NEWS GLEAMS | Vice Presidential Debate Recap; Washington State Ferries Increase Prices

by Vee Hua 華婷婷

Hosted by CBS, a 90-minute debate took place on the evening of Oct. 1 between vice presidential candidates — Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City. As with the presidential debate between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris last month, the vice presidential candidates did not have a live audience.

The debate started off on shaky footing for both candidates, as the moderators launched into an unconventional question without offering the candidates time for introductions. Walz was the first to be asked, “If you were the last one in the situation room, would you support or oppose a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran?” and responded by completely dodging the question, instead condemning Hamas, highlighting the need to lower high numbers of civilian deaths in Gaza, and saying that Trump was unfit for office.

Vance did eventually answer the question after spending half of his time offering a background on his personal life. In his answer, he stressed that “Donald Trump actually delivered stability in the world by establishing effective deterrence,” and said it was ultimately up to Israel to decide if it wanted to launch a strike against Iran.

The debate continued with questions about a number of additional issues, including the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in the Southeast, climate change, immigration, gun control, housing, and a safe transfer of power after the November elections. The discussion around the peaceful transfer of power was a notable moment, after moderators brought up that Trump and his administration launched 62 lawsuits to challenge the last election, and ultimately lost every case. They also mentioned that Vance had said he would not have certified the election results and asked him, “Would you again choose to seek to challenge this year’s election results, even if every governor certifies the results?”

Vance said they were focused on the future, and that such issues should be debated “peacefully in the public square,” because on Jan. 20, Joe Biden became the president and Trump left the office, thus displaying the peaceful transfer of power. Walz raised the violence of the events of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and accused the Republicans of “revisionist history.” He directly questioned Vance, “Did he lose the 2020 election?” Vance, in response, did not answer the question directly and instead said, “Tim, I am focused on the future.”

The vice presidential candidates often stressed the differences between them by putting the blame on the presidential candidates rather than on one another. As it related to climate change, Vance claimed the Biden–Harris administration did not do enough to invest in clean energy within the United States and that they purchased green energy components in China, while Walz rebutted by saying domestic production of natural gas and oil were at an all-time high and that the Inflation Reduction Act invested a significant amount of money into green energy technologies.

When discussing immigration, the moderators asked Vance about a Republican proposal to conduct mass deportations using the U.S. military or to separate parents at the border. Vance said it was first necessary to “stop the bleeding” by reimplementing Trump’s border control policies and building the border wall so the U.S. could prohibit “illegal aliens” who were undercutting American jobs and stop fentanyl from entering, as “Kamala Harris let in fentanyl into our communities at record levels.”

Walz acknowledged that the opioid epidemic was real, but said that “the last 12 months saw the largest decrease in opioid deaths in our nation’s history,” then returned to oft-repeated talking points about how Sen. Harris was the only candidate in the race who has prosecuted transnational gangs as a former prosecutor. Similar to Harris during the presidential debate, he also raised a bipartisan border control bill that was submitted earlier this year but ultimately did not pass Congress after Trump urged Republican representatives not to vote for the bill, as it would potentially harm his chances to be elected.

Eventually, this led Vance to say to Walz, “I agree with you. I think you want to solve this problem [of immigration], but Kamala Harris doesn’t.” This was a precursor to a trend that would happen throughout the remainder of the debate, when both vice presidential candidates seemed to make an effort to bring the other into the conversation in a bridge-building way — or at least to lay the foundation for potential constructive conversation.

Another such moment happened when they were discussing school shootings; both were concerned from the perspective of being parents. Though Vance blamed a lot of gun problems on “illegal aliens” and illegally obtained weapons, he offered a bit of sympathy upon the discovery that Walz’s 17-year-old son had witnessed a shooting personally while at a community center.

