Doctor Raul Garcia (R) joins two Democrats in the race: Commissioner of Public Lands, Hilary Franz, who has declared her candidacy, and Attorney General, Bob Ferguson, who says he’s opened up an exploratory committee.
You can hear Garcia’s answers to our questions in the video below beginning at approximately the 24:35 mark:
Raul Garcia is a Cuban born immigrant who came to Florida at age 11. He’s an emergency medicine physician and currently serves as medical director at Toppenish Hospital.
Northwest Newsradio’s Ryan Harris asked Garcia what qualifies him to be governor. “I think that the simple answer is that I’m not a politician,” Garcia says, “and I have been a member of a profession that for 25 years, I’m forced to be 100% right or people die…I think that we need to have an outside perspective of leadership.”
Abortion will again be one of the top issues in the election, and while Garcia says he believes life starts at conception, that he is against abortion in his personal life and that he would never perform one as a doctor, Garcia says, “As a physician, I will never want abortion to be illegal in the State of Washington because it will increase the morbidity and mortality of women, and I cannot get behind that. So what we have to do as a government is give options for that choice and support those women making that choice.” That support, Garcia says, includes a stronger foster care system, making it easier for people to adopt and crisis counseling and education for pregnant women.
Garcia says the solution to the crises of homelessness, mental health and drug addiction needs to be a “triple play” that provides real help to people who continue to harm themselves if left in their present environments. He also says rising crime in our state needs to be addressed, including giving police the power they need to hold people accountable.
Someone in the small crowd at the event at Seattle’s Kerry Park asked Garcia for his stance on the capital gains tax, which he called a “slippery slope” he believes is an income tax. Garcia says he doesn’t understand how the state Supreme Court could, apolitically, decide that a capital gains tax is not an income tax.
