Andy Hill: 1962–2016

A key fig­ure in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate’s Repub­li­can cau­cus has died after bat­tling a recur­rence of lung can­cer, his col­leagues and fam­i­ly divulged today.

Sen­a­tor Andy Hill (R‑45th Dis­trict: Red­mond, Kirk­land, Sam­mamish, Wood­inville, Duvall) has been the Sen­ate’s chief bud­get writer since late 2012. He assumed the chair­man­ship of the Sen­ate Ways & Means Com­mit­tee fol­low­ing Rod­ney Tom and Tim Shel­don’s defec­tion to the Repub­li­can Par­ty four years ago, which result­ed in Democ­rats becom­ing a minor­i­ty in the Sen­ate despite hav­ing been elect­ed to a major­i­ty by the vot­ers of Wash­ing­ton State in the 2012 elections.

Hill was first elect­ed to the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate in 2010, defeat­ing Eric Oemig, and was nar­row­ly reelect­ed in 2014 to a sec­ond four-year term, over­com­ing a chal­lenge from Navy vet­er­an Matt Isen­how­er. A physics major, Andy was a pro­gram man­ag­er at Microsoft before becom­ing involved in PTSA and Lake Wash­ing­ton Youth Soccer/Crossfire. Togeth­er with his wife Mol­ly, he has three children.

“In 2008, he was diag­nosed with lung can­cer, despite nev­er hav­ing smoked,” not­ed a pub­lic let­ter post­ed on Hill’s cam­paign web­site acknowl­edg­ing his death, put togeth­er by his good friend and col­league Joe Fain.

“Beat­ing all the odds and through the use of a cut­ting-edge can­cer treat­ment, Andy man­aged the dis­ease for years liv­ing can­cer free. With the new per­spec­tive of hav­ing come so close to death, Andy leaned fur­ther into com­mu­ni­ty service.”

Sad­ly, Andy’s can­cer came back, and has now tak­en his life.

Andy was my state sen­a­tor, and I enjoyed inter­act­ing with him, despite our very dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal views. Our last sub­stan­tive con­ver­sa­tion, which I remem­ber fond­ly, took place last March, when I was in Olympia for the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court’s oral argu­ment in Lee v. State, the case against Tim Eyman’s I‑1366.

(I‑1366 was Eyman’s scheme to wipe out $8 bil­lion in sales tax fund­ing over six years unless the Leg­is­la­ture agreed to change the state’s Con­sti­tu­tion to make it impos­si­ble to raise rev­enue with­out a two-thirds vote.)

At the time, Andy was work­ing on try­ing to fin­ish nego­ti­at­ing the sup­ple­men­tal bud­get, while I had just fin­ished live­blog­ging the goings-on at the Tem­ple of Jus­tice. After hear­ing what I’d been up to, Andy opined that he felt cer­tain the Supreme Court would strike I‑1366 down — a view long held by the team here at NPI. And a few weeks lat­er, the Court did exact­ly that, ren­der­ing a unan­i­mous ver­dict declar­ing the ini­tia­tive uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in its entirety.

What stood out to me dur­ing that con­ver­sa­tion were Andy’s per­cep­tive and con­fi­dent com­ments. He had clear­ly read up on the ini­tia­tive, ana­lyzed its defects, and con­clud­ed that it would not hold up in the courts.

I was glad to hear his take on the case, for it demon­strat­ed that he under­stood the incred­i­bly destruc­tive con­se­quences of I‑1366’s implementation.

After we wrapped up our dis­cus­sion, I found myself wish­ing he had been part of our cam­paign against I‑1366 only a few months pri­or. I would have enjoyed cam­paign­ing along­side him to defeat that awful initiative.

Last year, Andy was encour­aged to run against Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee by a num­ber of well known Repub­li­cans, includ­ing the dis­tin­guished Sam Reed, but he demurred, and for good rea­sons, choos­ing to put his fam­i­ly and per­son­al health first.

