Two Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors, one from the House and one from the Sen­ate, announced with­in hours of each oth­er this morn­ing that they’ve decid­ed to run for statewide posi­tions in 2012, enlarg­ing the field of can­di­dates who are seek­ing to make the jump to high­er office in what promis­es to be fair­ly excit­ing year.

State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Zack Hud­gins got out of the gate first, con­firm­ing that he has decid­ed to launch a cam­paign for sec­re­tary of state, a posi­tion cur­rent­ly held by Repub­li­can Sam Reed. Reed is retir­ing after serv­ing for sev­er­al terms.

“I believe I bring the man­age­ment expe­ri­ence and com­mit­ment to democ­ra­cy need­ed to ensure the office of Sec­re­tary of State meets the high­est stan­dards,” Hud­gins said in a state­ment. The five-term state rep­re­sen­ta­tive present­ly serves as Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment Appro­pri­a­tions and Over­sight Com­mit­tee Chair.

His announce­ment notes that he has worked abroad help­ing peo­ple in oth­er coun­tries con­duct elec­tions, which is one the prin­ci­pal respon­si­bil­i­ties of the sec­re­tary of state (and cer­tain­ly the posi­tion’s most vis­i­ble respon­si­bil­i­ty). To date, Hud­gins’ work has tak­en him to Ukraine, Kyr­gyzs­tan, and Iraq.

“The great­est threat to our democ­ra­cy is a cor­rupt­ed elec­tion process and we must be ever vig­i­lant to pro­tect that process, regard­less of our per­son­al or par­ty pref­er­ences,” Hud­gins said.  “My time spent in Iraq showed me how frag­ile and impor­tant democ­ra­cy can be and helped me under­stand how to bet­ter pro­mote and safe­guard elec­tions in our state.”

Also run­ning for Sec­re­tary of State are State Sen­a­tor Jim Kas­ta­ma and Kath­leen Drew (both Democ­rats), along with Thurston Coun­ty Audi­tor Kim Wyman (a Repub­li­can). Hud­gins’ entry in the race gives Democ­rats three cred­i­ble can­di­dates from which to choose for sec­re­tary of state.

Mean­while, State Sen­a­tor Craig Pride­more has decid­ed to run for audi­tor, a posi­tion cur­rent­ly held by Bri­an Son­ntag. In 2010, Pride­more briefly ran for Con­gress in WA-03, but ulti­mate­ly backed out, choos­ing not to com­pete with Den­ny Heck in the win­now­ing elec­tion. He will have to give up his Sen­ate seat to run for auditor.

“I’ll bring hands-on audit­ing expe­ri­ence, an eye for detail, and exper­tise in the func­tion­ing of state and local gov­ern­ments to this impor­tant office,” Pride­more said in a state­ment. “Retir­ing Audi­tor Son­ntag pro­fes­sion­al­ized the office and made it a watch­dog for tax­pay­ers. I’ll take it to the next lev­el as a resource for long-term reform and effi­cien­cy in an era of dimin­ish­ing rev­enues and need­ed restructuring.”

“There is a lot of talk about how to address tax exemp­tions and we need a fair way to assess both their costs, and their val­ue to our econ­o­my and to tax­pay­ers,” said Pride­more. “I’d like to make this dis­cus­sion less par­ti­san and spe­cial inter­est dri­ven, and more objec­tive and data dri­ven. It’s a great role for an Auditor.”

State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mark Milos­cia is also vying to suc­ceed Son­ntag. He, like Pride­more, will have to give up his seat in the Leg­is­la­ture to run.

As many read­ers know, in 2008, we made cov­er­age of down­bal­lot state exec­u­tive races a pri­or­i­ty here on The Advo­cate. We plan to con­tin­ue that tra­di­tion in 2012 with a series focus­ing on the con­tests for sec­re­tary of state, audi­tor, lands com­mis­sion­er, trea­sur­er, insur­ance com­mis­sion­er, super­in­ten­dent of pub­lic instruc­tion, and attor­ney general.