Governor Jay Inslee appoints 48th LD’s Ross Hunter as new Director of Early Learning

State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ross Hunter (D‑48th Dis­trict: Red­mond, Kirk­land, Belle­vue, Med­i­na, Clyde Hill, the Points com­mu­ni­ties) will soon be leav­ing the Leg­is­la­ture to join Jay Inslee’s admin­is­tra­tion as Direc­tor of the Depart­ment of Ear­ly Learn­ing, the gov­er­nor’s office announced in a late-morn­ing press release.

“With land­mark invest­ments this year, Wash­ing­ton state is poised to be a world leader in ear­ly learn­ing,” Inslee said in his state­ment con­firm­ing the appoint­ment. “Ross will ensure that those invest­ments bring returns for our chil­dren, mak­ing sure every fam­i­ly has access to qual­i­ty ear­ly learn­ing opportunities.”

Hunter, who has served in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives for thir­teen years, said he was excit­ed to get to work. He will begin on Sep­tem­ber 8th.

“The oppor­tu­ni­ty to improve out­comes for hun­dreds of thou­sands of at-risk chil­dren is incred­i­bly com­pelling,” Hunter said. “I can­not wait to get started.”

“My first task is to get to know the department’s ded­i­cat­ed staff and con­nect with the ded­i­cat­ed and pas­sion­ate stake­hold­ers who have done so much to bring world-class ear­ly learn­ing to Wash­ing­ton children.”

While Hunter plans to leave the Leg­is­la­ture, he has not set a date for his depar­ture yet. His res­ig­na­tion will cre­ate a vacan­cy which will like­ly be filled by the King Coun­ty Coun­cil, as the 48th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict is whol­ly with­in the coun­ty’s boundaries.

As stip­u­lat­ed in the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion, the Coun­cil will be required to choose from among three poten­tial can­di­dates select­ed by the King Coun­ty Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee (KCDCC).

In prac­tice, how­ev­er, the list of names will be drawn up by those mem­bers of the KCDCC who serve as Demo­c­ra­t­ic precinct com­mit­tee offi­cers in the 48th, and then the exec­u­tive board of KCDCC will affirm the selec­tions. The par­ty tra­di­tion­al­ly cre­ates a ranked list and then asks the Coun­cil to appoint its first choice.

Hunter has pub­lished a post to his per­son­al blog where he elab­o­rates on his deci­sion to accept this new posi­tion and move on from the Legislature:

I came to the Leg­is­la­ture more than 13 years ago to fix the way we fund edu­ca­tion in Wash­ing­ton State.

Towards that end I’ve led the charge to clar­i­fy and broad­en the def­i­n­i­tion of “basic edu­ca­tion,” suc­cess­ful­ly reduced K‑3 class sizes, fund­ed all day kinder­garten, and pro­vid­ed stu­dents with ade­quate mate­ri­als and sup­plies in their class­rooms. Clear­ly there is still work to do on the remain­ing por­tions of McCleary, but the end is in sight and the prob­lems (and rea­son­able solu­tions) are well understood.

Late last week Gov­er­nor Inslee asked me to help with anoth­er key ele­ment of the edu­ca­tion con­tin­u­um and to serve as the Direc­tor of the Depart­ment of Ear­ly Learn­ing. With the pas­sage of the Ear­ly Start Act this year the Leg­is­la­ture made an his­toric invest­ment in high qual­i­ty oppor­tu­ni­ties for all of our state’s chil­dren. I’m incred­i­bly pleased with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to have huge pos­i­tive impact on out­comes for young chil­dren. I look for­ward to lead­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of this act and tak­ing DEL in new and excit­ing directions.

We extend our con­grat­u­la­tions to Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Hunter on his new posi­tion with the Depart­ment of Ear­ly Learn­ing. We know Ross as a ded­i­cat­ed cham­pi­on for school fund­ing and youth empow­er­ment; we have no doubt DEL will ben­e­fit from his tal­ents and enthu­si­asm. The House­’s loss is the Depart­men­t’s gain.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Hunter is the sec­ond mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives that Inslee has tapped to work on edu­ca­tion in his admin­is­tra­tion; he fol­lows in the foot­steps of Mar­cie Maxwell, for­mer­ly one of the 41st Dis­tric­t’s two state rep­re­sen­ta­tives. She now serves as a senior advis­er to Inslee on education.

When Mar­cie resigned last cycle, the, the 41st’s PCOs met in a spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus and rec­om­mend­ed Mer­cer Island’s Tana Senn as their first choice to fill the vacan­cy. Senn was sub­se­quent­ly appoint­ed by the King Coun­ty Coun­cil, and had no trou­ble hold­ing the seat in a tough elec­tion year.

The process of replac­ing Hunter is like­ly to be just as sim­ple and anx­i­ety-free, which will please Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty lead­ers and activists who want to defend the par­ty’s House major­i­ty while also recap­tur­ing con­trol of the state Sen­ate in 2016. As it is too late to sched­ule a spe­cial elec­tion to fill the vacan­cy that Hunter’s res­ig­na­tion will cre­ate this year, we’ll see a spe­cial elec­tion held con­cur­rent­ly with next year’s Top Two and gen­er­al elec­tions, when all posi­tions in the House will be up.

The 48th is a very Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict, as evi­denced by the results of the last two elec­tion cycles. In 2012, first-time can­di­date Cyrus Habib, a Demo­c­rat, defeat­ed Red­mond City Coun­cilmem­ber Hank Myers, a Repub­li­can, by a more than twen­ty-point mar­gin. In 2014, when Rod­ney Tom retired, Habib eas­i­ly won elec­tion to the Sen­ate, while Joan McBride retained Habib’s House seat by a sim­i­lar­ly ridicu­lous mar­gin. Repub­li­cans failed to field cred­i­ble can­di­dates against either.

With Hunter’s depar­ture, Habib will become the senior mem­ber of the 48th’s del­e­ga­tion to Olympia. He’s had a remark­able rise, going from fresh­man Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to senior law­mak­er in less than four years.

Serv­ing in the Leg­is­la­ture is, in many respects, a thank­less, tir­ing job, which is one rea­son why the insti­tu­tion sees turnover. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ross Hunter has giv­en thir­teen years to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. For sev­er­al of those years, he has been the House Democ­rats’ chief bud­get writer, tasked with ham­mer­ing out com­pro­mis­es with the Repub­li­can-con­trolled Senate.

Hav­ing put in so many years of ser­vice to the House, Hunter could have moved on and cho­sen to take a job in the pri­vate sec­tor as a way of start­ing a new chal­lenge. We have no doubt many com­pa­nies would have been glad to hire him. But instead, he’s remain­ing in the pub­lic sphere and con­tin­u­ing his ser­vice as a key leader in Gov­er­nor Inslee’s admin­is­tra­tion. That’s good news for Wash­ing­ton State.