Republicans nominate Dino Rossi, Toby Nixon, and Joel Hussey to succeed Andy Hill

The King Coun­ty Repub­li­can Par­ty has nom­i­nat­ed for­mer State Sen­a­tor Dino Rossi, Kirk­land City Coun­cilmem­ber Toby Nixon, and peren­ni­al leg­isla­tive can­di­date Joel Hussey to suc­ceed Andy Hill, per a tweet from Repub­li­can con­sul­tant Brett Bad­er, who we’re guess­ing attend­ed the par­ty’s nom­i­nat­ing meet­ing today.

Rossi, fifty-sev­en has served mul­ti­ple stints in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate and will most like­ly be who the King Coun­ty Coun­cil appoints to fill the vacan­cy. Rossi has said he would not run to hold the seat, but would instead serve as a care­tak­er.

Rossi has run three failed cam­paigns for statewide office: in 2004 (for Gov­er­nor), in 2008 (again for Gov­er­nor), and in 2010 (for U.S. Sen­ate). He lost those cam­paigns to Chris Gre­goire and Pat­ty Mur­ray. In 2012, after Cheryl Pflug resigned her Sen­ate seat, Rossi was tapped to serve out the remain­ing months of Pflug’s term. (Demo­c­rat Mark Mul­let suc­ceed­ed Rossi as the dis­tric­t’s sen­a­tor in Jan­u­ary of 2013; Mul­let is cur­rent­ly on track to win a sec­ond four-year term.)

Nixon is a Kirk­land City Coun­cilmem­ber who pre­vi­ous­ly served as State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the 45th. A decade ago, Nixon ran for state Sen­ate to suc­ceed the depart­ing Bill Finkbein­er, but was defeat­ed by Eric Oemig, who lost his bid for a sec­ond term four years lat­er to Andy Hill. Nixon then tried to get his state House seat back in the 2008 cycle, run­ning against Roger Good­man, the man who’d tak­en his place, but Good­man pre­vailed and has con­tin­ued to win every cycle since.

Joel Hussey is one of the Repub­li­cans Good­man has van­quished in those sub­se­quent cycles. He was Good­man’s fourth oppo­nent (after Jef­frey Possinger, Nixon, and Kevin Haist­ings). Hussey gar­nered 43.54% of the vote in 2012 against Good­man and 45.01% in a 2014 rematch. Good­man this year faced Sam­mamish City Coun­cilmem­ber Ramiro Valder­ra­ma, who is get­ting a pal­try 38.09%.

Because the 45th’s bound­aries are entire­ly with­in King Coun­ty, the King Coun­ty Coun­cil has the final say over who will be appoint­ed. How­ev­er, the Coun­cil must choose from among Rossi, Nixon, or Hussey, per Arti­cle II, Sec­tion 15 of the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion. If the Coun­cil fails to act in a time­ly fash­ion, respon­si­bil­i­ty for mak­ing an appoint­ment would pass to Gov­er­nor Inslee.

As men­tioned above, Rossi has said he is will­ing to take over from Hill for the 2017 ses­sion but would not be a can­di­date in the spe­cial elec­tion to suc­ceed Hill. Nixon and Hussey have not made sim­i­lar pub­lic state­ments to our knowl­edge, but it’s quite pos­si­ble they’re also inter­est­ed in just being caretakers.

The elec­tion to pick a suc­ces­sor to Hill will held con­cur­rent­ly with the 2017 local elec­tions next August and November.

Spe­cial Sen­ate elec­tions will also be tak­ing place in the 37th, 48th, and 31st dis­tricts to fill vacan­cies left by Prami­la Jaya­pal, Cyrus Habib, and Pam Roach, who will be leav­ing the Leg­is­la­ture to take oth­er elect­ed positions.