NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

Fred Finn announces retirement; two Democrats announce plans to seek his seat

Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Fred Finn, who has rep­re­sent­ed Washington’s 35th LD since 2008, announced recent­ly that he will not be run­ning for reelec­tion in 2012, lead­ing two Democ­rats to announce their inten­tion to seek his seat.

Finn’s dis­trict includes Mason Coun­ty as well as parts of Grays Har­bor, Kit­sap, and Thurston coun­ties. He served as a Unit­ed States Army vet­er­an, and is a Shel­ton and Olympia-area busi­ness­man, involved most­ly with com­mer­cial banking.

Among those vying for the seat is Mason Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­er Lin­da Ring-Erick­son, and Port of Olympia Com­mis­sion­er Jeff Davis. Both Davis and Ring-Erick­son are Democ­rats. No Repub­li­cans or inde­pen­dents have declared yet.

Ring-Erick­son said in a state­ment last week that her top three issues will be jobs, jobs, and jobs, echo­ing a refrain Den­ny Heck used in his unsuc­cess­ful con­gres­sion­al bid. This is Ring-Erickson’s first bid for the Legislature.

Davis, unsur­pris­ing­ly, is also con­cerned about Wash­ing­to­ni­ans’ eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty. He told the Belling­ham Her­ald, “We have to get back to find­ing ways to bring jobs into the state, and I think we can do it on a local lev­el successfully.”

It appears that low­er­ing unem­ploy­ment will be a hot top­ic in 2012, although none of the can­di­dates has released any spe­cif­ic plans for get­ting our state econ­o­my back on track. Nei­ther can­di­date has held a state-lev­el office before, though both have expe­ri­ence at the local lev­el. We’ll be watch­ing to see what, if any, ideas Ring-Erick­son and Davis put on the table as part of their campaigns.

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2 Comments

  1. It will be inter­est­ing to see if any strong 3rd par­ty can­di­dates or repub­li­cans emerge. A demo­c­rat will be elect­ed no mat­ter what.

    # by Walter Lawson :: September 28th, 2011 at 9:31 PM
    • Not nec­es­sar­i­ly, Wal­ter. We don’t yet know what the 35th LD will look like, since the Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion has not fin­ished its work, but unless the 35th LD moves to Seat­tle, Repub­li­cans will like­ly field a can­di­date for the seat who has a decent shot at win­ning. I would expect a com­pet­i­tive race.

      # by Andrew :: September 29th, 2011 at 12:05 PM

One Ping

  1. […] Fred Finn announces retire­ment; two Democ­rats announce plans to seek his seat […]

    Ping from Morning Rundown for September 29th, 2011 :: September 29th, 2011 at 9:41 AM
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