Strength through Solidarity!
Elect William Dehnel for Legislative District 2
William is one of us, a Transit Worker, Union Steward, father, and grandfather who lives and works in LD 2. He’s not running to build a political career. He’s running because the work isn’t done.
As a Transit Operator, Union Shop Steward, and LGBTQ+ advocate representing southern Pierce County, communities like Yelm, Lacey, and Roy, William knows what it means to fight for the people who show up every day, do the work, and still get left behind. Now he’s bringing that fight to Olympia.
Meet William
I’m not a career politician. I drive buses. I dispatch routes. I’ve been showing up to work at Pierce Transit since 2016, first as a Transit Operator, now as a Supervisor and Dispatcher.
I’m a Union Shop Steward, a labor organizer, and an LGBTQ+ person who’s spent years fighting for the people I work alongside, at the bargaining table and in the streets. I helped found the Transit Togetherness Pride Caucus of ATU Local 758, because fighting for workers means fighting for all workers, no exceptions.
I’m married to Brandi. We’re parents to Erica, Lucy, and Benjamin, and proud grandparents to Carter. This district is my home. Your roads are my roads. Your schools are where kids like mine grew up. Your doctor’s office, or the lack of one nearby, is something I worry about too.
I’m running because LD 2 deserves a representative who answers to working families, not lobbyists. Not party insiders. You.
Washington’s constitution calls it the state’s paramount duty, but in LD 2, our schools are stretched thin. Overcrowded classrooms. Teachers working second jobs. Budget cuts hitting rural districts hardest.
I’ll fight in Olympia to fully fund special education, support our teachers, protect early learning, and make sure every student in LD 2 has a safe place to learn and grow.
Washington has the second most regressive tax system in the country, meaning a working family in LD 2 pays a larger share of their income in taxes than a millionaire does. I’ve watched neighbors in Clearwood lose homes they’ve owned for decades because property taxes keep climbing on a fixed income.
That’s not fair. I’ll go to Olympia and fight for a tax system that asks more of those who have more, and gives working families and retirees the relief they’ve earned.
LD 2 families are driving on roads that haven’t been properly maintained in years. Students are trying to learn from home without a reliable internet connection. Our bridges are aging, our drainage systems weren’t built for the storms we’re getting, and too many corners of this district still feel like an afterthought in Olympia.
Rural communities like ours don’t lack ambition, we lack investment. I’ll fight to fund the roads, bridges, broadband, and flood resilience our community needs to grow and thrive. Infrastructure isn’t just concrete and cable. It’s the foundation everything else is built on.
In LD 2, getting care isn’t just about cost, it’s about distance, wait times, and a system that wasn’t built with rural communities in mind. My wife has struggled to access mental health care right here in our own community. I know what it feels like to watch someone you love hit a wall that shouldn’t exist.
Families across this district face the same thing every day, delayed care, providers who aren’t taking new patients, and emergency response times that are far too long.
I’ll go to Olympia and fight for healthcare that actually shows up for LD 2.
LGBTQ+ families in LD 2 are facing real threats right now, to their healthcare, their kids’ right to learn in a safe school, and their basic dignity in the workplace. As an LGBTQ+ person myself, I know this isn’t abstract. These are people I know. People I am.
This November, Washington voters will decide on two dangerous ballot initiatives, IL-0026-001, which would strip anti-harassment protections for Trans and marginalized kids in our public schools and restore rules that could force the outing of LGBTQ+ students, and IL-0026-638, which would ban Trans girls from school sports and require invasive medical examinations of girls as young as 11. I oppose both, full stop.
Washington needs to hold the line, and I’ll go to Olympia to do exactly that. No legislation that targets LGBTQ+ people will get my vote. Ever.