Senator-elect Manka Dhingra will serve as Vice Chair of two state Senate committees

Today, the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus announced its com­mit­tee assign­ments for the 2018 leg­isla­tive ses­sion. The cau­cus is tak­ing over man­age­ment of the cham­ber in just a few weeks thanks to Man­ka Dhin­gra’s vic­to­ry in the 45th Dis­trict, which flipped the major­i­ty from Repub­li­can to Democratic.

Dhin­gra has been assigned to three com­mit­tees: Trans­porta­tion, Law & Jus­tice, and Human Ser­vices & Cor­rec­tions. Addi­tion­al­ly, Dhin­gra will serve as Vice Chair of the lat­ter two com­mit­tees, set to be led by Jamie Ped­er­sen (D‑43rd Dis­trict: Seat­tle) and Jean­nie Darneille (D‑27th Dis­trict: Taco­ma), respectively.

Com­mit­tee vice chairs are tra­di­tion­al­ly tasked with the impor­tant work of get­ting leg­is­la­tion report­ed out of com­mit­tee with a major­i­ty in sup­port of a “do pass” rec­om­men­da­tion. Com­mit­tee chairs typ­i­cal­ly call upon their vice chairs dur­ing exec­u­tive ses­sions to put forth motions to advance bills pri­or to call­ing for a vote.

As Vice Chair of the Sen­ate’s Law & Jus­tice and Human Ser­vices & Cor­rec­tions Com­mit­tees, Dhin­gra will be well posi­tioned to influ­ence the devel­op­ment and pol­ish­ing of pro­gres­sive pub­lic safe­ty legislation.

It so hap­pens that State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Roger Good­man is the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus’ lead on many of the issues those Sen­ate com­mit­tees have juris­dic­tion over. Good­man chairs the House Pub­lic Safe­ty Com­mit­tee and also sits on the House Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee; he has rep­re­sent­ed the 45th in the House for a decade.

Serv­ing from the same leg­isla­tive dis­trict and in lead­er­ship posi­tions on com­ple­men­tary leg­isla­tive com­mit­tees should give Good­man and Dhin­gra plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to work togeth­er for the bet­ter­ment of Wash­ing­ton’s communities.

As men­tioned, Dhin­gra will also be serv­ing on the Sen­ate Trans­porta­tion Com­mit­tee, which is one of the cham­ber’s largest, busiest, and most impor­tant com­mit­tees. Trans­porta­tion will be led in 2018 by Sen­a­tor Steve Hobbs (D‑44th Dis­trict: Lake Stevens and Sno­homish Coun­ty), who will be tak­ing over from Cur­tis King.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Sen­a­tor-elect Dhin­gra on her com­mit­tee assign­ments. We look for­ward to see­ing her in action in Olympia as the 2018 ses­sion unfolds.