State Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles confirms she’ll run for King County Council, District 4

This after­noon, State Sen­a­tor Jeanne Kohl-Welles made it offi­cial: She’s run­ning to suc­ceed Lar­ry Phillips as the coun­cilmem­ber for King Coun­ty’s 4th Dis­trict, which encom­pass­es neigh­bor­hoods on the Puget Sound side of North Seat­tle, includ­ing Bal­lard and Green­wood. And she is doing so with Phillips’ support.

“It’s been an incred­i­ble priv­i­lege, hon­or and plea­sure rep­re­sent­ing my con­stituents for the last twen­ty-three years in Olympia in what has been the most sig­nif­i­cant work of my career,” Kohl-Welles said in a press release declar­ing her candidacy.

“Through­out my leg­isla­tive tenure, I have stead­fast­ly striv­en to be acces­si­ble, respon­sive and effec­tive,” she added. “I’ve con­sis­tent­ly worked col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to achieve com­mon-sense solu­tions on very chal­leng­ing issues, while main­tain­ing strong Demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples and values.”

“I’ve fought for social jus­tice and eco­nom­ic equi­ty caus­es and have been a leader in advo­cat­ing on behalf of the safe­ty and well-being of chil­dren and vul­ner­a­ble adults; vic­tims of human traf­fick­ing, com­mer­cial sex­u­al exploita­tion of chil­dren, and domes­tic vio­lence; med­ical mar­i­jua­na reform; and for strate­gies address­ing home­less­ness, afford­able hous­ing, and discrimination.”

“On the King Coun­ty Coun­cil, I’ll bring forth the same val­ues and tack­le the same issues, as well as income inequal­i­ty, racial dis­pro­por­tion­al­i­ty in the crim­i­nal and juve­nile jus­tice sys­tems, envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and trans­porta­tion choices.”

In addi­tion to Phillips’ back­ing, Kohl-Welles has secured the endorse­ments of her seat­mates Reuven Car­lyle and Gael Tar­leton. (Full dis­clo­sure: Gael Tar­leton serves on the board of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute as Vice President-Secretary).

Kohl-Welles had pre­vi­ous­ly dis­cussed run­ning for King Coun­ty Coun­cil with her sup­port­ers on Facebook.

“It’s hard for me to think of leav­ing the Sen­ate, but I believe that at this point in my career I would enjoy a new chal­lenge, as well as being clos­er to home among my con­stituents and in the com­mu­ni­ty on a year-round basis,” she wrote.

“And for­tu­nate­ly, I would have the same con­stituents as I have now in the 36th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict.” (The 36th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict and the 4th Coun­ty Coun­cil Dis­trict don’t have iden­ti­cal bound­aries, but they over­lap significantly.)

She went on to note:

I also would have a more imme­di­ate and local expe­ri­ence in work­ing on many of the issues that are so impor­tant to me, such as afford­able hous­ing and elim­i­nat­ing home­less­ness; eco­nom­ic and pay equi­ty and social jus­tice; anti-pover­ty and essen­tial ser­vices; expand­ing mul­ti-modal mobil­i­ty, includ­ing tran­sit; human traf­fick­ing and com­mer­cial child sex­u­al exploita­tion; juve­nile jus­tice and fos­ter care ser­vices; and med­ical and per­son­al use mar­i­jua­na legalization.

And this is not a com­plete list.

I’ll be mak­ing my deci­sion with­in the next few days.

She’s now made her deci­sion: She’s running.

Kohl-Welles, sev­en­ty-two, is such a for­mi­da­ble can­di­date that she may not have much com­pe­ti­tion for Phillips’ seat. She is beloved in the 36th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict, as Reuven Car­lyle found out last year when he briefly flirt­ed with run­ning against Kohl-Welles. He ulti­mate­ly decid­ed to bow out and not chal­lenge her.

In ret­ro­spect, that was a very sen­si­ble deci­sion. If Kohl-Welles is suc­cess­ful in her cam­paign for coun­ty coun­cil, she will almost cer­tain­ly be resign­ing from the Leg­is­la­ture, and Car­lyle will be the heir appar­ent to her posi­tion in the Senate.

To move over to the Sen­ate, he would have to give up his chair­man­ship of the House Finance Com­mit­tee… but on the plus side, he would­n’t have to run for reelec­tion every two years (state sen­a­tors serve four-year terms).

A move to the Sen­ate by Car­lyle would result in a wide-open vacan­cy for his House seat, which a lot of pro­gres­sive and Demo­c­ra­t­ic activists will undoubt­ed­ly be inter­est­ed in. When­ev­er a Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­isla­tive vacan­cy emerges in a Seat­tle dis­trict, there are almost always a pletho­ra of candidates.

The precinct com­mit­tee offi­cers of the 36th LD, which include NPI’s Pres­i­dent, Robert Cruick­shank, may very well find them­selves del­uged with calls about eight months from now, because they’re the ones who would choose Kohl-Welles’ and Car­lyle’s suc­ces­sors, as pro­vid­ed by the Wash­ing­ton State Constitution.

The process is as follows:

• The Chair of the King Coun­ty Democ­rats, cur­rent­ly Rich Erwin, calls a meet­ing of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic precinct com­mit­tee offi­cers of the 36th LD to draw up a list of three names to fill each vacan­cy. This meet­ing is known as a spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus. Only PCOs elect­ed or appoint­ed to rep­re­sent precincts with­in the 36th LD may par­tic­i­pate in it as voters.
• The King Coun­ty Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee (KCDCC), or KCD­C­C’s exec­u­tive board, rat­i­fies the choic­es of the 36th LD’s PCOs and sub­mits them to the King Coun­ty Coun­cil for consideration.
• The King Coun­ty Coun­cil must choose from among the three indi­vid­u­als select­ed by the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty to fill each vacancy.
• If they don’t make a selec­tion with­in six­ty days, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee makes the appoint­ment, again from the list of three names.

The 36th is whol­ly with­in the bound­aries of King Coun­ty, so the state par­ty would not be involved in call­ing the spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus or sub­mit­ting the names, as it was last year when there was a vacan­cy in the 30th. (The 30th is one of many joint leg­isla­tive dis­tricts split between the counties).

The pro­ce­dures gov­ern­ing the spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus are spelled out in the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s bylaws and stand­ing rules.

Typ­i­cal­ly, when a nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus is held, PCOs vote on each of the slots in a series of sep­a­rate elec­tions. To elab­o­rate: PCOs first decide whose name should top the list, and then whose names appear sec­ond and third. Fol­low­ing this approach results in three elec­tions, often with mul­ti­ple rounds of vot­ing each.

Should Kohl-Welles and fel­low Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci (who is run­ning in the 6th Dis­trict) both win in Novem­ber, the King Coun­ty Coun­cil would have two Demo­c­ra­t­ic women on it begin­ning next Jan­u­ary. (Offi­cial­ly, the Coun­cil is non­par­ti­san, but there’s real­ly no such thing as a non­par­ti­san office.)