Ron Davis Outlines Affordability and Structural Reform Agenda on The Pop-Up!

Jul 29

With the primary election fast approaching, candidate Ron Davis made an appearance on The Pop-Up! with host The Big O. Davis, a former tech entrepreneur and Harvard Law graduate, is running to represent Washington's 46th Legislative District in the state house down in Olympia.

Davis took aim at the current legislative establishment, pushing a platform centered on housing affordability, expanded public transit, universal child care, and a systemic overhaul of the state's tax system.

The Personal Roots of an Affordability Crusade

Davis, who writes the political newsletter Rondezvous and has served on the board of the statewide housing legislation advocacy group Futurewise, said his political motivation stems from his own childhood. Born to teenage parents in the 1970s, he credited the economic environment of the era for his family’s upward mobility.

"It was affordable housing that was the toehold that got my family to make it into the middle class and ultimately build a thriving life," Davis said. "I really wish that path was available to people today, but it isn't. It's closed. Seattle's way too exclusive".

Davis noted that the modern economic reality has hit his own family as well.

"In my own life, we had to go into debt just to afford child care in Seattle. And the problem has gotten so much worse. The city's too damn unaffordable and the rent is too damn high,” he said.

Critiquing Seattle's Housing and Population Shift

The conversation opened with a discussion on Mayor Katie Wilson's recent announcement to dedicate $110 million from the Seattle Housing Levy toward affordable rental housing. Davis praised the initiative, specifically pointing out the structural failures of past affordable housing projects that favored smaller units over family homes.

"Something we've already done in the affordable housing space: we built a ton of studio and one-bedrooms so that we can look efficient and say, 'Oh, it only costs this much per unit.' And now there's a bunch of empty studio and one-bedroom affordable homes, but there's not enough homes for families," he said.

When discussing IRS migration data showing an internal population exodus out of King County driven by the high cost of living, Davis highlighted the broader societal toll of failing to build adequate housing near job centers.

"It's a really terrible situation when the place that has the jobs doesn't build enough housing. Doesn't make it affordable enough to live here," he said. "It's bad for the environment. It's bad for people's life prospects. It's bad for how much time we spend with our families because we spend it on the roads.”

He also pointed out how exclusionary zoning practices in wealthier neighborhoods have exacerbated gentrification and displacement in other areas of the city.

"There is a really powerful anti-gentrification tool, which right now is making big zoning changes in the rich white neighborhoods where easy access to jobs already exists," he said. "But those neighborhoods have been really good at saying, 'Nope, everybody's got to stay out. Why doesn't it go somewhere else?' And that has put all the pressure on a few areas of the city.”

A Three-Pronged Plan for Structural Reform

When asked how he would specifically leverage state-level power to impact affordability in Seattle, Davis laid out a three-pronged legislative agenda focusing on housing, transportation, and child care.

Overcoming the Housing Shortage: Davis emphasized that the state needs to build 1.25 million homes over the next 20 years. Beyond zoning reform, he proposed state-backed funding models to scale up social housing and stepped-up rental assistance programs to clear the backlog of families waiting for federal aid.
Transforming Public Transit: To provide a realistic alternative to the high expenses of car ownership, Davis advocated for "doubling the buses on the road and painting a thousand miles of red paint essentially... making it so that buses move faster and come more frequently.”
Universal Child Care: Pointing to New Mexico as a successful blueprint, Davis insisted that Washington state has the wealth to provide free child care for working families.

"If people can't have children in the city, they can't experience the whole life cycle here and they're going to have to flee to the suburbs," Davis warned.

Challenging the Democratic Supermajority

The Big O questioned Davis on why these progressive changes haven't already occurred, given that the Democratic Party holds a supermajority in Olympia. Davis critiqued his own party's legislative performance.

"Part of the reason people like me and a bunch of other people are running against Democratic incumbents is because our supermajority has been sitting on its hands for a decade. They aren't doing [anything] basically is the answer. They are lackluster," Davis said.

Davis argued that the state's tax code remains deeply regressive because the party establishment has been compromised. "We have the room. We don't have the ambition. We have a party that's captured by corporate insiders," he said.

To fund his universal child care and housing proposals, Davis floated a corporate profits tax, which he estimates would raise $7 billion annually without chasing major employers away.

"If Microsoft decided to move to Idaho tomorrow, which they're not going to do... they're still going to sell Xboxes here and cloud services here and Microsoft Word here. They still have to pay the corporate profits tax," he said.

Concluding his thoughts on governmental efficiency, Davis bridged the gap between structural funding and fiscal responsibility.

"I'm into a more efficient government so we can deliver the kind of community that we all deserve... It is also important to do a better job and to be good stewards of our citizens' tax dollars to earn the social license to spend those tax dollars on behalf of the community,” he said.

Learn more about Davis’ campaign at voterondavis.com

Primary Election Day is Tuesday, August 4th. Ballots must be postmarked by this date or returned to a ballot drop box by 8 p.m.

Tune in to The Pop-Up! weekdays live at 7 p.m. on all Converge streaming platforms.