King County Council unanimously appoints David Frockt to be Scott White’s successor

Seat­tle’s 46th leg­isla­tive dis­trict has a state sen­a­tor again!

Fol­low­ing last Thurs­day’s joint meet­ing between the 46th Dis­trict Democ­rats and the King Coun­ty Democ­rats, where Rep­re­sen­ta­tive David Frockt was over­whelm­ing­ly select­ed as the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s top choice to suc­ceed the late Scott White, the King Coun­ty Coun­cil has unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to act on the rec­om­men­da­tion, appoint­ing Frockt to fill the vacancy.

Frockt sub­mit­ted his res­ig­na­tion as state rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the coun­ty cour­t­house, and was sub­se­quent­ly sworn in as the 46th’s new state senator.

Frock­t’s res­ig­na­tion from the House means that there is anoth­er vacan­cy to fill. The com­pe­ti­tion for the seat looks like it will be fair­ly intense.

It’s prob­a­ble going into the meet­ing that there could be near­ly half a dozen can­di­dates with enough strength to com­pete for the top spots, as I told The Seat­tle Times ear­li­er today. That means that pre­dict­ing who will be on the next list of three names (let alone at the top of it) is pret­ty much impossible.

More than 10 can­di­dates are expect­ed to com­pete for Frock­t’s seat. A hand­ful of appli­cants are like­ly to land in the top five, said Andrew Vil­leneuve, a vice chair­man for King Coun­ty Democrats.

They are: Sylvester Cann, a for­mer aide to White; Ger­ry Pol­let, who ran unsuc­cess­ful­ly against White in 2008; Sara­jane Siegfriedt, a long­time 46th Dis­trict activist; and Javier Valdez, anoth­er par­ty activist who has been endorsed by U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott.

Democ­rats in the 46th Dis­trict are like­ly to vote on Frock­t’s replace­ment at a Dec. 1 meet­ing. They will for­ward three names to the coun­ty Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee. Under a process spelled out in the state con­sti­tu­tion, the par­ty com­mit­tee will then for­ward three names to the Coun­ty Council.

Vil­leneuve said the cen­tral com­mit­tee will very like­ly defer to the 46th Dis­tric­t’s three favorites. “It’s their dis­trict, their rep­re­sen­ta­tive,” Vil­leneuve said.

Because Frockt has now been sworn in, he’ll be able to begin his duties as state sen­a­tor in advance of the first day of the spe­cial ses­sion of the state Leg­is­la­ture that is sched­uled to begin on Mon­day, Novem­ber 28th, two weeks from today.

How­ev­er, the 46th will still be miss­ing a mem­ber of its del­e­ga­tion until the posi­tion that Sen­a­tor David Frockt has just vacat­ed is filled. It’s pos­si­ble that could hap­pen as ear­ly as Mon­day, Decem­ber 5th — we will see.