Before You Vote, Ask Better Questions
Campaign season gives us plenty of answers. Maybe this is the time to ask better questions.
In the coming days, ballots will begin arriving in mailboxes across our community. And between now and Election Day, we will see plenty of campaign signs, mailers, advertisements, social media posts and endorsements telling us what, and sometimes who, deserves our vote.
I have a different suggestion:
Be curious.
Campaigns, by their nature, have to make complicated ideas simple. There isn’t much room on a yard sign for nuance. A mailer isn’t particularly well suited for explaining tradeoffs. And a 30-second advertisement certainly isn’t going to capture all of the consequences, intended or otherwise, of a public policy decision.
But those consequences matter.
Business owners understand this perhaps better than most. Decisions rarely happen in isolation. A change in wages interacts with the cost of insurance. A new fee arrives alongside higher utility costs. A permitting decision affects a project timeline, which affects financing, which affects whether an investment still makes sense. Housing affects our ability to attract employees. Transportation affects where people can work. Public safety affects whether customers feel comfortable visiting a business district.
None of these issues fits neatly on a campaign sign.
That is why I hope we use this election season to do more than decide which candidates or positions most closely match what we already believe. I hope we take the time to understand how candidates approach complicated problems, whether they are willing to listen to perspectives different from their own, and whether they have done the work to understand the communities they seek to represent.
For the Bellingham Regional Chamber of Commerce, that includes helping candidates and elected officials better understand our business community.
Sometimes that work gets confused with endorsement. They are not the same thing.
The Chamber can take a position on an issue or initiative when we believe doing so is appropriate. Historically, we have chosen not to make candidate endorsements. During this election season, we have not taken an official position on any ballot item.
But that does not mean we sit out the conversation.
Quite the opposite.
We want candidates to reach out to us. We want them to meet business owners. We want them to hear what employers are experiencing, understand what makes it difficult to hire or grow, and learn how decisions made by government ultimately show up on a balance sheet, in the price of a product, or in someone’s decision about whether to make their next investment here.
And we should be equally willing to listen.
Public officials face competing priorities. Good public policy requires understanding more than one perspective. If we expect our elected leaders to listen to the business community, we should also expect ourselves to understand the challenges they are trying to solve.
That is where better conversations begin.
In the weeks ahead, reasonable people will study the same candidates and the same issues and reach different conclusions. That’s democracy. Our goal as a Chamber isn’t to make every member reach the same conclusion. It is to encourage an informed business community, elevate the experiences of our members, and make sure the economic consequences of public decisions are understood.
So when your ballot arrives, take some time with it. Look beyond the signs and slogans.
Read. Listen. Be curious.
Be willing to challenge your first impression … and perhaps even your own assumptions.
Then vote.
And once the ballots are counted, stay involved.
Whoever is elected will soon move from campaigning to governing. The issues we debated during election season won’t disappear, and neither should our interest in them. The Chamber will continue building relationships, sharing the experiences of our members and advocating for a strong regional economy.
Casting a ballot is an important part of civic engagement. It isn’t the last part.
The campaign ends. The decisions don’t.
Guy Occhiogrosso
President/CEO
Posted: October 4, 2026