Rodney Tom ends reelection bid; fallout will reshape the 2014 electoral landscape in WA

Democ­rats across Wash­ing­ton who have been long­ing for an end to the Rod­ney Tom error in Ever­green State pol­i­tics got their wish ful­filled today with the unex­pect­ed news that Tom is drop­ping his reelec­tion bid to care for his injured father and spend more time with his family.

Tom, fifty, is the Major­i­ty Leader in Name Only of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate. He began his career in the Leg­is­la­ture over ten years ago, win­ning elec­tion to the state House twice as a Repub­li­can. In ear­ly 2006, Tom aban­doned the Repub­li­cans and became a Demo­c­rat, announc­ing that he would run for Sen­ate against then-incum­bent Sen­a­tor Luke Ess­er, also a Republican.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty estab­lish­ment embraced Tom and with­drew its sup­port for its own can­di­date, Debi Gold­en, believ­ing Tom’s chances of win­ning to be bet­ter than Gold­en’s. It was a deci­sion the par­ty estab­lish­ment would come to regret.

Tom eas­i­ly defeat­ed Ess­er and moved from the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cau­cus to the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cau­cus. In 2010, Tom was chal­lenged by wealthy Repub­li­can Gregg Ben­nett for reelec­tion, but with the help of the state, coun­ty, and 48th Dis­trict Demo­c­ra­t­ic orga­ni­za­tions, he won reelec­tion for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive term.

Two years ago, in the spring of 2012, Tom and his col­leagues Jim Kas­ta­ma and Tim Shel­don aban­doned the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus and helped Repub­li­cans seize con­trol of the floor of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate using a par­lia­men­tary maneu­ver known as the Ninth Order. The trio pro­vid­ed Repub­li­cans with the votes to adopt an irre­spon­si­ble sup­ple­men­tal bud­get and pre­vent sev­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic pol­i­cy pri­or­i­ties, includ­ing the Repro­duc­tive Par­i­ty Act, from receiv­ing a vote.

Kas­ta­ma, the only one of the trio up for elec­tion that year, chose to leave the state Sen­ate to run for Sec­re­tary of State. He came in fourth in the win­now­ing elec­tion, well behind Repub­li­can fron­trun­ner Kim Wyman, Demo­c­ra­t­ic fron­trun­ner Kath­leen Drew, and for­mer Seat­tle May­or Greg Nick­els. The Repub­li­cans cap­tured his Sen­ate seat lat­er that year in the gen­er­al election.

Fol­low­ing the elec­tion, Tom and Shel­don bro­kered a deal with the Repub­li­cans to seize con­trol of the state Sen­ate for the 2013 and 2014 ses­sions. Tom became the Major­i­ty Leader and Shel­don became the Pres­i­dent Pro Tempore.

The Repub­li­cans, mean­while, took over near­ly all of the com­mit­tee chair­man­ships and restruc­tured the Sen­ate’s com­mit­tees to their liking.

Tom and Shel­don con­tin­ued to call them­selves Democ­rats, but the par­ty dis­avowed them and began work­ing for their defeat. The Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty launched a Retire Rod­ney Tom Project, and the 48th Dis­trict Democ­rats passed a res­o­lu­tion mak­ing Tom inel­i­gi­ble for their sup­port in 2014.

In Jan­u­ary, for­mer Kirk­land May­or Joan McBride declared against Tom, and the fol­low­ing month, Democ­rats found a can­di­date to run against Tim Shel­don… Irene Bowl­ing, who announced her can­di­da­cy at the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s annu­al Crab Feed in Lacey, which is held every Pres­i­dents Day.

McBride has been rais­ing mon­ey at a fast clip, the sec­ond most of any chal­lenger in the state. The con­test between her and Tom was shap­ing up to be an epic fight.

But now it will not take place.

In retir­ing, Tom has dealt the Repub­li­can Par­ty a major blow and bol­stered Democ­rats’ hopes of retak­ing the state Sen­ate. The 48th LD is per­haps the most Demo­c­ra­t­ic of the state’s sub­ur­ban leg­isla­tive dis­tricts. And since the redis­trict­ing of 2011, it has become bluer still, vot­ing almost exclu­sive­ly for Democrats.

In 2012, this became very evi­dent when Ross Hunter and Cyrus Habib won their state House races by dou­ble-dig­it spreads. Habib, a first time can­di­date, dis­patched Repub­li­can Hank Myers — a Red­mond City Coun­cilmem­ber! — with aston­ish­ing ease. His mas­sive blowout vic­to­ry shows that the 48th is now a solid­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic district.

With Tom gone, the way is now clear for either Hunter or Habib to run. One of them like­ly will declare for state Sen­ate, and Joan McBride will then be well posi­tioned to run for whichev­er House seat then opens up. The Wash­ing­ton Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cam­paign (WSDC) would undoubt­ed­ly pre­fer to have a proven win­ner as its can­di­date, so it can direct mon­ey and resources into oth­er districts.

Last month, Repub­li­cans shook up the elec­toral land­scape by recruit­ing Mark Milos­cia to run for Sen­ate in the 30th as a Repub­li­can. Milos­ci­a’s entry into the race prompt­ed incum­bent Demo­c­rat Tracey Eide to announce her retire­ment, leav­ing Democ­rats scram­bling. (The par­ty estab­lish­ment ulti­mate­ly recruit­ed Shari Song, who unsuc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged Rea­gan Dunn last year, to run against Miloscia).

Now Repub­li­cans are the ones left scram­bling. They have no can­di­date in the 48th and will need to find one in a hur­ry. But regard­less of who they find, they are like­ly going to be going up against a Demo­c­rat who has won in the dis­trict before and has plen­ty of name recog­ni­tion. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty would be heav­i­ly favored to win in the 48th with either Habib or Hunter as the stan­dard bear­er for Senate.

