the state um that you'd like to see changed. I was hoping that you could spend a few minutes talking about, you know, maybe a few key issues where you and your opponent specifically disagree, and then what you would do differently if you were elected into office.
Speaker: Right. um Well, Janice Zahn, very nice woman. i've Like I said, I've had a couple of debates with her before. Already, um and we'll have another one tomorrow on October 14th. Very, very nice woman, but hope her ideology is, um just doesn't, it yeah, it it's not the same as mine. um She's for abortion and I'm against abortion. So I will strongly advocate for the unborn. um
Speaker: She also is a supporter of Cairo. which is without any doubt, a terror a terrorist organization backed up by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Speaker: And I am, I don't support any type of terrorist organization that deals with Islam, that deals with the backings of Sharia law.
Speaker: And I believe that a lot of people elected officials even here in Washington state, not just over in the East coast, but here in Washington state, they do support Sharia law. And I believe strongly that it really conflicts with our U S constitution.
Speaker: um So that's two issues. The third one is believe she is also in support of, um,
Speaker: the housing to where it deals with homeless people and to where they they can encamp, I believe, wherever they want to encamp in our community. And don't get me wrong, um I have a heart for homeless people. you know I'm sure they are they got to their point at probably due to trauma in their life. maybe sexual abuse or, you know, even drug addiction, alcohol addiction. I mean, to me, that is a mental disease. That is a disease. um Alcoholism and and drug abuse, that is a disease. But at the same time, I believe that
Speaker: the community, the homeowners have a right to voice their opinions where these homeless encampments should be. And I believe that Janice Misson is, she's not in support of that. So that that's the three main issues that her and I don't agree with.
Speaker: right. Thank you. And i I wanted to ask you now, you you mentioned maybe a little bit of this in your in your comments previously, but um the the state income tax issue, I know that's you know ah big a big issue. Lots of people talking about this election cycle.
Speaker: Yes. um You know, i'm I'm kind of curious because I hear the the issue framed either, you know really one of two ways. Like one is, you know, we we have these unmet needs in the community, so we need to raise tax in order to fund them.
Speaker: And then right the the other argument is, you know, we don't have a we don't have a taxation problem, we have a spending problem. And I'm kind of curious, how do you view the state revenue it relates the state income tax?
Speaker: and as it relates to the the you know the state income tax So my opponent is in support of the state income tax. That's for sure. I am, I totally oppose it. I do believe that Olympia has, has a wealth of money to fund anything that they so choose. They just have been spending recklessly. And, um, I just, uh, yeah, I, I just, it,
Speaker: they just want to continue to tax and tax because they've dipped into other areas of spending that they should not be dipping into. And they're, trying to you know enforce a bill or in enforce initiative and taking that money out of somewhere else and dipping in and they shouldn't be doing that. and And so now they've spent more money than they should have when everything should have been equally dispersed. So that's where i would really first and foremost is go in and really audit and see where taxpayers dollars have been spent.
Speaker: So that's what I would be doing. Yeah, and thank you. And I'm curious, you you mentioned reckless spending. um So it sounds like you know you're maybe more in the camp of this is a spending problem as opposed to a an income problem.
Speaker: what do you Do you have some areas or examples where you know that that you could highlight the the the where the money was spent recklessly in your opinion and then what you would do different if elected or how you would try to make change to some of that spending?
Speaker: Well, I really haven't really researched a lot. It's just for me, I look at things just really on on a fundamental common sense level. I mean, for them to want to money on income. First of all, it's unconstitutional, I believe. we There really shouldn't be any income tax at all.
Speaker: um And for them to want to income tax, they they want to pass Senate Bill 6346, it to me is just clearly from the surface, they've they have spent and use other areas of money that they should not have been doing. So that's why they're trying to tax because we've already been taxed enough for the last 30 years. So, but I don't really know exactly where yet.
Speaker: I do believe that just every area that Olympia has, Well, well actually for one, they probably, they they spent an extra $300,000 on, i believe it was medical necessity for young adults or even, you know, minors when it comes to transgender, when it comes to changing their sexual orientation medically.
Speaker: I don't believe that, you know, spending a ah an additional three to $500,000 on on that is a necessity. it's It's not essential to me.
Speaker: And that's one area that that three to $500,000 could have went somewhere else that was in need, whether it whether it could have been went to go to mental health, because i I do believe that mental health is real. You know, people do suffer from depression. That's real. People suffer from PTSD. And just believe that mental health that money should have been towards, you know, going to the medical facility of whether it's counselors or people that are trying to help people with the mental health ah problems that they have.
Speaker: So that's one one area that I know that they have spent recklessly on. to me that To me, that is not considered ah an essential need. um It's just a lifestyle that they want to change their sex.
