Metropolitan King County Council appoints Patty Kuderer to the Washington State House

The Met­ro­pol­i­tan King Coun­ty Coun­cil vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly today to appoint attor­ney Pat­ty Kud­er­er to the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, fill­ing the vacan­cy cre­at­ed by the depar­ture of Ross Hunter ear­li­er this month.

“I am pleased to vote yes to appoint Ms. Kud­er­er to fill the vacan­cy in the 48th Dis­trict,” said King Coun­cil Chair Lar­ry Phillips, not­ing, “She was the top choice by the King Coun­ty Democ­rats PCOs, and is an excel­lent can­di­date to fill Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Hunter’s seat rep­re­sent­ing our East­side communities.”

The 48th encom­pass­es neigh­bor­hoods from Belle­vue, Kirk­land, and Red­mond, as well as the cities of Hunts Point, Yarrow Point, Med­i­na, and Clyde Hill. NPI’s Red­mond head­quar­ters are locat­ed in the district.

“I am so grate­ful for the sup­port from the 48th Dis­trict Demo­c­ra­t­ic orga­ni­za­tion and hon­ored to be appoint­ed to this seat,” Kud­er­er said. “I will con­tin­ue Rep. Hunter’s work cham­pi­oning our pub­lic schools while rely­ing on my legal back­ground to work on judi­cia­ry issues. I look for­ward to get­ting to work in Olympia.”

Kud­er­er has many years of expe­ri­ence as an attor­ney. She is cur­rent­ly the Pres­i­dent of Kud­er­er Law Group, PLLC, based in Seat­tle. Pri­or to 2012, she was a part­ner at Hoff, Bar­ry & Kud­er­er, P.A, based in Eden Prairie, Min­neso­ta, for over eight years. She earned her J.D. from William Mitchell Col­lege of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Kud­er­er will serve out near­ly all of the remain­der of Hunter’s term. A spe­cial elec­tion to fill Hunter’s seat will take place con­cur­rent­ly with next year’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. Kud­er­er is expect­ed to run for a full term next August and Novem­ber as well.

Hav­ing been sworn in fol­low­ing the Coun­cil’s vote, Kud­er­er is now offi­cial­ly a mem­ber of the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, serv­ing along­side Joan McBride. Her appoint­ment brings the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic ros­ter back to fifty-one mem­bers. She will now need to hire a leg­isla­tive assis­tant (LA), and the cau­cus will need to fig­ure out what her com­mit­tee assign­ments will be.

The Coun­cil vot­ed to appoint Kud­er­er after inter­view­ing her and the oth­er two nom­i­nees select­ed by the Demo­c­ra­t­ic PCOs resid­ing in the 48th Dis­trict, Kim Allen and San­ti­a­go Ramos. Allen, the sec­ond choice, had pre­vi­ous­ly made clear that she wished for the Coun­cil to respect the first choice of the PCOs and appoint Kud­er­er, who won an out­right major­i­ty on the very first round of vot­ing on Sep­tem­ber 16th.

“The 48th Dis­trict is for­tu­nate to have two strong, pro­gres­sive Demo­c­ra­t­ic women inter­est­ed in fill­ing the vacan­cy left by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ross Hunter,” Allen said in a news release dis­trib­uted last Fri­day. (Full dis­clo­sure: Kim serves as a mem­ber of NPI’s Advi­so­ry Coun­cil and is a past mem­ber of our board of direc­tors.)

“After many years of rep­re­sent­ing the East­side local­ly and region­al­ly as a strong voice for bet­ter tran­sit, envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship and smart growth, I tru­ly believe I am ready to serve the inter­ests of 48th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict in Olympia,” she said.

“But the vot­ing mem­bers of the 48th Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict nom­i­nat­ed Pat­ty as their first choice to fill this seat. Appoint­ing Ms. Kud­er­er best hon­ors the choice of those precinct lead­ers. I stand ready to share my expe­ri­ence and knowl­edge of what mat­ters to East­side com­mu­ni­ties with her and I urge the mem­bers of the Coun­ty Coun­cil to con­firm Ms. Kuderer.”

“For now, I will remain a fierce advo­cate for Red­mond and all the East­side com­mu­ni­ties as we grap­ple with the chal­lenges our growth will bring.”

Sev­er­al coun­cilmem­bers com­ment­ed pri­or to the vote that the nom­i­nees cho­sen by the spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus and rat­i­fied by the King Coun­ty Democ­rats were one of the most exem­plary set of can­di­dates they had ever seen.

All of us at the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute offer our con­grat­u­la­tions to Pat­ty Kud­er­er on her swear­ing-in. We look for­ward to work­ing with her to advance a pro­gres­sive agen­da for our great state in 2016 and beyond.