Washington Governor Jay Inslee announces climate-focused presidential campaign

Wash­ing­ton’s own Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee has become the thir­teenth major can­di­date to launch a bid for the 2020 Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion for U.S. President.

In a video released this morn­ing, Inslee made his ambi­tions offi­cial and unveiled his cam­paign’s iden­ti­ty, trade dress, and focus: stop­ping and revers­ing cli­mate damage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlgdlWO-4yI

“We are the first gen­er­a­tion to feel the sting of cli­mate change, and we are the last gen­er­a­tion that can do some­thing about it,” said Inslee in an email to poten­tial sup­port­ers. “That’s why I’m run­ning for pres­i­dent: to make defeat­ing cli­mate change the nation’s top pri­or­i­ty. This is our moment to act. That’s why my first pledge to you as a can­di­date is this: I won’t be tak­ing a dime from cor­po­rate pol­luters. Noth­ing. No fos­sil fuel mon­ey. No cor­po­rate PACs. Just you.”

“The sci­ence is clear: We have a short peri­od of time to act,” the email goes on to say. “Whether we shrink from this chal­lenge, or rise to it, is the sin­gle biggest ques­tion we face. Work­ing togeth­er we can trans­form our econ­o­my, cre­ate a just tran­si­tion, and lead the world in inno­va­tions that will dri­ve the future!”

Inslee is the first cred­i­ble pres­i­den­tial can­di­date from Wash­ing­ton State in a very long time. Leg­endary U.S. Sen­a­tor Hen­ry M. “Scoop” Jack­son pre­vi­ous­ly sought the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion many decades ago, but was unsuccessful.

Inslee is hop­ing to at least make cli­mate jus­tice a burn­ing issue in the 2020 cam­paign, even if he does­n’t secure the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nomination.

Crit­ics have joked on Twit­ter that in launch­ing a cli­mate-focused pres­i­den­tial bid, Inslee is real­ly run­ning for Admin­is­tra­tor of the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency. But the lat­est cli­mate sci­ence tells us that we’re run­ning out of time to pre­vent cat­a­stroph­ic dam­age to our plan­et. The premise of Inslee’s cam­paign is that cli­mate jus­tice needs our full atten­tion and our lead­ers’ full attention.

NPI does­n’t endorse can­di­dates or engage in elec­tion­eer­ing for or against any can­di­date. But we are glad to see Jay Inslee run for President.

He will bring a Pacif­ic North­west per­spec­tive to the 2020 campaign.

As an expe­ri­enced gov­er­nor — and thus far, the only gov­er­nor to have entered the race — Inslee actu­al­ly brings a lot more to the table than a focus on climate.

He may end up get­ting labeled a sin­gle-issue can­di­date by pun­dits and peo­ple who don’t know him well, but as a gov­er­nor and a for­mer Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive who has rep­re­sent­ed two very dif­fer­ent dis­tricts in his home state, Inslee is famil­iar with and has posi­tions on all the big issues our coun­try faces, from gun safe­ty to net neu­tral­i­ty to immi­gra­tion and pro­tect­ing the rights of refugees.

Inslee ran for Con­gress in 1992, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010, and won all but one of those cam­paigns. In between those con­gres­sion­al cam­paigns, he also ran unsuc­cess­ful­ly for gov­er­nor. In 2012, he left Con­gress to run for gov­er­nor a sec­ond time and won, defeat­ing Repub­li­can Rob McKenna.

Inslee was reelect­ed in 2016 for a sec­ond term, defeat­ing Bill Bryant.

No one else in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic field has four­teen years of con­gres­sion­al expe­ri­ence and six years of exec­u­tive expe­ri­ence as a gov­er­nor. And with the excep­tion of one or two oth­er can­di­dates, like Eliz­a­beth War­ren, none of the oth­er con­tenders have the  down to earth, plucky, aw-shucks, let’s go get ’em dis­po­si­tion that Inslee does.

