Full slate of candidates in running for 42nd district House seats

The 42nd Legislative District’s two representative seats are up in the August primary elections, and with a full slate of candidates for both Position 1 and Position 2, races look like they’ll have a competitive edge.

District 42 – Position 1

First-term state representative Alicia Rule (D-Blaine) is the 42nd district’s Position 1 incumbent. Rule is being challenged by Republicans Kamal Bhachu and Tawsha Thompson.

Kamal Bhachu

Bhachu is a Blaine resident who ran for Whatcom County Council’s at-large position last November, losing to incumbent Barry Buchanan with 45.4 percent of voters in support. Bhachu immigrated from Punjab, India as a teenager and works at Lynden Sheet Metal. 

If elected, Bhachu said he wants to make sure Whatcom’s minority communities are being heard, including the East Indian Punjabi, Russian, Ukrainian and Hispanic communities. His top priorities would also include bringing jobs to Whatcom County, creating a safer community, advocating for vocational education through trade schools such as Bellingham Technical College, and helping county residents impacted by the November floods.

“I bring a different perspective from being a minority because I wasn’t born in the U.S. and I believe I can relate to people who aren’t mainstream folks, being the white community,” he said. “I think I can be a liaison to listen to concerns from minorities and bring them to the mainstream community.”

Alicia Rule

Representative Rule (D-Blaine) is a first-term 42nd district representative who served on Blaine City Council from 2018 to 2020.

“These are tough times. The cost of living has skyrocketed, the stress on families is the highest I’ve seen in my lifetime, we have safety issues that need to be addressed and a whole lot of folks are dealing with mental illness,” she said. “I’m doing work on behalf of Whatcom County and I look forward to doing it as long as folks would like me to be there.”

Rule has five bills alive in Olympia, including one that would create grant programs for small businesses recovering from natural disasters and another that would require every public school to have one nurse and one counselor.

A five-generation Whatcom County resident, Rule has worked as a psychotherapist and small business owner in the area. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington and a master’s degree from San Diego State University. She served as president of Blaine Downtown Alliance.

Tawsha Thompson

Thompson is a Lynden resident and former police officer. Thompson was one of three candidates Whatcom County Council decided between when appointing the 42nd district’s senator.

Thompson grew up on a Lynden dairy farm and spent nearly 25 years at Bellingham Police Department, where she worked as a police sergeant in charge of the special victims unit. She served as a Bellingham representative for the Washington council of police and sheriffs (WACOPS), a lobbying group that works with state legislators in Olympia.

“I caught the bug and was like, ‘Where else can I serve my community in a different way than law enforcement?’” Thompson said. “The doors opened for me and I’m going to walk through them.”

Thompson’s top priorities include public safety, making sure farmers feel supported and improving flood management.

Thompson said she was relieved of her police duties in December after being unable to attain a vaccine exemption as she waited for the U.S. Federal Drug Administration to approve the vaccine she wanted.

District 42 – Position 2

The 42nd district’s Position 2 two-term incumbent Sharon Shewmake (D-Bellingham) is in the running for the district’s senate seat, leaving the House’s Position 2. Republicans Kyle Christensen, of Sumas, and Dan Johnson, of Laurel, have joined the race for the Position 2 seat after Richard May, a Blaine Democrat, and Joe Timmons, a Bellingham Democrat filed in 2021 to run for the position.

Kyle Christensen

Christensen served as mayor of Sumas during the November floods and now works as Whatcom County recovery manager for the flood disaster. 

“I felt like there was more that I could do,” he said. “With my four years as mayor, I saw the impact I was able to make and wanted to take that experience to the state level.”

Christensen said his top priority is to help with the housing crisis and homelessness issues. He said he would also like for people to be able to make their choice with vaccine mandates.

“I want to the government to protect our liberties and freedoms so we can live our lives in a way we want when it comes down to freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of making decisions for ourselves.”

Raised on a dairy farm, Christensen attended community college and worked as a small business owner. He also worked as a sheriff’s deputy in Umatilla, Oregon and has spent over 25 years as a volunteer firefighter.

Dan Johnson

Laurel resident Dan Johnson is running as a Republican to be a 42nd district representative. Johnson owned a towing company for 17 years and spent four years in the U.S. Marine Corps before being honorably discharged. Johnson runs The Hook News, an online podcast where he discusses local and state events.

“I’m running because I feel there’s a lack of leadership in Olympia and I want to be part of a solution to change that,” he said.

If elected, Johnson said his top priorities would be schools, small businesses, working on police reform and the county’s river and forest management. Johnson would like to see more control brought back to school districts and prioritize people over fish when looking at Nooksack River flood management.

With the help of late senator Doug Ericksen in 2011, Johnson said he wrote Hailey’s Law, which required law enforcement to impound a drunk driver’s vehicle for 12 hours to allow the driver to sober up. Johnson’s towing company responded to Hailey’s car accident, a Whatcom County woman whom the law is named after.