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.

Tuesday, April 8th, 2014

U.S. Representative Denny Heck to keynote NPI’s 2014 Spring Fundraising Gala

As of this evening, we are just sev­en­teen days away from our 2014 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala, which (as in past years!) will be tak­ing place in the heart of King Coun­ty at the Mer­cer Island Com­mu­ni­ty & Events Cen­ter. For the past few months, we’ve been busy orga­niz­ing the event and putting togeth­er a great speak­ing pro­gram for your edu­ca­tion and enjoyment.

Last month, we announced that State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Chris Reyk­dal, a true cham­pi­on for work­ing fam­i­lies, would be our open­ing speak­er. Tonight, we’re delight­ed to announce that our keynote speak­er will be U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Den­ny Heck, who has ably rep­re­sent­ed the new 10th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict since its incep­tion fol­low­ing the 2011–2012 redis­trict­ing process.

The 10th Dis­trict encom­pass­es most of what is col­lo­qui­al­ly known as the South Sound. Its north­ern edge stretch­es from Pacif­ic along the King/Pierce coun­ty line to Shel­ton to Mason Coun­ty, and it takes in Rainier and Teni­no along its south­ern bor­der. The cities of Lacey and Olympia sit at approx­i­mate­ly its center.

Den­ny has a long his­to­ry of involve­ment in Wash­ing­ton State pol­i­tics. Dur­ing the 1970s and 1980s, he served five terms in the state House, rep­re­sent­ing south­west Wash­ing­ton and ris­ing to the post of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Major­i­ty Leader under Speak­er Wayne H. Ehlers. He sub­se­quent­ly became the Chief Clerk of the House.

In 1990, then-Gov­er­nor Booth Gard­ner tapped Heck to serve as his chief of staff through the remain­der of his time in office. (Gard­ner was suc­ceed­ed by Mike Lowry in 1993, fol­low­ing the 1992 pres­i­den­tial and guber­na­to­r­i­al elections).

Heck lat­er cofound­ed and served as the chief exec­u­tive offi­cer of TVW, Wash­ing­ton’s ver­sion of C‑SPAN, which pro­vides gav­el to gav­el cov­er­age of the Leg­is­la­ture and the Supreme Court. In 2010, he ran to suc­ceed Bri­an Baird as U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the old 3rd Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict, but lost to Repub­li­can Jaime Herrera-Beutler.

He was redis­trict­ed into the new 10th and elect­ed to rep­re­sent the 10th in Novem­ber of 2012, eas­i­ly defeat­ing Repub­li­can Dick Muri.

Fol­low­ing his elec­tion to the U.S. House, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Heck was assigned to the House Finan­cial Ser­vices Com­mit­tee. He serves on two of its sub­com­mit­tees: Finan­cial Insti­tu­tions and Con­sumer Cred­it and Over­sight and Inves­ti­ga­tions. He is the only mem­ber of Con­gress serv­ing on Finan­cial Ser­vices from our region.

We’re very hap­py to have Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Heck as our keynote speak­er this year. Den­ny is both one of the newest mem­bers of our state’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion and one of the most expe­ri­enced, hav­ing served in the leg­isla­tive and exec­u­tive branch­es at the state lev­el. He’ll be giv­ing us an update on the hap­pen­ings (or lack there­of) in the House and shar­ing his per­spec­tive on what our move­ment needs to do to uphold and expand the rights of work­ing men and women.

We’re very excit­ed to have Den­ny and Chris anchor­ing our speak­ing pro­gram this year, and we hope you are, too. If you haven’t yet bought your tick­et to our 2014 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala yet, we urge you to do so now using one of these but­tons. A house­hold tick­et admits all the mem­bers of an imme­di­ate fam­i­ly and is a good val­ue if you plan to attend with your spouse or chil­dren. (The gala is a fam­i­ly-friend­ly event, and young peo­ple of all ages are welcome!)

$60

Admits one person

$90

Admits a family

Here’s what else you can expect at our 2014 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala:

  • A full din­ner buf­fet with veg­e­tar­i­an and veg­an choices
  • Beer and wine selec­tions from our cash bar
  • Oppor­tu­ni­ties to min­gle with fel­low activists and elect­ed leaders
  • A chance to win a scrump­tious dessert for your table at our sec­ond annu­al Dessert Dash, orga­nized by our Host Committee
  • A fam­i­ly-friend­ly atmosphere

If you’d like to RSVP for the gala on Face­book, you can do so here.

Stu­dents who want to vol­un­teer to help put on the event can get in the door free. If you’re inter­est­ed in vol­un­teer­ing, please get in touch with us.

Dur­ing the next few days, we’ll be shar­ing more details about our 2014 gala, includ­ing the names of our final two speak­ers. We hope you’ll help us make our biggest event of the year a suc­cess by buy­ing your tick­et and com­mit­ting to attend.

See you on April 25th!

Can’t attend the event? Please make a con­tri­bu­tion to sup­port NPI’s work. NPI needs your help now to keep our many projects going strong, and to strength­en our research and media capabilities.

Even if it’s just $10 or $20, your dona­tion will make a huge dif­fer­ence.

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