Favian Valencia grew up in the orchards of the Yakima Valley. Farmworker family, first in his family to finish high school, first to go to college. He drove himself to Gonzaga with a boom box, a pillow, and a paper map. He built his own law firm from day one, opened a cafe in Yakima with his mom and his three sisters, and spent four years living and working out of a van before he came home. Now he is running for Congress as an independent, in the most Republican district in the state.

In this conversation we go past the thirty second version and meet the whole person. Favian talks about the night that made him a civil rights attorney, what running a family business taught him that law school never did, and why four years on the road convinced him this valley is a hidden gem worth fighting for.

We also get into where he stands. The cut to Medicaid and what it means for the more than half of this district on Apple Health. Water, family farms, and the corporations buying up land and water rights. A legal path for the farm workers who have been here for years. Energy, nuclear power, and Hanford. His first bill, a plan to end federal income tax for anyone earning under sixty thousand dollars, and the hard questions that come with it. And the honest problem every independent has to answer: how do you get anything done in Washington with no party behind you.

I am not here to tell you how to vote. There are eleven people running to replace Dan Newhouse, and you owe it to yourself to look at all of them before your ballot is due on August 4. My job is to introduce you to the person behind the name and let you decide for yourself.