Speaker: So the other issue that i've I've heard a lot of people talking about, and I think you touched on a little bit earlier, but the the housing density... issue um where you know the this the state legislature and the and the governor signed into law that basically restricts municipalities from ah you know cities and and counties and such from passing um ah restrictive ordinances around housing density. So um you know I think proponents of of that issue
Speaker: ah you know, want to improve housing affordability and and housing density is one way to do that. You know, ah obviously, you know, there's there's people on the other side that like, well, you know, like a community like Mercer Island here, um you know, maybe we ought to be able to make those decisions locally.
Speaker: um Where do you fall on that issue specifically? And I and i do think it relates somewhat to the to the discussion you had earlier about you know, homeless encampments and maybe low income shelters and various things. You know, I think those are potentially more challenging to restrict from being built in certain areas, as I understand it, with some of the the law the laws that have been passed. where do you stand on on that issue in particular?
Speaker: um I definitely agree that the community, the homeowners, should have a say so. They should have a say so and that it should be governed locally and not from the state.
Speaker: I don't think that the state should interfere at all. they they they're welcome to listen but i don't believe that the state has i don't believe that olympia has the final say so it should be the local community that has the final say so what they want to do with their community because it's their community that we're living in so the state yeah i don't believe that they should interfere at all okay that's that's great thank you for uh for your response on that um You know, another another hot button issue kind of coming through the list here. You touched on several of them, but it seems like everybody's got an opinion on AI data centers. And, you know, one way or the other, where where do you fall on data centers here in Washington State? um You know, should we be building them?
Speaker: Should we allow them? If so, where? how How do you think about that? um I believe AI is good ah as a resource, but I don't believe that, you know, we should totally be dependent on data center. But yeah, I believe that it it will increase more jobs.
Speaker: I do believe that. oh But I don't, I just, I'm not a i'm not a so in I'm not in support of ai at all. I mean, I look at it as a reference, but they're not go-to as to the final decision of everything in life.
Speaker: Fair enough. But I do believe that more jobs will be offered, which is good. It will raise the economy. And then once the economy is raised, you'll have supply. And once the supply is increased, then prices will you know go will go down.
Speaker: Do you feel like we have the the resources, State of Washington, to support their build-out? Because I think that's where there's a lot of... concern or pushback is that, you know, from water to electricity, you know, communities being affected with, you know, higher, higher electricity prices. You know, you mentioned affordability as being a big issue. um You know, i'm i'm a firm energying electricity yeah I'm a firm believer that I think that Washington state, because we, everybody wants to live in Washington state. I have so many friends like, know,
Speaker: in other states and even in other countries, like they just glorify Washington state because we have Amazon, we have Facebook, we have Google, we have Boeing, we have Starbucks, we have Nordstrom. I believe that we can make this happen and and that there is money um that that can happen to make this done. I just don't know where I haven't found the key component as to what the delay is and why things are not going the way they are, except just, um we just have we just have politicians that are just out of touch. They're just really not, they're just out of touch politicians and they just, um they have an agenda of their own and they really should be serving
Speaker: the constituents. And they they just haven't been doing that. But I do believe that there is that there is money here to to to be done, whatever it is that we that we need to get to have a yeah to get the job done.
Speaker: I do believe that. So again, I appreciate your time and in joining me here. I just have maybe a question or two more. Sure. So as we as as we think about you know Washington State over the next five years, um you know you'd be serving in the the state legislative body. So obviously making decisions on behalf of the state of Washington.
Speaker: um what What are some of the biggest challenges that you see us facing as a state over the next five years? You know, I, I think I, from what I see is like, when you tell, you know, when you talk to people, it it just seems like once they know what side of the aisle you're on, they just freeze up and they just don't even want to have a ah genuine conversation with you. And they just don't want to work together. That's what I have seen is that everybody is just, you know, so one-sided. I really believe that the Republican and the Democrat are really one bird. Um,
Speaker: And it just it just amazes me that once you hear someone that, oh, you're a Democrat or you're you're a Republican, I'm not going to work with you. And everybody's just always fighting and attacking each other because of their political ideology. And it really shouldn't be that way. We should just we should learn to find a common ground to where we can reason with each other just Make our community, our state, our society, our nation as one under God.
Speaker: That's how I see it. Awesome. Well, again, thank you very much for for joining me today. To wrap here, where can people go if they want to learn more about your campaign and and you?
Speaker: Oh, yeah. Just go to my website, www.thechoiceforchange.org. You can also go on to my issues page and it will list the um different governing philosophies versus my philosophy and my opponent, Janet Zahn. And if you want to donate, click on the news and and excuse me, click click on the contact page and it'll route you to donate. And if you know anything else, just, yeah, just so send us an email and one of my volunteers, if not myself, we'll, we should, you know, we'll answer you within 24 hours.
Speaker: All right, Ellie. Well, thank you very much for joining. Best of luck in the campaign. Okay. Thank you, Ben, for having me.
