Manka Dhingra elected Deputy Senate Majority Leader; will also chair new Behavioral Health Subcommittee

A year after flip­ping the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate from red to blue, Red­mond’s Man­ka Dhin­gra (D‑45th Dis­trict) has ascend­ed into the ranks of Sen­ate lead­er­ship. The cau­cus announced today that Dhin­gra and Sen­a­tor Rebec­ca Sal­daña (D‑37th Dis­trict; Seat­tle) will be the cham­ber’s next Deputy Major­i­ty Leaders.

They will work along­side Major­i­ty Leader Andy Bil­lig, Major­i­ty Floor Leader Marko Liias, Cau­cus Chair John McCoy, and Major­i­ty Whip Mark Mullet.

“I think it’s fair to say that a Wash­ing­ton leg­isla­tive cau­cus has nev­er had the ben­e­fit of this diverse a range of rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” Bil­lig said in a statement.

“It’s one thing to talk about some­one else’s needs and anoth­er thing alto­geth­er to have lived them. No one needs to explain East­ern Wash­ing­ton pri­or­i­ties to me; I’ve been fight­ing for them ever since I was elect­ed to the Legislature.”

“The Leg­is­la­ture is full of smart, insight­ful elect­ed offi­cials who can write strong, sen­si­ble laws, and our knowl­edge is fur­ther enlight­ened by our per­son­al life expe­ri­ences,” Sal­daña said. “Rep­re­sen­ta­tion mat­ters, and when we apply a more diverse range of expe­ri­ences to our work, we wind up with bet­ter laws that apply more fair­ly and equi­tably to the very diverse com­mu­ni­ties that make up our state.”

“As a King Coun­ty pros­e­cu­tor in my day job, I have the ben­e­fit of a spe­cial­ized skill set that increas­es my aware­ness of the legal ram­i­fi­ca­tions of any leg­is­la­tion I touch,” Dhin­gra said. “In the same light, I know that when women of col­or advance into lead­er­ship roles, we flour­ish. We uplift our communities.”

“We uplift us all.”

Dhin­gra was just reelect­ed to a four year term rep­re­sent­ing the 45th Dis­trict (Red­mond, Kirk­land, Wood­inville, Duvall, Sammamish).

She is also one of five cur­rent board­mem­bers gov­ern­ing NPI’s new­ly formed sib­ling, the North­west Pro­gres­sive Foun­da­tion. The Sen­ate Democ­rats have cer­tain­ly made a wise choice by ele­vat­ing her to their lead­er­ship team.

Here’s the com­plete cau­cus lead­er­ship team ros­ter for 2019–2020:

• Major­i­ty Leader: Andy Bil­lig (D‑Spokane)
• Deputy Lead­ers: Man­ka Dhin­gra (D‑Redmond); Rebec­ca Sal­daña (D‑Seattle)
• Cau­cus Chair: John McCoy (D‑Tulalip)
• Floor Leader: Mar­co Liias (D‑Mukilteo)
• Whip: Mark Mul­let (D‑Issaquah)
• Vice Cau­cus Chair: Bob Hasegawa (D‑Seattle)
• Assis­tant Floor Leader: Pat­ty Kud­er­er (D‑Bellevue)
• Assis­tant Whip: Claire Wil­son (D‑Federal Way)

The major­i­ty has the pow­er to choose the Sen­ate’s offi­cers in addi­tion to nam­ing its own lead­er­ship team (it’s one of the big perks of hav­ing a major­i­ty) and the cau­cus’ two nom­i­nees for those posts are the peo­ple who hold them now:

• Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore: Karen Keis­er (D‑Federal Way)
• Vice Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore: Steve Con­way (D‑Tacoma)

Keis­er and Con­way will be respon­si­ble for assum­ing pre­sid­ing duties in the stead of Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Cyrus Habib when he is away or unavailable.

The Sen­ate Democ­rats also announced a restruc­tur­ing of the cham­ber’s com­mit­tees. The biggest change is the cre­ation of the new Hous­ing Sta­bil­i­ty & Afford­abil­i­ty Com­mit­tee, which will be chaired by Pat­ty Kud­er­er (D‑48th Dis­trict: Red­mond, Kirk­land, and the Points com­mu­ni­ties). The Sen­ate is also cre­at­ing a new Behav­ioral Health Sub­com­mit­tee that will be chaired by Dhingra.

“I’ve heard from peo­ple across the state, and these two issues con­sis­tent­ly rise to the top,” said Bil­lig. “Every com­mu­ni­ty, and real­ly every fam­i­ly, has in some way been touched by a men­tal health cri­sis and the inter­sec­tion between that issue and our state’s hous­ing and home­less­ness cri­sis is clear as glass. The cre­ation of these new com­mit­tees will enable us to inten­si­fy our efforts to cre­ate solu­tions in these areas while pro­vid­ing Wash­ing­to­ni­ans more oppor­tu­ni­ty to artic­u­late their needs.”

But that’s not all.

The Sen­ate is also gain­ing a new Envi­ron­ment & Tourism Com­mit­tee, chaired by Kevin Ranker (D‑40th Dis­trict: San Juan Islands, What­com and Skag­it Counties).

The com­mit­tee’s pri­ma­ry focus will be envi­ron­men­tal health through improved water qual­i­ty, oil spill pre­ven­tion and oth­er mea­sures to pro­tect our state’s ecosys­tems, accord­ing to the cau­cus. It will work in coop­er­a­tion with the Ener­gy, Cli­mate and Tech­nol­o­gy Com­mit­tee on envi­ron­men­tal issues.

“The envi­ron­men­tal health of our coun­try and our state have reached a crit­i­cal tip­ping point,” Bil­lig point­ed out, allud­ing to recent reports from the IPCC and the Unit­ed States fed­er­al gov­ern­ment con­cern­ing the sever­i­ty of the cli­mate cri­sis. “Wash­ing­to­ni­ans want and deserve action on this crit­i­cal con­cern. It’s up to us to lead on this issue and accom­plish what the oth­er Wash­ing­ton can’t or won’t.”

NPI con­grat­u­lates the Sen­ate Democ­rats on the cre­ation of these new com­mit­tees. We look for­ward to work­ing with the Sen­ate to advance leg­is­la­tion that will result in a more inclu­sive econ­o­my and a bet­ter soci­ety for all Washingtonians.