Gluesenkamp Perez Holds Town Hall, Tours Lewis County Jail, Mill, and CTE Program

Yesterday, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-03) toured the Napavine High School career and technical education (CTE) program and Cascade Hardwood sawmill, held a roundtable with corrections officers at the Lewis County Jail, and took questions from constituents at a town hall in Chehalis.

“When the House isn’t in session in D.C., my priority is spending time in communities across Southwest Washington so that I can hold town halls and hear from you about what I should be working on in Congress and the issues facing our communities,” said Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez. “I’m glad I could meet some incredibly skilled students at Napavine High School and chat with folks working at Cascade Hardwood about what our forest product economies need to stay successful. I also spent time hearing how I can support local corrections officers who are core to upholding our system of laws but who don’t receive the respect merited by their difficult work.”

Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez visited Napavine High School’s CTE program, greenhouse, and Tiger Sandbox to hear from students and educators about their work and ways she can continue to support trades education in Congress.

The Congresswoman strongly supports making career and technical education courses more widely available to 6th graders statewide. In November, she wrote to the Washington state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to extend the use of federal Perkins funding for CTE courses beginning in 6th grade, rather than 7th grade.

The OSPI responded that this was a legislative priority for the state and helped ensure a bipartisan bill was introduced in the state legislature. This month, the bill passed the state legislature and was sent to the Governor for a signature.

Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez has introduced bipartisan legislation to expand the eligible uses of 529 education savings plans to include the tools necessary for technical careers, as well as bipartisan bills to improve awareness of trades pathways and support careers in construction.

Following the visit, Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez visited Cascade Hardwood’s sawmill in Chehalis to discuss the need to support working forests and local logging, trucking, and mills.

Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez cosponsored the bipartisan Future in Logging Careers Act to support family logging businesses. Earlier this year, her legislation was signed into law to improve opportunities for cross-boundary forest management.

Afterward, the Congresswoman toured the Lewis County Jail and held a roundtable with corrections officers, law enforcement, and treatment staff.  

The group discussed resources needed for officers and staff to be able to do their jobs safely and most effectively, as well as ways to support rehabilitation and substance use treatment for those incarcerated.

In January, Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez spoke with corrections officers at the Clark County Jail and heard about the underappreciated nature of the work of corrections officers.

Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez wrapped up the day by holding a town hall with a few hundred constituents in Chehalis. It marked her fifteenth town hall since taking office and third since the start of the 119th Congress, and she will be holding another this week in Clark County. 

She discussed her legislative and constituent services work since the start of the 119th Congress and took questions, including about the need to protect Medicare and Social Security, build more housing, and support the trades, farmers, and rural veterans.