NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, November 13th, 2012

U.S. Representative Suzan DelBene sworn into office as our newest member of Congress

All of us at NPI would like to extend our warmest con­grat­u­la­tions to our good friend Suzan Del­Bene, who, as of today, is the newest mem­ber of Con­gress from the great state of Wash­ing­ton, suc­ceed­ing our governor-elect.

Suzan, as most read­ers like­ly know, was eas­i­ly elect­ed to serve out the remain­der of Jay Inslee’s term in the old 1st Dis­trict as well as win­ning a full term in the new 1st Dis­trict (which stretch­es from Red­mond, Kirk­land, and the Points com­mu­ni­ties in King Coun­ty to the Cana­di­an border).

Today, short­ly after 4 PM Pacif­ic Time, she took the oath of office and offi­cial­ly became a U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive. The oath for mem­bers of Con­gress is as follows:

I do solemn­ly swear (or affirm) that I will sup­port and defend the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States against all ene­mies, for­eign and domes­tic; that I will bear true faith and alle­giance to the same; that I take this oblig­a­tion freely, with­out any men­tal reser­va­tion or pur­pose of eva­sion; and that I will well and faith­ful­ly dis­charge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

Del­Bene’s swear­ing in was attend­ed by Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Nan­cy Pelosi and mem­bers of Wash­ing­ton’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion. She was intro­duced by out­go­ing Con­gress­man Norm Dicks, the longest-serv­ing mem­ber of the del­e­ga­tion. Her pre­pared remarks were as follows:

Thank you to Con­gress­man Dicks for the kind introduction. 

Mr. Speak­er, Leader Pelosi, mem­bers of the Wash­ing­ton Del­e­ga­tion, mem­bers of the 112th Con­gress, it’s tru­ly an hon­or for me to be here today.

I’d first like to thank all those who have sup­port­ed me through­out this jour­ney, in par­tic­u­lar my fam­i­ly, my hus­band Kurt, who’s up in the gallery and my chil­dren Rebec­ca and Zachary who are both in col­lege. I’m grate­ful to share this moment with them.

It is a great priv­i­lege to rep­re­sent the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton’s 1st Dis­trict, both the cur­rent and future ver­sions of it. I’m hon­ored to have been giv­en this oppor­tu­ni­ty by the vot­ers of West­ern Wash­ing­ton and I appre­ci­ate their sup­port. I will work hard to meet their expec­ta­tions and serve them well.

I look for­ward to work­ing with all of you and I’m hon­ored to be able to serve along­side the dis­tin­guished mem­bers of Wash­ing­ton’s delegation.

I’m excit­ed to roll up my sleeves and get to work right away.

Doc Hast­ings, the longest-serv­ing Repub­li­can mem­ber of Con­gress from the Ever­green State, also offered words of wel­come for DelBene.

Del­Bene was sworn in pri­or to cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the elec­tion because it is clear she is des­tined to be the win­ner. In fact, a Koster vic­to­ry in the old 1st Dis­trict (drawn in 2001) is now math­e­mat­i­cal­ly impossible.

Two addi­tion­al fresh­men will begin their ser­vice in Jan­u­ary: Derek Kilmer and Den­ny Heck, who be rep­re­sent­ing the 6th and 10th Dis­tricts, respectively.

Kilmer, Del­Bene, and Heck all par­tic­i­pat­ed in a press con­fer­ence led by Nan­cy Pelosi ear­li­er today. The pur­pose of the event was to intro­duce the Demo­c­ra­t­ic fresh­men of 2012 to the Wash­ing­ton press corps.

Del­Bene does not have a House web­site yet, but she is expect­ed to soon. She will have to put her office togeth­er quick­ly because there are sev­er­al impor­tant mat­ters com­ing before the House this month and next.

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3 Comments

  1. Con­grat­u­la­tions to Suzan, this is so well deserved.

    # by Mike Barer :: November 14th, 2012 at 1:15 PM
  2. Con­grat­u­la­tions on your new position!

    Could you tell me if the fund­ing has been pro­vid­ed for the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act, or does the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives pro­vide that, or does the entire Con­gress vote on that?

    # by Lynne Hall :: November 17th, 2012 at 11:56 AM
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