> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.rangemedia.co/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # RANGE asked politicians questions — AI answered - URL: https://www.rangemedia.co/spokane-politicians-use-ai/ - Published: 2026-09-29T23:24:03.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-29T23:57:35.000Z - Description: Politicians have fallen in love with their new ghostwriter: ChatGPT - Author: Daniel Walters - Tags: Contains Artifical Ingredients 🤖 This story is the second in a series we're calling \*CONTAINS ARTIFICIAL INGREDIENTS. For more on the series, click [here](https://www.rangemedia.co/contains-artificial-ingredients). Before the primary election in August, RANGE posed the candidates for the open seat in Washington’s Third Legislative District with a challenge: answer [these](https://www.rangemedia.co/12-questions-3rd-ld-elections-2026/) 12 questions, each with 200 words or less. The task was as much a test of work ethic as it was about policy: giving 12 thoughtful answers can take hours out of a candidate’s busy schedule. It was a preview for how much time they would take to address constituent concerns, for how responsive they would be to the press. To their credit, all four of the candidates filled out their responses, and even came in under word count. None of them had seen each other’s responses before submitting. And yet: many of their answers were strangely similar to each other. Not just the content, but the writing style. *"Washington’s tax system leans hardest on working people…"* Democratic candidate Luc Jasmin II began his answer on a question about the state's budget gap. *"Washington's tax system asks too much of working families…"* Democratic candidate Donovan DeLeon began in his answer. How do they feel about tax breaks for data centers? *“I would support rolling back tax preferences for large data centers,”* DeLeon wrote before citing concerns about energy and water consumption in his next sentence. “*I would roll back special tax exemptions for data centers,”* Republican candidate Natalie Poulson wrote, before citing concerns about energy and water consumption in her next sentence. If elected, would they use legislative privilege to dodge public records requests? *“No. I believe the public has a right to transparency and accountability from elected officials*,” Democratic candidate Pam Kohlmeier started, arguing that “may help regain the public's trust.” *“No. I believe government works best when it is transparent and accountable to the people it serves*,” DeLeon started, arguing that “strengthens public trust.” In theory, all these similarities could have just been a fascinating convergence of parallel thinking, a fluke amassment of four-way political cliché. But [Pangram](https://www.pangram.com/?ref=rangemedia.co), the best AI detection service on the market, offered another possibility: artificial intelligence. According to Pangram, Kohlmeier’s answers to our [questionnaire](https://www.rangemedia.co/12-questions-3rd-ld-elections-2026/) showed more than two-thirds of her answers exhibited heavy signs of AI-written prose — and Pangram concluded that the levels of AI use for the other three candidates in her race were even higher. Kohlmeier, for her part, acknowledged that she’d used ChatGPT at times when responding to RANGE’s questions, including revising some answers and by using the AI tool to look at the pros and cons for others. RANGE asked if she was aware of others using AI for campaigning. “Oh my god, yes,” Kohlmeier said. “Oh my.” This month, RANGE sent roughly a million words, including a slew of campaign statements, through Pangram. The results show that in the span of a little over two years, AI has begun to eat into our political rhetoric. It’s dominating campaign sites, seeping into candidate announcements and infecting social media. Pangram detected AI writing cropping up in other RANGE questionnaires for other candidates in other races, like Supreme Court Justice candidate Sharonda [Amamilo](https://www.rangemedia.co/wa-supreme-court-candidates-questionnaire-election-2026/). Pangram concluded that Michael Cathcart [used](https://www.pangram.com/history/357e1f22-08bc-404e-8234-14cea70b5c0d?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) AI for about a third of the [text](https://www.rangemedia.co/spokane-county-auditor-questionnaire-election-2026/) he submitted, and that Callie Gee, his opponent, used AI for [all](https://www.pangram.com/history/6097fd09-a57d-4055-830b-1543e58f7c85?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) of hers. More limited signs of AI use were speckled throughout parts of answers from both 5th District Congressional candidate Carmela [Conroy](https://www.pangram.com/history/dc18bcff-87e8-4c18-ac55-2ea56de96465?