Renee Hernandez Greenfield has spent more than two decades working in early childhood education, family services, child welfare, and disability services. Now she wants to take what she has learned about how government programs work and how they sometimes don’t to Olympia.
Hernandez Greenfield, a Democrat and first-time candidate, is running for state representative in the 26th Legislative District, Pos. 2, against Republican Katy Cornell.
Her résumé includes administering Head Start and ECEAP education programs, managing licensed child care, working in child welfare for a local tribe, and teaching early childhood education with an emphasis on special needs. She has also worked directly with children and adults with disabilities.
She currently works at Holly Ridge Center and has taught at Tacoma Community College. She holds a master’s degree in psychology and a bachelor’s degree in history.
Hernandez Greenfield said her work history has given her something she considers particularly valuable for a legislator. She has first-hand experience with the consequences of government decisions once they leave Olympia.
She has spent much of her career working one-on-one with families, including in their homes, helping them navigate systems and advocating for necessary services.
“We need to be in the room where these decisions are made,” she said.
Hernandez Greenfield repeatedly returned to the idea of creating “systems that work for people.”
For her, a system is often something as familiar as child care. The state may create a subsidy designed to make child care more affordable for working families, but the program fails if reimbursement rates are too low for providers to participate or there aren’t enough available child care slots. Although the intentions were good, the execution failed.
“There’s often a disconnect” between how programs are funded and how they actually operate, she said.
She sees the same problem across our state government: A program can exist, money can be appropriated, and lawmakers may consider their work finished. Yet the people who are supposed to benefit may still struggle to access the program.
Her experience as a social worker helped shape that view.
Hernandez Greenfield recalled managing a caseload of 23 during her time working in tribal child welfare, while social workers funded by the state often carried more than 50. The question for lawmakers, she said, should not simply be whether a program has been funded, but whether it has enough staff, training, and resources to do what it was created to do.
“Not every dollar the state spends is spent well,” she said.
If elected, Hernandez Greenfield said her priorities would include affordability, infrastructure, education, and workforce development. Transportation is part of affordability, she said. Unreliable roads and bridges cost people time and money and make it more difficult for businesses to move goods.
Housing fits into the same broader system, she said. People should be able to afford to live in the communities where they work. At the same time, the communities need infrastructure capable of supporting new housing and a permitting process that allows it to be built.
Hernandez Greenfield said she would bring a similar problem-solving approach to working with Republicans in a closely divided district. Her strategy starts with being “curious,” she said; asking what problem another legislator is trying to solve before arguing over the solution.
“Just because we believe different things, it doesn’t mean we don’t both think something needs to be done,” she said.
That also applies to representing the different communities within the 26th Legislative District.
Hernandez Greenfield said she has attended meetings and talked with community and business leaders on the Key Peninsula to better understand its needs. She said lawmakers have a responsibility to listen to people who live in communities different from their own rather than assuming a solution that works in a suburban area will translate to a rural one.
Her campaign faced its own test of listening during the primary.
A mail piece sent by the Hernandez Greenfield campaign criticized fellow Democrat Tedd Wetherbee over his past political contributions. The piece drew criticism from some Democratic voters who considered it unusually negative for a primary between two members of the same party.
Hernandez Greenfield said voters had told her they wanted candidates to be direct, but she also heard from people unhappy with the mailer.
She said she personally responded to calls and emails about it and “took their feedback to heart.”
“You must be able to accept people’s insight and guidance,” she said.
It is a lesson that fits the argument Hernandez Greenfield makes for her candidacy.
Voters she met during the primary talked about rising costs, infrastructure, and frustration over what they receive from government in exchange for what they pay.
Her answer is not necessarily another program. It is making sure the programs and public institutions already intended to serve people actually do.
“People want to be heard,” Hernandez Greenfield said. “They want results that directly affect them.”
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