Today, Gov­er­nor Inslee was one of the first to react to news of Hill’s pass­ing, stat­ing: “I am deeply sad­dened to hear of the pass­ing of Sen­a­tor Andy Hill. Tru­di and I extend our con­do­lences to Mol­ly, their three chil­dren, and Andy’s fam­i­ly and friends. Sen­a­tor Hill was ded­i­cat­ed leg­is­la­tor who served with dis­tinc­tion. He was a strong cham­pi­on for edu­ca­tion and a com­pas­sion­ate advo­cate for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties. His voice in Olympia will be missed.”

“Andy was a strong advo­cate for his East King Coun­ty dis­trict,” added King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine in a state­ment on behalf of King Coun­ty. “I am grate­ful for his work to expand access to cul­tur­al pro­grams and secure ded­i­cat­ed fund­ing for pub­lic health. He leaves a lega­cy of com­pas­sion and prag­ma­tism, and we at King Coun­ty offer con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly and friends.”

“Andy Hill embod­ied what it means to be a pub­lic ser­vant,” said Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son. “He was a plea­sure to work with, both pro­fes­sion­al­ly and per­son­al­ly. Andy’s ded­i­ca­tion to hard work and mas­tery of detail result­ed in a thor­ough and thought­ful approach to pol­i­cy. His inde­pen­dence and com­mit­ment to the state of Wash­ing­ton made col­lab­o­rat­ing with him down­right enjoy­able. My heart goes out to Andy’s wife Mol­ly and their three chil­dren as they grieve this enor­mous loss.”

“We are heart­bro­ken by the pass­ing of a true ser­vant leader and exem­plary father, hus­band, friend and col­league,” said David Ammons, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor for  Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman. “Sen­a­tor Hill was one of the ‘best and the bright­est’ and will be sore­ly missed at the Capi­tol and across the state. His col­lab­o­ra­tive, col­le­gial style was a mod­el for us all.”

“Andy’s self­less courage to over­come his first encounter with can­cer and seek pub­lic office, serv­ing the state and its cit­i­zens until the can­cer returned this sum­mer, is an inspi­ra­tion to all of us,” said State Repub­li­can Chair Susan Hutchison.

She added: “We will miss his intel­lect, good humor, his abil­i­ty to solve com­plex prob­lems and bring peo­ple togeth­er across the polit­i­cal aisle. He is a mod­el for cit­i­zen­ship and ser­vice for all those in pub­lic life.”

“Andy Hill was a ded­i­cat­ed pub­lic ser­vant respect­ed by Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans,” said Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty Chair Jax­on Ravens. “His ser­vice in Olympia and in his com­mu­ni­ty proved there is much more that unites us than divides us. I join oth­er Wash­ing­to­ni­ans in griev­ing over his loss.”

“We are griev­ed to hear of the pass­ing of Sen­a­tor Andy Hill,” said King Coun­ty Demo­c­ra­t­ic Chair Rich Erwin and 45th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict Demo­c­ra­t­ic Chair Ken Albinger in a joint state­ment. “Sen­a­tor Hill was a devot­ed father, parish­ioner, state law­mak­er, and com­mu­ni­ty leader entrust­ed by his cau­cus with the impor­tant respon­si­bil­i­ty of nego­ti­at­ing with House Democ­rats and Gov­er­nor Inslee on state bud­gets. We appre­ci­at­ed Andy’s will­ing­ness as one of our elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives to engage us and our leg­isla­tive action teams on many issues of mutu­al concern.”

“We extend our deep­est con­do­lences to his wife Mol­ly, their three chil­dren, and his many friends, and com­mend them for faith­ful­ly sup­port­ing Andy dur­ing his mul­ti­ple bat­tles against cancer.”

Memo­r­i­al ser­vices for Andy have been sched­uled for Fri­day, Novem­ber 11th, but fur­ther details are not yet avail­able. I will update this post when they are.