Even McBride would have an advan­tage, giv­en the dis­tric­t’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic makeup.

That means that even if the par­ty los­es Eide’s seat, it only has to win in two oth­er dis­tricts to regain the major­i­ty. And the par­ty has stel­lar can­di­dates run­ning against incum­bent Repub­li­cans Andy Hill (45th LD: Redmond/Kirkland/Woodinville) and Steve O’Ban (28th LD: Sub­ur­ban Pierce Coun­ty)… Matt Isen­how­er and Tami Green. Democ­rats are also chal­leng­ing Michael Baum­gart­ner in the 6th (Spokane area) with Rich Cow­an and Jan Angel in the 26th (Kit­sap Penin­su­la) with Judy Arbogast.

Tom chose to break the news of his retire­ment by email to his col­leagues. Here is the text of what he sent to oth­er mem­bers of the Sen­ate Repub­li­can caucus:

I want­ed to let you know I will not be run­ning for re-elec­tion to the state sen­ate this year. A sequence of events just make this the right deci­sion for me. I’m still work­ing through some health issue relat­ed to my kid­ney stones adven­ture that I had at the end of ses­sion. The final straw was on this past Thurs­day, my 85 year old father was hit by a car while walk­ing in the gro­cery store park­ing lot (in a cross­walk with his cane). It broke his femur, as well as dam­ag­ing his hip. He’s going to require a lot of phys­i­cal ther­a­py over the next sev­er­al months, and I’m his only son that lives in the area. I have always said that health and fam­i­ly are my num­ber one val­ues, and instead of that being mere­ly a cam­paign slo­gan, I real­ly do try to live by them.

It has been an incred­i­ble hon­or to serve in the Leg­is­la­ture these past 12 years, espe­cial­ly these last two years work­ing with the Major­i­ty Coali­tion Cau­cus (MCC). It has been a thrill of a life­time work­ing with all of you (well, most of you!). I real­ly do believe we did an amaz­ing job for the cit­i­zens of Wash­ing­ton state these past two years in focus­ing on jobs and the econ­o­my, cre­at­ing a great edu­ca­tion sys­tem for all of Wash­ing­ton from pre‑K to our col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties, all while main­tain­ing a sus­tain­able bud­get that empow­ers our economy.

I wish you all the best of luck in the future, you’re an amaz­ing­ly tal­ent­ed group of indi­vid­u­als. I hope you stay true to the core prin­ci­ples of the MCC, and leave the social and oth­er divi­sive issues aside. If you stay focused on what real­ly mat­ters in dri­ving our econ­o­my for­ward, the cit­i­zens of this state will be well served. 

Empha­sis is mine. Tom’s flow­ery lan­guage is unlike­ly to endear him to his Repub­li­can pals. They had count­ed on Tom being able to at least keep the 48th in play. But now that dis­trict is very like­ly to be in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic win col­umn this Novem­ber. The mon­ey that was going to be spent against Tom will now be freed up for cam­paigns else­where, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the 45th and the 28th.

In a state­ment released this after­noon, Joan McBride indi­cat­ed she’s ready for what­ev­er may hap­pen in the wake of Tom’s announcement.

The announce­ment this morn­ing from Rod­ney Tom came as a sur­prise, and I wish him, and his ail­ing father, only the best.

But his depar­ture only under­scores what I have heard for weeks on the cam­paign trail:  vot­ers in the 48th ready for new lead­er­ship, con­sis­tent with our East­side pri­or­i­ties, and reflect­ing our pro­gres­sive social values.

I’m proud of the cam­paign we have run so far, knock­ing on thou­sands of doors and rais­ing near­ly $100,000. I’ll con­tin­ue to work hard to build the con­fi­dence of the vot­ers in the 48th, and look for­ward to the next stage of the campaign.

The fall­out from this retire­ment can­not be under­stat­ed. The elec­toral land­scape has just shift­ed in a big way. Repub­li­cans thought they had improved their chances by putting Tracey Eide’s seat in play with Mark Milos­cia (who real­ly is an odd recruit; he has pro­gres­sive views on many eco­nom­ic issues). But Rod­ney Tom, the man they thought they had a deal with, has just gone and reset the map. Now Democ­rats just need to pick up two seats to get the major­i­ty… or one, if they hold the 30th.

Over the course of his polit­i­cal career, Rod­ney Tom has shown that he’s not a team play­er. Nei­ther Democ­rats nor Repub­li­cans have any rea­son to trust Tom, who has proved him­self to be an arro­gant oppor­tunist. He scored a big cor­ner office and a nice title when he and Tim Shel­don made a deal with Repub­li­cans to seize pow­er in 2012. But he got more than he bar­gained for when he rejoined his for­mer par­ty that year… as even he admits in his own retire­ment announce­ment. He nom­i­nal­ly pre­sides over a cau­cus that can’t agree with itself on issue after issue.

It’s fit­ting that Tom’s career is end­ing this way. He is the only man to have been a part of all four of the state Leg­is­la­ture’s cau­cus­es… and now, with his retire­ment, he has jilt­ed three of them (the House Repub­li­cans, the Sen­ate Democ­rats, and the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans). Tom may be retir­ing for very good rea­sons (fam­i­ly should come first) but that’s not going to make Sen­ate Repub­li­cans feel any bet­ter. He had hired a cam­paign man­ag­er — for­mer Repub­li­can com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor Kei­th Schip­per — and he was plan­ning to seek reelec­tion. But now he’s out.

It’s a good day for Wash­ing­ton State.