Military controversies surround Semi Bird's campaign as primaries loom

SPOKANE, Wash. - Monday marks eight days away from the primary election in Washington.

Voters will decide which candidates will remain on the ballot for November's general election. This includes candidates to be Washington's next governor.

One of the candidates near the forefront of this race is Semi Bird.

It's been nearly 40 years since Washington has had a Republican governor. Bird hopes to break that streak.

He is campaigning on familiar talking points for Washington voters like homelessness, housing affordability and crime. Bird said he has plans to audit every department in the state to see exactly how the state's $72 billion budget is being spent - then assess cuts from there.

His solution for the surging drug use: up the ante on drug possession laws.

"Fentanyl, methamphetamines, should be a class-A felony. It should be a mandatory minimum prison sentence," said Bird.

He also said he blames the presence of three cartels for the surging number of drugs and overdoses the past few years and explained that is who these harsher punishments are geared towards.

In the midst of Bird's campaign, he's been dealing with recent controversy regarding his time in the military.

A letter from 2009 from Bird's superior in the military shows Bird was reprimanded for submitting a false performance evaluation to get a promotion. It also accused him of stolen valor.

"What we did was, we brought out the evidence that actually disproved the negative statements or defamatory statements that were brought out," Bird said in response to 4 News Now.

The Washington GOP , however, said Bird's written response to that memo was: "My actions constitute nothing less than a fraud against the United States Army..."

The Washington GOP also mentioned that the reprimanded memo did not result in any official punishment or punitive action by the military.

Bird was also ousted from his position on the Richland School Board last year for voting in favor of violating the state's mask requirement in February of 2022.

COPYRIGHT 2024 BY KXLY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.