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) and her opponent Michael [Baumgartner](https://www.pangram.com/history/6eee85ee-3f58-41d8-8f4e-04544d126f76?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co). And when we expanded the scope of our tests beyond the RANGE questionnaire, we found credible signs of AI-generated writing popping up everywhere: State Legislative District 6 candidate Isaiah Paine’s [op-ed](https://www.pangram.com/history/2e9a6a90-2e9a-425d-a41f-106fd61ab4a5?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) on fire recovery. [Two](https://www.pangram.com/history/46656d81-a98c-4220-8773-ca4873c2f65e?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) [columns](https://www.pangram.com/history/8af87ed1-3701-4423-b232-1b3ecd507267?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) from State Rep. Mike Volz. Select Facebook posts by 6th State Legislative District candidate Jonathan Bingle. [Half](https://www.pangram.com/history/0de1f57d-dcf4-4443-b641-0fd05bab6b84?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) of Cathcart’s fiery 10-page PDF blasting the Spokane County Republican Party’s [internal machinations](https://www.rangemedia.co/cathcart-whitaker-auditor-race-behind-the-scenes/). The vast majority of the [text](https://www.pangram.com/history/03747cb3-e5b0-4160-9391-2343635e2a76?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) of the Spokane County Republican Party’s [2026 resolutions](https://www.rangemedia.co/spokane-gop-deeply-divided/). Many, many, many campaign sites. Few politicians disclose using AI. But an increasing number are secretly using it. “This is a tool that is so powerful, and so tantalizing to use that there will be people who use it no matter what,” said Jack Gregory, a treasurer for multiple local Democratic campaigns. It’s a warning to every journalist willing to accept an email answer from a politician — it used to be that reporters didn’t know if it was a candidate responding in writing or a PR flack. Now, they don’t know if the response is even human. ### The Slippery Slop Slope As an AI detector, Pangram isn’t to be underestimated. When it comes to longer texts, the tool almost never mistakes fully human writing for AI writing. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. It can’t tell whether a politician had the AI come up with the ideas or just significantly altered the style of the prose. Unsurprisingly, nobody told RANGE that they had AI do *all* their thinking for them. Plus, if a chunk of text is very, very short, then it can become vulnerable to being swung one way or another by small signals, including how the text is formatted. But RANGE didn’t just rely on a flag from a single questionnaire answer: Almost without fail, if Pangram flagged a candidate using AI in one place, we uncovered signs of them using it in plenty of others. Pangram didn’t just flag Amamilo, the supreme court candidate, as using AI in responding to RANGE’s questionnaire, it also concluded she’d used AI in answering questions from the [Washington State Standard](https://washingtonstatestandard.com/voter-guides/contests/washington-supreme-court-5-2026-primary/?ref=rangemedia.co), [Ballotpedia](https://ballotpedia.org/Sharonda%5FAmamilo?ref=rangemedia.co) and [Northwest Progressives](https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2026/07/meet-the-2026-candidates-for-the-washington-supreme-court-position-5-sharonda-amamilo.html?ref=rangemedia.co). Or check her LinkedIn: scroll past her Pangram-flagged LinkedIn post about the Johnny Cash museum “reinforced an enduring lesson: justice is strongest when responsibility is joined with humanity” and her Pangram-flagged Memorial Day message about freedom not being free, and eventually you’ll get to a post showing off her certification in ChatGPT training from Coursiv, a gamified app like Duolingo, but for AI. “I just completed the \*Introduction to AI Prompts\* training, and it was an incredible experience,” the February 2025 post read. She was endorsed by the *Seattle Times*, but was defeated in the primary. So far, AI writing hasn’t translated into obvious examples of persuasion. The people who used AI to help them write columns supporting a Liberty Lake town square [upgrade](https://www.pangram.com/history/c57d9850-24e3-4027-bc60-66b1643cf250?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co), opposing the Spokane transit [levy](https://www.pangram.com/history/4d5b9cf6-fbc0-4964-b5d3-4fbfd00f4c58?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co), and opposing a constitutional amendment [concerning](https://www.pangram.com/history/c57d9850-24e3-4027-bc60-66b1643cf250?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) long-term care funding all suffered defeat at the ballot box. Before being defeated by Jasmin and Poulson in the primary, DeLeon posted an illustration labeled “Artist’s Recreation of a Spokane Childhood” of a kid feeding garbage to the garbage-eating goat statue in Riverfront Park. