CONGRESSMAN ADAM SMITH on Housing Matters
Federal policy can have a large impact on state policy, and housing in Washington is affected by what happens in the other Washington. I sat down with Congressman Adam Smith, the Representative for Washington's 9th Congressional District. The 9th District encompasses a large chunk of King County from parts of Bellevue, Seattle, Renton, SeaTac, Kent, Federal Way, Des Moines, Tukwila, and Auburn, to name a few.
Congressman Smith has held his seat since the 1996 election, shortly after the district was created as a result of the 1990 statewide census. He grew up in a union household in SeaTac, and he raised his family in Bellevue. The Congressman and I discussed his role on the Armed Services Committee, local and national housing policy, and his controversial opponent for his re-election bid.
As the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, he has been the top Democrat for fourteen years and was previously the chair under the Biden Administration. A lot of what the committee deals with is the roughly $900 billion defense budget and how that will be spent.
“So, we exercise oversight of that. With a particular emphasis on the men and women who serve in the military. Are we making sure that their needs are met? National security policy and all that, but the big thing about the committee is every year for 64 consecutive years, we have passed the National Defense Authorization Act. The only bill that has been passed that many times in a row, and it has become sort of the major authorizing bill, many times will delve into policy areas, even outside of defense. So, if you are the chair or the ranking on the committee, a big part of it is trying to get that bill passed, and also that 64 straight years, it is almost always bipartisan. So unlike just about any other committee in Congress, we have a long tradition of working in a bipartisan, bicameral way to get that bill done and make sure that we're exercising oversight of the Department of Defense.”
Congressman Smith spoke about some of the feedback and complaints that he hears from those in his district, and many of them are what you would typically think of, such as health care, crime, education and all those things, but cost of housing is an issue in many of the calls his office receives.
“Housing has become unbelievably expensive around here, in large part because we just don't have enough of a supply, particularly enough of a supply of your sort of first-time starter homes, the kind that your members, I suspect, overwhelmingly own and rent and manage. So, there's a number of different pieces to this. I think the biggest piece, when you refer to naturally occurring affordable housing, the more housing you build, the more affordable housing becomes. Now, certainly, you want to make sure that you're building housing, you know, across a range of income levels. But volume, you know, and we're just not building enough,” Smith said, and delved a bit further on construction and permitting costs. “I said we need to build more housing, but the other part of it, and connected to the low-income housing tax credit, is housing has become too expensive. And particularly affordable housing. There are so many rules permitting requirements, regulations that, on average, it's like $1 million.”
Continuing the topic of housing, I brought the conversation back home to Washington, and we discussed the fallout of the rent control bill passage and the Congressman’s thoughts on how that piece of legislation will affect housing in Washington long term.
“…renters, you know, your rents going up 10%. Because I think most people say, look, I'm restricted, I don't know what next year's going to bring, I'm going to take the max here, and I'm going to go ahead and raise it. So, I see what people are trying to do, try to make sure that it can stay affordable. But I think most of the time, most of the studies that I've ever seen it has the opposite effect. So, I don't think that's an effective means of getting after the cost. Got to build more housing, got to make it cheaper to build.”
I had to ask near the end of our conversation about his opponent running against him as the nearly 30-year incumbent. His opponent will be a familiar name for many: Former Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant.
“Yeah, well, I’ll speak more for myself than for her. I bring people together to solve problems. I’ve got a lot of experience at it. I know a lot of people. I’ve got a great team, a great staff. We’re focused on bringing people together and solving problems, and I think that is what we need right now. I mean, we are a deeply divided society that is angry and confrontational and isn’t getting much done. So, as someone who has worked and built a career, as we already mentioned, you know, in the Armed Services Committee, I work every year to pass a major piece of bipartisan legislation to help people.
I passed a whole lot of other legislation, and I could tell stories about helping. I support, you know, public housing. I've gotten things done. I don't think we need any more members of Congress who just yell at people and tell them that they're wrong and tell them that they're evil, awful, terrible, and ruining the world. I'm a passionate person. I'll stand up for working-class values.”
For my full thought-provoking interview with Congressman Adam Smith, check out the Housing Matters podcast wherever you get your podcasts, or check out the RHAWA YouTube Channel for the video versions of every podcast.