“Ear­ly to bed, ear­ly to rise; work like hell and orga­nize. Let’s go get this job done!” is some­thing Inslee often says to close out a speech. It per­fect­ly encap­su­lates who he is: a peo­ple-cen­tric, results-ori­ent­ed leader who has con­sis­tent­ly reject­ed the pol­i­tics of cyn­i­cism. Inslee brings a con­ta­gious, can-do spir­it to every room he’s in.

As Gov­er­nor, Jay Inslee has signed leg­is­la­tion to make Wash­ing­ton one of the eas­i­est states to cast a bal­lot in, ban LGBT con­ver­sion ther­a­py, defend net neu­tral­i­ty, ensure women tru­ly have the free­dom to make their own repro­duc­tive health deci­sions, and invest in mass tran­sit plus freight mobility.

He soon hopes to sign leg­is­la­tion per­ma­nent­ly abol­ish­ing the death penalty.

And he has coura­geous­ly pro­posed levy­ing tax­es on the wealthy to make Wash­ing­ton’s unfair, worst-in-the-nation tax code more progressive.

Inslee’s crit­ics scoff at these accom­plish­ments and point to the many chal­lenges the state cur­rent­ly faces, such as with men­tal health and West­ern State Hospital.

The truth is, these chal­lenges pre­date Inslee’s gov­er­nor­ship. We all share respon­si­bil­i­ty for fig­ur­ing out how to take care of the most vul­ner­a­ble among us. None of us are per­fect. We’ve all made mis­takes. We’re human.

Dur­ing Inslee’s first term as gov­er­nor, Repub­li­cans con­trolled the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate and turned that cham­ber into a grave­yard of progress where good ideas went to die. Lit­tle progress was made tack­ling issues like men­tal health because Repub­li­cans like Mark Schoesler made agree­ing on a bud­get to keep state gov­ern­ment open the most tor­tur­ous process imaginable.

In fact, in their last year of con­trol of the Sen­ate, Repub­li­cans refused to even pass a cap­i­tal bud­get, which his­tor­i­cal­ly had been an easy bipar­ti­san lift.

When Democ­rats retook the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate in 2017 with Man­ka Dhin­gra, reestab­lish­ing a Demo­c­ra­t­ic tri­fec­ta, the flood­gates opened for the lib­er­a­tion of pre­vi­ous­ly trapped bills. The end of divid­ed gov­ern­ment also result­ed in an end to the stu­pid, run-out-the-clock bud­get games that Repub­li­cans had been playing.

In the 2018 midterms, Democ­rats expand­ed their majori­ties in each cham­ber and now are in firm con­trol of the state­house. They are poised to send Inslee a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of bills by ses­sion’s end to raise the state’s qual­i­ty of life.

Inslee will have to bal­ance gov­ern­ing with cam­paign­ing, espe­cial­ly in the near future, since the leg­isla­tive ses­sion will not end until April 28th.

Repub­li­cans are laugh­ably demand­ing that Inslee resign so he can pur­sue his “van­i­ty” White House bid. Of course, were Inslee to do that, Cyrus Habib would become Gov­er­nor of Wash­ing­ton State and Repub­li­cans have made it clear they like Habib even less than they like Inslee. Their pos­tur­ing is to be expect­ed, but it con­tributes noth­ing to our state or coun­try’s polit­i­cal discourse.

In 2015/2016, mul­ti­ple Repub­li­can gov­er­nors sought the pres­i­den­cy with­out resign­ing from their posts, includ­ing Chris Christie, who was embroiled in scan­dal. Repub­li­cans nat­u­ral­ly did not demand those men resign from their posts.

Inslee is far bet­ter sit­u­at­ed to run for Pres­i­dent than Christie was. Unlike Christie, he does­n’t have divid­ed gov­ern­ment to wor­ry about back home. And in Cyrus Habib, he has some­one who’s more than capa­ble of fill­ing in for him while he’s out of state cam­paign­ing. Even Inslee’s crit­ics ought to be able to agree that Wash­ing­ton and the Pacif­ic North­west stand to ben­e­fit by hav­ing Inslee in the 2020 race.