Bellevue Mayor Claudia Balducci announces campaign for King County Council, District 6

King Coun­ty sub­ur­ban pol­i­tics got a lot less bor­ing today with Belle­vue May­or Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci’s announce­ment that she is giv­ing up her seat on the Belle­vue City Coun­cil to chal­lenge Repub­li­can Jane Hague for King Coun­ty Coun­cil’s 6th District.

The 6th Dis­trict encom­pass­es Kirk­land, most of Belle­vue, Mer­cer Island, part of Red­mond, the Points com­mu­ni­ties, and Med­i­na. Data shows it votes heav­i­ly for Democ­rats in fed­er­al lev­el elec­tions, as well as state lev­el elec­tions. But it has been rep­re­sent­ed by Hague, a Repub­li­can, for decades.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty has long been inter­est­ed in cap­tur­ing the 6th, but has not been able to field a for­mi­da­ble candidate.

Two cycles ago, in 2007, the par­ty did­n’t have any­one lined up to run, and so, when peren­ni­al can­di­date Richard Pope put his name for­ward for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion at the last minute, he end­ed up as the only can­di­date with a D next to his name on the bal­lot. The King Coun­ty Democ­rats sub­se­quent­ly found a can­di­date they liked to run as a write-in, Brad Larssen, but Pope defeat­ed Larssen in the pri­ma­ry. He went on to lose the gen­er­al elec­tion to Jane Hague, 57% to 39%.

(2007 was the last year that Wash­ing­ton held an actu­al pri­ma­ry for state or local office, as opposed to the Top Two sys­tem we have now).

In the weeks lead­ing up to the gen­er­al elec­tion, Hague suf­fered a round of bad pub­lic­i­ty when it was report­ed that she had been arrest­ed for dri­ving under the influ­ence. But as the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty did­n’t have a respect­ed can­di­date run­ning against her, it did­n’t end up weigh­ing her down much.

In 2011, the par­ty did field a chal­lenger… lawyer Richard Mitchell, for­mer­ly coun­sel to Gov­er­nor Chris Gre­goire. Mitchell ran a cred­i­ble cam­paign and even picked up the ear­ly endorse­ment of The Seat­tle Times, only to lose the paper’s sup­port for the gen­er­al elec­tion fol­low­ing his deci­sion to send out mis­lead­ing attack mail­ers against Hague. He fin­ished with 45.62% of the vote, to Hague’s 54%.

Bal­duc­ci is unques­tion­ably a for­mi­da­ble can­di­date. She has been elect­ed to the Belle­vue City Coun­cil sev­er­al times — and Belle­vue makes up a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the 6th Dis­trict. She has expe­ri­ence serv­ing on the Sound Tran­sit Board of Direc­tors. She is well versed in region­al pol­i­tics. She has already has raised $15,000 to start her cam­paign, and secured the ear­ly endorse­ments of Con­gress­man Adam Smith, State Sen­a­tor Cyrus Habib, and State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ross Hunter.

“We live in a dynam­ic, diverse, and grow­ing region,” Bal­duc­ci said in a press release. “It’s time for new lead­ers who reflect the pri­or­i­ties and poten­tial of the East­side. In my expe­ri­ence as a local offi­cial, tran­sit leader and mom, I’ll bring new ideas and ener­gy to the Coun­cil, help­ing to make sure our voic­es and val­ues are reflect­ed in crit­i­cal areas of pol­i­cy and planning.”

Hague has indi­cat­ed to Kirk­land Views that she plans to run again, and told the Seat­tle Times today she is “excit­ed” about the prospect of fac­ing Balducci.

We’re excit­ed, too, because this means that Seat­tle won’t be the only juris­dic­tion with com­pet­i­tive races in 2015. The spe­cial elec­tion in the 30th Dis­trict for state rep­re­sen­ta­tive and the race for King Coun­ty Coun­cil’s 6th Dis­trict look like they will be the mar­quee races out­side of Seat­tle this year.

Bal­duc­ci’s deci­sion to run for King Coun­ty Coun­cil will actu­al­ly result in two com­pet­i­tive East­side races, not just one.

That’s because she has to give up her posi­tion on the Belle­vue City Coun­cil to run. Open seats tend to attract can­di­dates, as we are already see­ing in Seat­tle this year.

Three oth­er King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­bers are also up for elec­tion this year. All of them are Democ­rats: Lar­ry Gos­sett, Lar­ry Phillips, and Joe McDer­mott. They rep­re­sent dis­tricts that are con­sid­ered safe­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic, so even if any were to retire, the polit­i­cal make­up of the Coun­cil would not change.

Offi­cial­ly, the King Coun­ty Coun­cil is non­par­ti­san, but unof­fi­cial­ly, it’s still as par­ti­san as it always has been. There is no tak­ing par­ti­san­ship out of pol­i­tics — any­one who has an opin­ion they want to defend can be con­sid­ered a partisan.