Congratulations to Representative Javier Valdez, Washington State’s newest legislator!

Today, the Met­ro­pol­i­tan King Coun­ty Coun­cil appoint­ed Javier Valdez, forty-six, as Wash­ing­ton State’s newest leg­is­la­tor. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Valdez suc­ceeds Jessyn Far­rell, who resigned sev­er­al days ago to focus on her Seat­tle may­oral cam­paign.

Javier is well known in Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty cir­cles in Wash­ing­ton State; he rep­re­sents the 46th Dis­trict on the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee (WSDCC) and the 7th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict on the WSD­C­C’s exec­u­tive board. He pre­vi­ous­ly served the WSDCC as one of two King Coun­ty com­mit­teemem­bers, and was a del­e­gate to the 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion for Hillary Clinton.

In last Sat­ur­day’s spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus, Javier was the first choice of PCOs in the 46th Dis­trict to suc­ceed Jessyn Far­rell. The oth­ers cho­sen on the list of three were Melis­sa Wingard-Phillips Tay­lor and Nigel Herbig.

I’ve known Javier for many years and have always appre­ci­at­ed his sup­port of NPI’s work, includ­ing his atten­dance at our annu­al Spring Fundrais­ing Gala.

Javier’s calm think­ing and strong com­mand of par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure have served the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty well over the years. I am con­fi­dent the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture and the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus will ben­e­fit from Javier’s talents.

Wash­ing­ton’s House and Sen­ate have very few Lat­inx mem­bers (even though the state has a sub­stan­tial Lat­inx and Span­ish-speak­ing pop­u­la­tion), so Javier’s appoint­ment will also strength­en the insti­tu­tion’s eth­nic diversity.

Javier joins the Leg­is­la­ture at a dif­fi­cult time. The state is only days away from a gov­ern­ment shut­down because leg­is­la­tors haven’t been seri­ous­ly nego­ti­at­ing on a bud­get. Sen­ate Repub­li­cans have been delib­er­ate­ly drag­ging their feet out of the belief that pro­cras­ti­nat­ing will serve their interests.

As a result of Javier’s appoint­ment, the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus is now back at full strength and has enough mem­bers (fifty) to pass leg­is­la­tion again.

The com­ple­tion of this nom­i­nat­ing and appoint­ment process for the 46th should help Democ­rats increase pres­sure on Repub­li­cans to nego­ti­ate with them.

On behalf of NPI, I extend Javier our warmest con­grat­u­la­tions on his appoint­ment. We look for­ward to see­ing him in action in per­son in Olympia and on TVW.