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/35/e7/35e7a6d5-1d7d-405c-9ee3-dce92dfd190f/content/images/2026/09/In-Line-Art-Template-Story-De-Leon.jpg) **Fun new game: spot the AI hallucinations.* (Art by the RANGE team) Weirdness in the image abounded: The goat statue and the Clocktower are in the wrong locations, the stone backdrop where the real Garbage Goat stands has been removed, a fictional bridge has been inserted, and a beer can on the ground is covered in an unreadable alien script not associated with any known adult beverage brands. The artist wasn’t named. The artist didn’t exist. The OpenAI watermark shows that it was completely AI-generated. The artistic erasure was literal: DeLeon’s version removed the writing on the plaque crediting the sculpture to an actual human artist, Sister Paula Turnbull, replacing it with an inscription for the non-existent business, “Paper. Foundries Incorporated." Other times, the AI use is much more subtle. On Jasmin’s website, Pangram flagged the “In Luc’s Own Words,” section, ironically, as having a [significant amount](https://www.pangram.com/history/668dbbf8-a39d-4954-8d6f-355065f6e5b5?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) of AI-writing — though the tool’s confidence is more limited for shorter passages like those. “I would argue they are my words, if I’m the one feeding it,” Jasmin said of using AI writing assistance. In his view, improving the prose and checking for grammar was markedly different than simply saying, “Hey, write me this.” Yet it’s not clear how closely some candidates are even reading the text published under their own name. On one page of Poulson’s website, directly under her "plan for Washington State Representative," is a [paragraph](https://friendsofnatalie.com/post/Standing-against-agressive-taxes?ref=rangemedia.co) explaining that, "one of the most important aspects of starting a blog is establishing a connection with your potential customers." The paragraph appears to be left over from the default blog post template used by GoHighLevel, a Texas-based [AI-powered marketing firm](https://help.gohighlevel.com/support/solutions/articles/155000007201-create-blog-posts-with-ai?ref=rangemedia.co) — and it’s some of the only paragraphs on the page that Pangram *didn’t* conclude [showed](https://www.pangram.com/history/1da2e3bc-9a25-4004-ac5a-279d482b8c48?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) major signs of AI writing. Poulson said she hired someone to design her website, and didn’t think to ask him about using AI or not. But even though she told RANGE her campaign team made a decision not to use AI for their social media, Pangram flagged most of her posts on Facebook as [AI-generated](https://www.pangram.com/history/625e0042-8798-4076-bf94-8a9792321742?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co). Poulson said she uses ChatGPT for editing. “As a teacher, I’ve always ran everything I’ve ever written through someone,” she said. But for her 6th-grade students, she said, she has gone back to pencil and paper. “To get authentic answers I much prefer a journal and a pencil to a computer,” Poulson said. Whether you’re a student or a politician, the slope to slop is a slippery one. Gregory, the treasurer for several Democratic campaigns, was the campaign manager for Aaron Croft, a candidate who narrowly missed out on the top two spots in the primary against Bingle. At first, he said they just used Claude, an AI tool, to do some initial research, like combing through Bingle’s voting history. But when it came time to weigh in on issues that Croft was less familiar with, he said, they sometimes would use AI to whip up language that would connect with voters. "We knew what we wanted to say, but didn't want it to come across unprofessional," Gregory said. “What a lot of campaigns will do is they will take ideas that they want to bring to the general audience, and they will funnel it through AI.” Instead of paying $5,000 a month for some professional consultant, he said, the thinking goes, “why not just use Claude, which is like $20 a month, and get a very nice, well-refined message that connects with people much more than just some someone out in Seattle telling Spokaneites what they should think.” After all, the $5,000 a month consultant might be using ChatGPT to write the same thing anyway. Jeff Beaulac, a campaign consultant in Pierce County, said that some of the newer consultant firms appear to be using programs like ChatGPT to design campaign literature and websites "and as far as I know they aren't telling the candidate." Sometimes the candidates are the last to know. Kaylee Peterson, a perennial Democratic candidate for Idaho’s 1st Congressional District, was concerned