On Nov. 10, Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz announced she was dropping her bid for governor and would run to represent Washington’s 6th Congressional District in the House of Representatives. The announcement came with the endorsement of Rep. Derek Kilmer, who has held the seat for 10 years, one day after he announced he wouldn’t seek another term in 2024.

Kilmer, a Port Angeles native, secured frequent investments for projects in Grays Harbor County, and drove tens of millions of dollars in federal funding for the flood protection levee project in Aberdeen and Hoquiam. His predecessor, Norm Dicks, a Bremerton native who served the 6th District for three and a half decades, served on the powerful House Appropriations Committee for nearly the span of his career.

Of the six people who have represented the 6th district — which now includes the Olympic Peninsula, the Kitsap Peninsula, Grays Harbor County and parts of Tacoma — since 1930, none have called Grays Harbor County home, and all have been men.

That could change next year.

Franz, who bought a home in Seabrook last year, said her work as the state’s public lands commissioner has given her firsthand experience of the issues facing the Olympic Peninsula.

“It is a very diverse district,” Franz, a Democrat, said in an interview with The Daily World. “It’s diverse economically, it’s diverse by politics, it’s diverse by race, and it’s also diverse by its land and waters. I have experience in that diversity.”

In her childhood, Franz split time between Portland, where her father worked for the city, and her grandparents’ ranch near Tacoma. Later she raised three boys in Kitsap County and in 2008 served on the Bainbridge Island City Council. She said she moved out of the district for her children to attend high school in Seattle, where their father went to school.

After their graduation, Franz in 2022 bought and moved into a home in Seabrook. Part of that decision was due to her longtime friendship with Laura Roloff, who founded the idyllic beach town 20 years ago with her husband, Casey.

Although her work as state lands chief, which includes managing a nine-month fire season takes her to every corner of Washington, the Seabrook house is Franz’s home base, she said.

“This is a district that is very, very familiar to me, not only personally and where my family is from originally when they came to Washington state in 1938, and where I raised my family, but also professionally,” she said.

Democrats have held control of the district for nearly 60 years. Since Franz announced her pivot away from the governor’s race last month, two other democrats have joined the 6th District race: Emily Randall, a state senator who lives in Bremerton, and Kate Dean, a Jefferson County Commissioner. Most recently, Drew MacEwen, a Republican state senator from Shelton, announced his candidacy.

Franz put her hat in the ring for governor in May and left the race trailing in campaign contributions. She said she sees an opportunity to make a bigger impact at the federal level.

In addition to support from the former and outgoing representatives of the district, her young campaign gained endorsements from local politicians, including two former state legislators of the 19th District, Brian Blake and Dean Takko, state Rep. Mike Chapman of the 24th District, Aberdeen Mayor Pete Schave, Elma City Councilor Mike Cooper and Grays Harbor County Commissioner Vickie Raines.

“I’m very grateful to see someone running for the 6th Congressional District that has those ties” to Grays Harbor, Raines said. “Oftentimes, we feel as though we are left out of things when it comes to resources. Derek Kilmer’s been very good, and Norm Dicks before him was very good, but no one understands Grays Harbor better than someone who has lived in Grays Harbor.”

As head of the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, Franz pushed the Legislature for more investments in the state’s wildfire fighting resources, but she also pointed to the agency’s work on tsunami and earthquake preparedness, including updating maps and models for inundation zones. Franz said she was part of the lobbying effort that secured $100 million to begin seismically retrofitting schools on the Washington coast and said she would work toward similar investments if elected to Congress.

“This crisis is already here,” Franz said, referring to the potential for a major earthquake and tsunami event. “It’s not a matter of if, it’s just a matter of when. We are already in that zone of time where a major earthquake event is expected, and we are so far behind making the investments for those communities to be safe and resilient.”

Citing response to floods and fires, Franz said that “probably no other leader has been on the front lines of a rapidly changing climate.”

She listed another issue as her top priority.

“We have a housing crisis,” Franz said. “Too often we think that housing crisis is one that is in our urban areas like Tacoma and Olympia, but it is very much in our rural areas.”

“In Congress, I would make this my number-one focus, to get more investments into this community for housing,” she added, citing the need for warming shelters, workforce housing and rentals.

Franz said the DNR owns thousands of acres of property zoned residential, and is developing a workforce housing project in Forks, and exploring a potential project in Aberdeen.

Hand-in-hand with the housing struggles of the Peninsula is the need for an economic boost. Franz said she sees a future in the port, maritime and mass timber industries, referencing a new plant in Port Angeles that produces biochar, a wood product touted for its carbon sequestration and job creation capabilities.

If she does reach the House of Representatives next fall, Franz will join a body recently plagued by a lack of leadership and partisan divides.

“All of my work has been working to bridge the divide between Republicans and Democrats, to bridge the divide between urban and rural,” Franz said, adding, “The status quo in government, the status quo in Washington state, the status quo in Washington, D.C., it’s not working when we spend so much time in political jabs or attack ads, versus getting on the ground and listening from the community, listening to the people who are on the front lines.”

Contact reporter Clayton Franke at 406-552-3917 or clayton.franke@thedailyworld.com.