Dayton Chronicle - Your Hometown News Source

DAYTON–"We need to open up Washington state today, without a doubt," Joshua Freed, a candidate for Washington governor, told a couple dozen attending a campaign stop here Friday, May 15. Freed, who prefers the Republican Party, was in the midst of a 39-county campaign swing that will conclude in Olympia May 25.

Freed is a former mayor and councilman for the City of Bothell, a businessman, and also served on the King County Mental Health Advisory Board. He led a crusade to prevent King County's heroin injection site program from spreading to other counties.

"We have a constitution," Freed said. "We are a nation based upon laws, not on the directives of one man who is overstepping his bounds with his emergency declarations."

According to scientific evidence, Freed said, the chance of getting COVID-19 and dying is .00004, and while every death is tragic, there are 7.5 million other citizens of Washington state in difficulty today.

"A lot of folks live paycheck to paycheck in a normal, rising economy, and during this period of time, when over 1.2 million have now applied for unemployment, they're not getting their paychecks," Freed said. Some have not received their checks for six weeks, he said.

Freed won a suit against Inslee a week earlier, challenging an Inslee declaration that made illegal two people meeting with physical distancing, to study the Bible.

"After two weeks, 156 pages, and eight weeks, of course, of us being shut down, now that is removed," Freed said. "So we now have the ability, obviously, to meet face to face, we can pray, we can talk together, and I think that's a big chink in the armor-showing all these directives that Jay Inslee has been giving are not constitutional, and 'we the people' need to take our government back. We need to open up Washington again."

Under Governor Inslee, crime and homelessness has increased, Freed pointed out, much of it related to illegal drugs. Heroin addicts spend $35,000 a year on their habit but don't work and resort to crime, resulting in a 23% increase in assaults since Inslee has been in office. Assaults on police is up 40%, murder has increased 41% and rape is up 65%.

"It's unbelievable," Freed said. "It's because he's a governor who does not believe in law and authority."

Seattle's Chief of Police stated recently "my officers do not feel good in their jobs, they feel discouraged because they don't get the support and backup."

Under Inslee's watch 960 inmates were released from jail as "he puts us under house arrest. He just doesn't care."

-Chronicle photo

Candidate for Washington State Governor Joshua Freed

Financially, Inslee has overseen a 60% increase in the state budget since taking office, Freed said. There's been a 17% increase in the past year in a rising economy, when lawmakers should be led by the governor to be putting money away for a rainy day, or giving tax breaks to citizens.

During the COVID-19 crisis, not one state employee has been let go; rather, Freed contended, 1,500 have been hired to track Washingtonians.

Freed expressed dismay at the state's requirements for names of patrons at restaurants. "I'm for freedom," he said. "I believe in the Constitution. I believe ultimately that is where our rights come from that are granted by God, and that's where me and my family are sticking to.

Freed and wife Lindie have been married 23 years, and have five sons and daughters, ages 21 to 14. The family has traveled the world serving on mission work in the Philippines and Kenya.