with the way that artificial intelligence is distorting the way that people process information. “Generations now, they're working longer than ever. They have less time. And so AI is such an easy resource to turn to,” she told RANGE. “But the fact is, it's not looking to be accurate... it's looking to confirm whoever it’s talking to.” If there’s anyone who doesn’t need AI to write, it’s Peterson. When it comes to persuasive rhetoric, she’s an old pro. She was managing a state representative campaign when she was 19, and has nine national titles in college speech and debate. And yet: Peterson’s [column](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/aug/06/kaylee-peterson-when-the-wind-picks-up-what-decade/?fbclid=IwY2xjawUgYixwZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMVZ1SjRQZlZkNXd5QzNzRzhzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeUa8D05FjABlNZjhuyGpxfOGxdmcYPko91QYYPyUW%5F%5Fka9alTVyxd7wcnqbc%5Faem%5FtvFyK0oh5EaDwpUc0KlkYQ&ref=rangemedia.co) in the *Spokesman-Review* about the impact of firefighter staffing shortages was flagged as [fully ridden](https://www.pangram.com/history/222b4b0f-a08b-425a-b380-7bada70b2364?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) with AI. Peterson said she wasn’t aware. But when she checked with her staff she learned that they’d indeed used AI to help write it. She’d sent them a trove of her thoughts on the matter, and they used the tool to boil those thoughts down, revise paragraphs, fix formatting and get it under the word count limit. When Reps. Volz and Suzanne Schmidt wrote a joint guest [column](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/feb/08/mike-volz-and-suzanne-schmidt-washingtons-no-incom/?ref=rangemedia.co) for *The Spokesman* on taxes, they tapped their shared comms staffer to write it. Pangram determined it was filled with AI-generated writing. "If it looks like he used AI on it, he used AI on it,” Volz said. Conroy’s campaign said they were feeding questionnaire answers through artificial intelligence to help keep their answers consistent with a database of previous questionnaire answers, “Then, we update and adjust the answer to be more exact,” her campaign wrote in a statement. In a text conversation, Baumgartner said he doesn’t believe his team used AI when answering the RANGE questionnaire, but said his staff sometimes [uses](https://www.pangram.com/history/7635da1e-494a-44d1-88b5-0b038bdc5de1?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) AI for editing to hit word count requirements for [newspaper op-eds](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/jul/05/michael-baumgartner-america-can-win-the-ai-race-wi/?ref=rangemedia.co). He said his team responded to “something like 200,000 emails” last year and doesn’t know if they use AI in those responses. “I usually just give a high-level gist of an answer and leave them to it,” Baumgartner said. Maybe, Baumgartner muses in a text conversation, he should use AI to help write the book on “Insurgent Warfare & Football Strategy,” the class he used to teach at Washington State University with former WSU Football Coach Mike Leach. After all, ghost writers are nothing new. Statements from candidates are frequently written by their staff, not the candidates themselves. Political rhetoric gets massaged, focus-grouped and poll-tested, often in an effort to make it seem more “authentic.” But to some politicians, like Spokane City Council Member Paul Dillon, that trend isn’t necessarily good either. “I think the heavier emphasis on communication staffing in politics has led to more spin and less authenticity, where there's more barriers between you and an elected,” Dillon said, “and that does not portend well for democracy.” And AI, he feels, just further puts more distance between the politicians and the constituents they are supposed to serve. ### Chat, find my conscience After Pangram caught Bingle [using AI](https://www.pangram.com/history/414e424f-4890-4699-b9e2-bd27af4d2228?utm%5Fsource=chrome%5Fextension&utm%5Fmedium=extension&utm%5Fcampaign=extension%5Fshare) to help write a [statement](https://my.spokanecity.org/news/statements/2025/07/02/statement-from-council-member-jonathan-bingle/?ref=rangemedia.co) last year condemning the city council’s watered down anti-camping ordinance, Bingle told RANGE he used tools like ChatGPT and "probably Grok at some point" for debate prep and for editing his writing. As an example of how he used AI, he texted RANGE a screenshot of a short Facebook [post](https://www.facebook.com/JonathanBinglePolitical/posts/pfbid02jPPuwPhnseJxZALZzXjQ8G9gSW4Gj1aD6mGtgmRPthq41HPxifjH7YhgJUBGBE8Kl?