Washington’s Democratic Lieutenant Governor Brad Owen files to run for reelection

Wash­ing­ton’s incum­bent Demo­c­ra­t­ic Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Brad Owen recent­ly filed paper­work with the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion to start up a reelec­tion cam­paign for 2016, PDC doc­u­ments show, join­ing sev­er­al oth­er statewide Demo­c­ra­t­ic incum­bents who have active 2016 cam­paigns, includ­ing Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, Lands Com­mis­sion­er Peter Gold­mark, and Trea­sur­er James McIntire.

Owen, six­ty-five, has been Wash­ing­ton’s lieu­tenant gov­er­nor since Jan­u­ary 15th, 1997. He is cur­rent­ly the longest-serv­ing lieu­tenant gov­er­nor in the Unit­ed States. As lieu­tenant gov­er­nor, he pre­sides over the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate and fills in for Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee when Inslee is out of state or unable to ful­fill his duties.

Owen pre­vi­ous­ly served along­side Gov­er­nors Chris Gre­goire and Gary Locke.

Though Owen is wide­ly con­sid­ered to be a fair, even-hand­ed Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate, it is an open secret in Olympia that top Sen­ate Repub­li­cans don’t care for him. Owen has reg­u­lar­ly used his author­i­ty as Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor to uphold the deco­rum of the Sen­ate as well as the Wash­ing­ton State Constitution.

For instance, back in March, Owen ruled that a new rule imposed by Sen­ate Repub­li­cans requir­ing a two-thirds vote to raise rev­enue was unen­force­able because it vio­lat­ed the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion, cit­ing the Supreme Court’s Feb­ru­ary 2013 League of Edu­ca­tion Vot­ers deci­sion.

A few weeks ear­li­er, Owen sent a let­ter of rep­ri­mand to Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Pam Roach after Roach embar­rassed her­self, her cau­cus, and the Sen­ate by turn­ing a pub­lic hear­ing on ini­tia­tive reform leg­is­la­tion into The Pam Roach Show.

“Peo­ple appear before your com­mit­tee to pro­vide infor­ma­tion and answer ques­tions; they do not appear in order to hear you talk,” Owen wrote in the let­ter. “Our goal is to hear from the peo­ple, not ourselves.”

He referred to Roach’s inter­ac­tion with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from NPI’s NO on I‑517 coali­tion part­ners The Wash­ing­ton Food Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion and the North­west Gro­cery Asso­ci­a­tion as “stun­ning­ly inap­pro­pri­ate”, and warned Roach that if she con­tin­ued her bad behav­ior, there would be consequences.

And a few weeks pri­or to that, Owen angered mil­i­tant Repub­li­cans when he pro­hib­it­ed firearms from being open­ly car­ried into the Sen­ate’s pub­lic gallery.

“I don’t want the peo­ple who are on the floor being fear­ful of doing their job,” Owen said at the time, in remarks that were report­ed by the Asso­ci­at­ed Press. “I don’t want par­ents con­cerned about the safe­ty of their kids as pages.”

Owen has also been will­ing to assist Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­er­ship when they have need­ed his help. For instance, dur­ing the Gre­goire years, the Sen­ate dead­locked on a key bill. Owen broke a 24–24 tie by cast­ing the deci­sive vote in favor, as per­mit­ted by the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion, allow­ing the bill to pass the Senate.

Owen also sup­port­ed Lisa Brown’s chal­lenge to Tim Eyman’s I‑601 clones, which uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly required a two-thirds vote to raise rev­enue dur­ing the late 2000s and ear­ly 2010s. Brown’s law­suit, which became the case Brown v. Owen, was planned with Owen’s knowl­edge and support.

After the Supreme Court dis­missed the case, deny­ing Brown the writ of man­damus she sought, The Olympian’s Brad Shan­non talked to Owen about the outcome.

“I didn’t agree with them [the jus­tices],” Owen told Shan­non. “I think it was an issue they should have ruled on… I felt it was some­thing that need­ed to have a fin­er inter­pre­ta­tion, rather than punt­ing. I thought Brown made a good point. That’s why we need­ed an interpretation.”

Although Brown v. Owen was unsuc­cess­ful, the Supreme Court ulti­mate­ly did strike down the super­ma­jor­i­ty vote require­ment at the heart of I‑601 and its clones I‑960, I‑1053, and I‑1185 (all spon­sored by Tim Eyman) in League of Edu­ca­tion Vot­ers v. State of Wash­ing­ton, ref­er­enced above. As men­tioned, Owen relied on that rul­ing when he declared Repub­li­cans’ ill-con­ceived change to the Sen­ate’s rules to require a two-thirds vote to advance a rev­enue bill unenforceable.

Owen already has two Repub­li­can oppo­nents for 2016, accord­ing to the PDC, but if his­to­ry is any indi­ca­tion, he will eas­i­ly cruise to reelection.

In 2012, Owen faced a strong chal­lenge by Repub­li­can Bill Finkbein­er, who once rep­re­sent­ed the 45th Dis­trict and served as Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader, but was nev­er­the­less reelect­ed hand­i­ly with 53% of the vote.