“We are the state that invests in our people”: Jay Inslee delivers 2019 State of the State

Yes­ter­day, Wash­ing­ton State Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee deliv­ered the exec­u­tive’s annu­al State of the State address to the new­ly con­vened Legislature.

Inslee began his speech by list­ing some of Washington’s “firsts”.

He con­grat­u­lat­ed Rep­re­sen­ta­tive My-Linh Thai (D‑41st Dis­trict) as the first refugee to be elect­ed to the State House, and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Debra Lekanoff (D‑40th Dis­trict), the first Native Amer­i­can woman to be elect­ed to the State House.

“It’s real­ly great to look out and see faces that reflect the diver­si­ty of our state,” said Inslee. “These are firsts we all are proud of.”

Inslee not­ed that while the Leg­is­la­ture advanced many pro­gres­sive ideas dur­ing the last ses­sion, law­mak­ers can­not rest on their laurels.

He detailed some of the biggest issues he believes should be tack­led, begin­ning with the grave and ever-wors­en­ing threat of cli­mate dam­age. Over that last few years, Wash­ing­ton has expe­ri­enced record-high tem­per­a­tures, record-low snow­pack, high­er ocean tem­per­a­tures and high­er sea­wa­ter acid­i­ty, Inslee observed.

“I don’t know of any oth­er issue that touch­es the heart of things so many of us care about: our jobs, our health, our safe­ty and our children’s future,” he said. “But this doesn’t have to be our future. Sci­ence affirms the neces­si­ty of action – this day.”

Inslee argued that Wash­ing­ton should invest in clean ener­gy and low-pol­lu­tion  tech­nolo­gies to ensure broad pros­per­i­ty for every region in Washington.

“These kinds of jobs have pro­pelled our clean ener­gy sec­tor to grow more than twice as fast as the rest of our econ­o­my. There is no greater job oppor­tu­ni­ty than the oppor­tu­ni­ty of clean ener­gy,” he con­tin­ued. “We will pass leg­is­la­tion to tran­si­tion to one hun­dred per­cent clean elec­tric­i­ty, trans­form our build­ings with cost-sav­ing effi­cien­cies, and mod­ern­ize and elec­tri­fy our trans­porta­tion sys­tem. We’ll phase down super-pol­lu­tants and phase in clean­er fuels.”

“This trans­for­ma­tion has start­ed, but we need to do more, do it big­ger and do it faster,” Inslee stressed. “So when your grand­chil­dren ask what you did to pro­tect them from cli­mate change, you can tell them you weren’t sit­ting around say­ing it was some­one else’s prob­lem. You took action.”

“Because that is who we are in the State of Washington.”

The next issue he addressed was men­tal health. 

The Gov­er­nor declared that we must trans­form our behav­ioral health sys­tem to act proac­tive­ly instead of in a reac­tive man­ner, lurch­ing from cri­sis to crisis.

“For those with a loved one who has wait­ed too long for the right kind of treat­ment, we know this chal­lenge is urgent,” he said.

“Our fam­i­lies and friends are suf­fer­ing and we can do so much better.”

Some of the prob­lems Inslee would like to see addressed include find­ing room for more peo­ple at new com­mu­ni­ty-based facil­i­ties so patients are near fam­i­lies, homes, places of wor­ship and their com­mu­ni­ties. He said the state should also expand the pro­fes­sion­al work­force ded­i­cat­ed to men­tal health issues. Inslee then announced a new part­ner­ship with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton to cre­ate a teach­ing hos­pi­tal to serve these patients and to train behav­ioral health providers.

“We can turn this sto­ry around and direct it toward hope,” said Inslee. “And I’m pleased that we’re at the begin­ning of a bipar­ti­san effort to do just that. We will cre­ate a sto­ry this year about a holis­tic mod­el for behav­ioral health that encom­pass­es the fam­i­ly, the com­mu­ni­ty and the promise of time­ly care.”

Switch­ing gears, Inslee then talked about sav­ing the south­ern res­i­dent orcas.