%5F%5Fcft%5F%5F[0]=AZgFeYGHQaJebqWYS7nN8vIyFrRrwnUUx4nAT%5F13x1w%5FbXqjV5jcDoy9MlYPU4UYrEZv3fNVmi04kp5KxnF%5FvmbmfHQ8bOizcDnOVValJ41I-yAqckS4VbXjS7s7JPN0pgB0vL3EDm0c-AQNXPTvALmcfTAJKhxgGUTBzBMb3REuNNz2oZzV-BPgH4w&%5F%5Ftn%5F%5F=%2CO%2CP-R) about his response to the news of a man being shot by a school resource officer outside of Evergreen Middle School. “My ideas — or my exact words — placed into a format that is grammatically accurate and flows well,” Bingle wrote. Yet Pangram flagged his [post](https://www.pangram.com/history/66461ffa-4910-46e4-9801-7cb73ac6cb74?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) as AI writing. There was a way, of course, to directly prove to RANGE that the words were mostly his. Would he be willing to show us the prompt he used, to see how much of the response was his to begin with? Bingle half-dodged our request with a joke. “Chat: How do I say ‘no,’ nicely to a reporter’s question?” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/35/e7/35e7a6d5-1d7d-405c-9ee3-dce92dfd190f/content/images/2026/09/DUPLIC.jpg) **Chat, write me a rejection text.* (Art by the RANGE Team) But a few days after that, Bingle called back. He wanted to discuss the thornier ethical aspects of the question. Should AI use be disclosed? Was it no different than using speechwriters or comms staffers? He said he hasn’t come to any firm conclusions yet, but cited Bible passages supporting both points of view. “There will probably be more as I meditate on this that will pop into my mind,” Bingle said. There are few rules against candidates using AI — at least few that are enforced. In Washington state, candidates are forced to disclose if they’ve used AI to create realistic but fake images of their opponents in political ads. But there are no such requirements, of course, for AI-generated text. OpenAI technically [forbids](https://www.whro.org/2024-01-19/politicians-lobbyists-are-banned-from-using-chatgpt-for-official-campaign-business?ref=rangemedia.co) campaigns from using ChatGPT for political campaigning, yet public elections data shows that multiple campaigns, including U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s re-election campaign, are on record as paying an OpenAI subscription. But the ethics of AI writing are still a muddy area. “I don’t think we’ve had that discussion as a community. I think that is a good conversation,” said Jasmin. “Maybe I do need to re-look at where I’m at. We should always be trying to improve and learn more.” To Rep. Volz, who submitted two *Spokesman* columns with AI prose, there’s a significant difference between using AI to suggest you have knowledge you don’t have — “using AI to create me an image that I’m an expert on brain surgery” — versus giving AI “my thoughts and knowledge to help clean it up.” Kohlmeier said she draws a hard line: no using AI for image generation. Creating AI art is far more energy-intensive, she said, and she wants to be a good steward of resources. “My take is we should limit the use of AI as much as possible when we’re trying to speak authentically,” Kohlmeier said. It’s not as if politicians were always transparent before the advent of AI, local journalism professor and longtime politics reporter Kip Hill pointed out. “Maybe it's the journalist in me that's always skeptical about ‘What are you trying to sell me?’” Hill said. “Whether it's a person or a machine selling me something, I'm still getting sold to.” ### Prompt Justice For some electeds, the stakes of using AI in their work are a lot more serious than just maintaining authenticity. “If I was elected,” Danny Tarkenton, the independent candidate for Spokane County Prosecutor, said to RANGE. “I would have a no-AI policy.” Setting aside the environmental issues, she sees big problems with the risk of “hallucinations” in legal filings — instances where AI [cites](https://www.msba.org/site/site/content/News-and-Publications/News/General-News/Massachusetts%5FLawyer-Sanctioned%5Ffor%5FAI%5FGenerated-Fictitious%5FCases.aspx?ref=rangemedia.co) completely non-existent caselaw. Even entering confidential information into an app that sucks up user data can create huge problems. It’s one area where she’s similar to her opponent, sitting prosecutor Preston McCollam. Last September McCollam signed a policy banning Spokane prosecuting attorneys in his office from using AI tools to draft court filings, communicate with clients or review privileged communications. But there’s another similarity between the two: the writing style throughout much of their websites. “She doesn't just say she can manage an office,” the Danny For Prosecutor [website](https://prestonforprosecutor.com/?ref=rangemedia.co) says. “Her record shows it.” “The goal is not simply to manage the Prosecutor’s Office,” the Preston For Prosecutor [website](https://www.dannyforprosecutor.com/?ref=rangemedia.co) says. “It is to leave it stronger than he found it.” “Experienced. Accountable. Committed,” McCollum’s site says. “Adaptive. Proactive. Never Just Reactive,” Tarkenton's site says. Pangram flagged much of the writing on [both](https://www.pangram.com/history/f81333fb-d748-420f-a4f3-92e5725d1170?