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.