King County Council unanimously backs Carol Gregory for 30th District House vacancy

After speak­ing with all three of the can­di­dates nom­i­nat­ed last week by the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty to suc­ceed the late Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Roger Free­man, the King Coun­ty Coun­cil this after­noon unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to back Car­ol Gre­go­ry (the par­ty’s first choice) to fill the vacan­cy in the 30th Leg­isla­tive District.

Because the 30th is a joint dis­trict span­ning two coun­ties (there are sev­en precincts in Pierce Coun­ty), the Coun­cil’s action today does not con­sti­tute an appoint­ment. Gre­go­ry will only take office when and if the Pierce Coun­ty Coun­cil concurs.

If it does not, the coun­ties would either have to rec­on­cile their dif­fer­ences some­how, or the mat­ter would be resolved by Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee once six­ty days have elapsed since the date the vacan­cy was created.

Coun­cilmem­bers Lar­ry Phillips, Rod Dem­bows­ki, Dave Upthe­grove, Lar­ry Gos­sett,  Joe McDer­mott, Rea­gan Dunn, Pete von Reich­bauer, and Kathy Lam­bert took part in the vote. Coun­cilmem­ber Jane Hague was absent.

Dur­ing the Q&A pri­or to the vote, coun­cilmem­bers asked a num­ber of ques­tions of the can­di­dates (Car­ol Gre­go­ry, Richard Cham­pi­on, and Shari Song). Some of the most point­ed and inter­est­ing ques­tions came from Pete von Reich­bauer, who asked about McCleary com­pli­ance, pos­si­ble light rail align­ment through the south coun­ty, and whether the can­di­dates would sup­port an income tax. Coun­cilmem­ber Kathy Lam­bert asked the can­di­dates if they knew the state’s per pupil spend­ing figures.

In many ways, Gre­go­ry was the obvi­ous and log­i­cal choice. She was the win­ner of the runoff for first place at the nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus (although only by one vote, and not all of the 30th’s PCOs par­tic­i­pat­ed). She has exten­sive pub­lic sec­tor expe­ri­ence and present­ly serves as a school board mem­ber in Fed­er­al Way, hav­ing been elect­ed to that posi­tion in 2013. And she is a knowl­edge­able speak­er. She grace­ful­ly and com­pe­tent­ly field­ed the ques­tions that were asked of her at the meeting.

If Pierce Coun­ty con­curs in the appoint­ment for each vacan­cy, Gre­go­ry would min­i­mal­ly serve through the end of next year. A spe­cial elec­tion to deter­mine Free­man’s elect­ed suc­ces­sor will be held con­cur­rent with the next gen­er­al elec­tion in 2015. Gre­go­ry has indi­cat­ed she would be a can­di­date in that spe­cial election.