Both ultimately agreed that times had changed and that substantial bipartisan gun control reform needed to be undertaken, especially as it affects youth and schools, although they disagreed on the route forward. Vance blamed the country’s mental health crisis and gun violence in big cities, noting that law enforcement needed to be empowered to fix the problem. Walz noted that mental health was important but need not be stigmatized or scapegoated, and “sometimes, it just is the guns.”

Watch the entire debate in the video embedded above or via the CBS YouTube channel.

Washington State Ferries (WSF) increased its prices by 4.25% starting Sept. 30. The increase was originally approved in August 2023 and mandated that $419 million must be raised by passenger fares. Those numbers comprise about 57% of the operating costs, with the remainder coming from other sources. The target amount of $419 million requires that passenger fares must increase to make up for any lost revenue when ridership decreases. A decrease in ridership first began during the COVID-19 pandemic and has remained low, resulting in a number of ferry cancellations, especially on less-popular routes.

“Lawmakers calculated that a 4% fare increase was needed to meet their target,” reported The Seattle Times. “The state transportation commission, the state body tasked with setting fares, ended up raising them by 4.25% two years in a row to offset a two-year, temporary discount to the multi-ride passes that already offer reduced prices.”

Ferry prices will now be $10.25 for a single-passenger ticket from downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island, as opposed to the previous $9.85. For the same route, the price of a regular car and driver will increase from $17.90 to $18.65.

CAIR-WA has released the Washington Muslim Survey, which was conducted throughout April 2024 and surveyed 684 Muslims regarding their demographics, experiences with discrimination, and policy engagement. This is the first such survey to be conducted in Washington State.

Demographically, 44.3% of respondents were well-established immigrants, 23% were second-generation Americans, 8% were newly arrived immigrants, 7% were third-generation Americans, 2% were displaced, and 18% were none of the above. The majority were South Asian, at 28.9%; 17.1% were Arab, Middle Eastern, or West Asian; 9.4% were Southeast Asian; 8.2% were multiracial; and 5.7% were East African.

CAIR-WA found that 91.7% of survey respondents had experienced discrimination, and 82.5% had experienced it just within the past year. In the course of the past year, 30.6% have felt unsafe because of personal characteristics, including race, religion, ethnicity, or immigration status, at least a few times a year, 20.7% had felt that way less than once a year, 16% had felt that way a few times a month, and 14.2% never felt that way.

“This data starkly reveals a reality that we’ve sensed for years: anti-Muslim discrimination in Washington state is a crisis,” said Sumayyah Waheed, a CAIR-WA board member, in the press release. “It’s a travesty that over 90% of Muslims in Washington state have experienced bias or discrimination. From workplaces to schools to law enforcement, we have much work to do to eradicate bias and discrimination.”

While the majority of survey respondents, at 37.7%, did not have experiences interacting with law enforcement, 27.2% felt unfairly stopped, searched, or questioned, and 25.6% felt that law enforcement treated them differently from those around them. On the positive side, 18.6% felt safe and supported in their Muslim identity.

Similarly, 81.8% felt supported in their Muslim identity through friends and family, 74.8% through their masjid, 54.8% by non-Muslim friends and family, 48.5% through Muslim groups, and 44.7% at their workplace.

CAIR-WA will be hosting its 2024 banquet from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19, at MAPS Redmond. The survey can be read in its entirety on CAIR-WA’s website.

Vee Hua 華婷婷 (they/them) is a writer, filmmaker, and organizer with semi-nomadic tendencies. Much of their work unifies their metaphysical interests with their belief that art can positively transform the self and society. They are the editor-in-chief of REDEFINE, a long-time member of the Seattle Arts Commission, and a film educator at the interdisciplinary community hub, Northwest Film Forum, where they previously served as executive director and played a key role in making the space more welcoming and accessible for diverse audiences. After a recent stint as the interim managing editor at South Seattle Emerald, they are moving into production on their feature film, Reckless Spirits, which is a metaphysical, multilingual POC buddy comedy. They have a master’s in Tribal Resource and Environmental Stewardship under the American Indian Studies Department at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.

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