NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Monday, June 12th, 2017

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 Valdez

Javier Valdez watch­es the roll call at the 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

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.

Javier Valdez sworn in

Javier Valdez is sworn in as the state’s newest leg­is­la­tor (Pho­to: Mario Brown/NPI)

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.

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One Comment

  1. Yay for Javier! 

    # by Ted Seos :: June 18th, 2017 at 3:43 PM
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