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) [sites](https://www.pangram.com/history/15aaeb7f-f049-46e5-a6b3-7c13f75be2e1?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) as AI-generated. Tarkenton pushed back hard against this. While she acknowledged that she’d used Grammarly to suggest minor edits, such as making the text more concise and converting some sentences to active voice, she said she didn’t do any more than that. She said she worked hours on the writing, trying to make it formal and straight-to-the-point. Notably, Pangram labeled most of the passages directly adapted from her military documents a decade ago as only edited lightly by AI, if at all. But it flagged [much of the rest of the page](https://www.pangram.com/history/33f5ce15-4232-4d66-ac8d-ea9be6ebe018?ucc=u6DCZbIkU1N&ref=rangemedia.co) — with sentences like, “that's not leadership on paper. That's a track record of doing the job” — as AI-generated writing. That’s not AI, Tarkenton insisted. That’s just her style of writing. But RANGE ran the same page through four other AI detectors, and they all concluded that it was [mostly AI](https://app.gowinston.ai/share/01a0d4e6-9597-71c4-abe0-c508b680bf33?ref=rangemedia.co). For his site, McCollam didn’t deny it. In a statement, he wrote that he’d hired a firm to upgrade his website after the primary, and acknowledged that AI “was used to help proofread, refine, and condense language and content.” He opposes using AI to *make decisions.* He supports using it to become *more efficient*. “In fact I know many of my campaign team and friends do so on a daily basis,” McCollam said. Both sites, notably, were developed in part by using Squarespace, one of many long-running web design platforms that have become increasingly infused with AI assistance. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/35/e7/35e7a6d5-1d7d-405c-9ee3-dce92dfd190f/content/images/2026/09/Dave-The-Marmot.jpg) **Squarespace hard at work building RANGE's shell candidate "Dave the Marmot," a website.* (Art by the RANGE Team) Use Squarespace to start a new site, and the Squarespace AI Website Builder practically begs you to let it assist it with writing the web copy. It asks you to select the tone of your website’s writing, such as “Professional (Authoritative. Credible. Polished.)” “Playful (Fun. Light-hearted. Engaging.)” or “Innovative (Forward-thinking. Visionary. Pioneering.”) Then, for every text block, Squarespace offers to spit out a paragraph or blurb about any topic you want, using your selected style. Too long and wordy? Just hit the “Simpler” or “Shorter” button and it revises in seconds. “Squarespace really pushes that it can build the entire thing for you,” said Beaulac, the consultant from Pierce County. “It offers to pretty much build the entire thing with AI.” Candidates have to make the intentional choice *not* to take the quick and easy path. Spokane Valley Council Member Al Merkel said he used CoPilot to make very minor edits to some of the Spokane GOP resolutions this year, but says he uses AI less than he used to. It couldn’t capture his voice. Still, he said he has no problem with people using AI. “It gives more people the ability to meaningfully participate,” Merkel wrote in a text. He named someone who he said would get up before council and offer “pure undistilled AI slop, but I’m sure they are better than what he could come up with on his own.” Even for critics, Merkel suggested, it’s reasonable to fight AI by embracing it — at least for a bit. “I think it's fair to be extremely concerned about the use of AI, but still use AI for things,” he said. “It's like if I go to war and the other guy says, 'Well, I object to rifles’ and throws his down. Good luck." Even if you refuse to use AI, AI is already changing you. What we read seeps into what we write and how we speak. The more AI infects the writing we consume, the more it will subconsciously invade how we write: That’s not a prediction — that’s what’s already happening. And if that continues, the trend will be nearly impossible to escape. Shortly before sending his statement about his AI use to RANGE, McCollam finished a bowl of pho at a local restaurant and cracked open a fortune cookie. “AI is everywhere," the slip of paper said. "Yes, even inside your fortune cookie." ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/35/e7/35e7a6d5-1d7d-405c-9ee3-dce92dfd190f/content/images/2026/09/Politics-end.jpg) **My fellow Americans, let me be clear: This AI-in-politics story was written by a human.* (Illustration by RANGE) \*CONTAINS ARTIFICIAL INGREDIENTS For more coverage of AI-generated content in your Spokane feeds, click the link below. [SLOP ME ](https://www.rangemedia.co/contains-artificial-ingredients/)