He recount­ed the unfor­get­table sto­ry from last sum­mer, when a moth­er orca car­ried her dead calf for over two weeks.

“We saw a mother’s grief. We felt it. Our hearts broke as we shared in her loss,” the Gov­er­nor lament­ed. “This can­not be their fate.”

Inslee stressed the impor­tance to make “unprece­dent­ed invest­ments” to save the res­i­dent orcas, because the “demise of any species is a warn­ing in our nat­ur­al sys­tems.” Through an orca task force led by Dr. Les Purce and Stephanie Solien, Inslee pre­sent­ed rec­om­men­da­tions to save the pod, which includes increas­ing salmon stocks, fix­ing cul­verts and decreas­ing ves­sel traf­fic risks.

“We have just one last chance to save these orcas,” he said. “In this per­ilous moment, we must answer back with action.”

He did not pro­pose any restric­tions on fish­ing, which Seat­tle Times colum­nist Dan­ny West­neat has argued may be nec­es­sary to save the south­ern residents.

Inslee then moved on to edu­ca­tion.

“I thank every­one in this cham­ber who has been part of the years-long effort to ful­ly fund basic edu­ca­tion,” he said, refer­ring to efforts to purge the State’s con­tempt in the now-end­ed McCleary court case, which dragged on for years.

“This was an enor­mous­ly heavy lift that I’m proud we accom­plished togeth­er last year. This was a remark­able bipar­ti­san effort; both par­ties shared in that success.”

The Leg­is­la­ture can­not stop now, he said. McCleary com­pli­ance isn’t enough. Fund­ing spe­cial edu­ca­tion and ear­ly learn­ing is “the best way to secure a strong start for every child, regard­less of their family’s eco­nom­ic circumstances.”

He hopes to expand preschool pro­grams, as well as cre­ate a statewide refer­ral sys­tem to con­nect fam­i­lies with ear­ly learn­ing ser­vices and facil­i­ties. He’d like to see uni­ver­sal home vis­its, which would allow new par­ents the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get a vis­it from a nurse dur­ing the first weeks at home with a newborn.

“And once those chil­dren reach the oth­er end of their edu­ca­tion and pre­pare to grad­u­ate from high school, we want to open up as many path­ways as pos­si­ble, includ­ing appren­tice­ships, cer­tifi­cates and degrees,” he said.

“For high-school stu­dents or indi­vid­u­als who seek an expe­ri­ence out­side a four-year pro­gram, our Career Con­nect Wash­ing­ton ini­tia­tive gives them that option.”

The ini­tia­tive con­nects stu­dents with real-world expe­ri­ence in their cho­sen careers, which ulti­mate­ly gives them a bet­ter chance when they even­tu­al­ly apply for their first job after school. Inslee’s pro­posed bud­get would also pro­vide 100,000 stu­dents over the next ten years an option to explore their inter­ests through appren­tice­ships and paid internships.

“This means more Wash­ing­ton stu­dents can take advan­tage of great careers here at home in one of the best economies any­where,” he explained.

“Don’t our kids deserve that?”

Inslee also detailed the Wash­ing­ton Col­lege Promise, a new statewide free col­lege pro­gram that guar­an­tees finan­cial aid to eli­gi­ble students.

“As we grap­ple with these chal­lenges in our state, we must also con­front oth­er forces seek­ing to under­mine our progress,” said Inslee.

“We are the state that invests in our people.”

Inslee praised the pre­vi­ous Leg­is­la­ture’s major accom­plish­ments, like pass­ing the Access to Democ­ra­cy pack­age and tak­ing a first step to end­ing the death penal­ty. He encour­aged the 2019 Leg­is­la­ture to build upon those suc­cess­es. He con­clud­ed by say­ing that he believes this next chap­ter “must show that we pushed the lim­it and moved beyond our plateau, that we always looked for the next beginning.”

“So let this be our pro­found sto­ry. Let it be bold,” he said.

“And most of all, let it make history.”