RHAWA Talks with State Representative Candidate Kevin Schilling
Now that the deadline to file has passed for anyone wishing to run for office, we have a good sense of what the field will look like for this November’s election. A lot of people tend not to pay much attention to the odd-numbered years’ elections, as they lack the pomp and circumstance of the national stage mid-terms or a presidential election. However, the in-between years are extremely important for local-level elections. These are the years when some mayors are elected, generally half of every city council, special elections for state legislature positions, and so on.
For example, there will be a special election for several state senate seats that were vacated due to those senators or representatives being appointed to their positions because the duly elected person was appointed to some other job within the state government. When someone is appointed to fill a Senate or representative seat, they are still required to run for election the next November to retain that seat.
My candidate profile today is for Kevin Schilling, who is the current Mayor of Burien and will be running for State Representative in District 33. If his name sounds familiar to you, that’s because he has been a staunch advocate on many commonsense housing issues in his current position as Mayor of the City of Burien. You will also have seen him testifying on behalf of RHAWA at the state legislature against rent control and other harmful housing policies.
As I said, when a sitting elected official is promoted or appointed to a different seat, someone has to fill their vacancy. To fill that vacancy, a candidate is appointed by the county council where the district resides, as happened with now Senator Emily Alvarado, the sponsor of the rent control bill. She was promoted from the House because of a Senate seat vacancy.
So, in District 33, duly elected Representative Tina Orwall was promoted to the Senate to fill the seat vacated by the retiring Senator Karen Keiser. Orwall’s seat was then filled by appointment of the King County Council, and they appointed Edwin Obras. Since Representative Obras was appointed, he will have to run in a special election this November to retain the seat. His opponent is my candidate profile today, Mayor Kevin Schilling. I must go on record and state that Representative Obras voted Yes on the rent control bill and has been loudly proclaiming victory on that front. Mayor Schilling will be a much more level-headed and pragmatic leader around housing policy if he is elected to fill this representative seat from District 33.
Where were you born and raised, and where did you grow up?
“I was born in Des Moines, grew up in Burien, went to undergrad in Pullman at Wazzu, and then did grad school at Columbia, New York, and the London School of Economics.”
What are your day jobs, including being the Mayor of Burien?
“I am the Advocacy Director for the Washington State Dental Association.”
For those members who have spent any time in Olympia, you will absolutely recognize Kevin’s face from walking the chambers of the legislature and speaking with elected officials to advocate for the Dental Association.
What really spurred you to enter elected office?
“A truly crazy idea that I can be involved in and help make this a better place.”
What do you view as your highlight accomplishments while serving as Mayor of Burien?
“Housing and doing more zoning reform to get more density and more transit-oriented development. I would say balancing the budget and getting us out of deficit spending was a huge success, and so was our climate action plan.”
Why are you running for state representative in District 33?
“Well, we had success in Burien around homelessness and housing, and public safety, and I think that right now at the state level, we are in a place where the state is not passing laws to save people money or create more opportunity. I think we need to be more focused on those two main goals. Saving people money and creating more opportunity, but we’ve also had a lot of success with public safety and homelessness by getting more folks into treatment and services, and we need to start taking that more seriously, and right now the state level is where we can do that.”
With rent control now passed, how would you work to improve cost and supply?
“It’s going to be tough to navigate incentives for growing our housing supply while rent caps exist. I think it’ll be listening to what developers believe they can do in this time and space, I think. Actively going after more aggressive zoning reform and continuing to cut red tape of reducing permitting timelines and doing permitting reform at the state level is our next step because zoning reform is great and they got a lot of stuff passed with 1110 and 1220, but I think we need to do some permitting reform now where we can cut a lot of the red tape and get developers what they need to get their units online. It’s going to be tough to do here with a cap.”
Mayor Schilling referred to House Bill 1110, which was passed in 2023 to increase the amount of middle housing, and House Bill 1220, which passed in 2021 to support emergency shelters and housing through local planning.
What do you like to do in your free time outside politics?
“I love to travel. In December, I went to China and Japan. I’m a huge history buff. I love reading history books and listening to history podcasts,” Schilling said. “I love eating dim-sum. I like playing video games, I play a lot of video games.”
What game do you play?
“Well, I’m just right now playing Call of Duty, Super Smash Bros, and I’m a Switch and Xbox guy.”
Schilling also enjoys Mariners games, theater, he’s a film buff, and tries to get to the boxing gym as much as he can.
Look out for more conversations with Kevin Schilling, candidate for State Representative in District 33, as we approach the November election. For more candidate interviews and profiles, check out past issues of Current or check out the RHAWA YouTube channel for our Housing Matters podcast.