Guy Palumbo resigns from the Washington State Senate, effective immediately

State Sen­a­tor Guy Palum­bo (D‑1st Dis­trict: Kirk­land, Both­ell, Malt­by), who recent­ly angered many Demo­c­ra­t­ic activists by attempt­ing to divert fund­ing from pub­lic com­mon schools to pri­vate­ly admin­is­tered pri­vate schools, has resigned from the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate, effec­tive immediately.

In a state­ment, the now-for­mer Sen­a­tor said he was leav­ing pub­lic ser­vice with a year and a half left in his term to focus on his fam­i­ly and small busi­ness — although it turns out the real rea­son is that he has tak­en a job with Ama­zon as the com­pa­ny’s state Direc­tor of Pub­lic Pol­i­cy, accord­ing to The Her­ald of Everett and The Seat­tle Times, which each obtained a state­ment from Amazon.

(Palum­bo pre­vi­ous­ly worked for Ama­zon, so this new job will be a homecoming.)

“Rep­re­sent­ing the res­i­dents of the 1st Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict has been the dis­tin­guish­ing hon­or of my pro­fes­sion­al life,” said Palumbo.

“As reward­ing as it has been to serve in the Sen­ate, the role I cher­ish most is being a hus­band and father. I am return­ing to the pri­vate sec­tor so I can be clos­er to my home and young fam­i­ly and my small business.”

“I ran in 2016 promis­ing to address trans­porta­tion and infra­struc­ture prob­lems in our com­mu­ni­ty,” Palum­bo recalled.

“In three short years, invest­ments in our dis­trict have grown expo­nen­tial­ly com­pared to the pri­or two decades with $720 mil­lion in trans­porta­tion invest­ments and anoth­er $180 mil­lion in cap­i­tal con­struc­tion investments.

“While the work isn’t fin­ished, I feel like I am leav­ing our dis­trict and our state in bet­ter shape than when I took office.  I am proud of lead­ing on cli­mate change and pass­ing the nation’s strongest 100 per­cent clean ener­gy bill as well as the Solar Fair­ness Act to ensure we pro­mote instal­la­tions of rooftop solar in our state.

“This past ses­sion, we worked to guar­an­tee free col­lege tuition for low­er-income stu­dents. We cre­at­ed the nation’s first Long Term Care Trust to ensure that Wash­ing­to­ni­ans will have the care they need lat­er in life. Our state con­tin­ues to lead and make progress on key pol­i­cy issues that will make peo­ple’s lives better.”

“I am proud of what was accom­plished dur­ing my time in the leg­is­la­ture. It was an hon­or to serve my com­mu­ni­ty and to serve with my colleagues.”

“Sen­a­tor Palum­bo has informed me he intends to resign his seat in the state sen­ate, effec­tive today,” said Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Andy Billig.

“Sen­a­tor Palum­bo has done an excel­lent job rep­re­sent­ing the peo­ple of the 1st Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict and has been a par­tic­u­lar­ly strong advo­cate on issues relat­ed to high­er edu­ca­tion, trans­porta­tion, cli­mate and energy.”

“We will miss him in the Sen­ate, but def­i­nite­ly under­stand his rea­sons for leav­ing as the job of being a leg­is­la­tor can be dif­fi­cult to mesh with the real­i­ties of fam­i­lies and oth­er pro­fes­sion­al work. I thank Sen­a­tor Palum­bo for his hard work in the Sen­ate and for Wash­ing­ton. I wish him and his fam­i­ly all the best in the future.”

“My trea­sured friend and sen­ate col­league Guy Palum­bo has resigned to return to the pri­vate sec­tor and be clos­er to home and fam­i­ly,” said Sen­a­tor Reuven Carlyle.

“The per­son­al, pro­fes­sion­al and finan­cial chal­lenges of serv­ing our con­stituents in our part-time cit­i­zen leg­is­la­ture are increas­ing­ly difficult.”

“Most­ly I want to thank Guy for his friend­ship, per­son­al pas­sion and his deeply impact­ful work on cli­mate, ener­gy, envi­ron­ment, high­er edu­ca­tion, health care, trans­porta­tion and so much more. He has had an out­sized impact for good pub­lic pol­i­cy and will be missed dear­ly in the Wash­ing­ton State Senate.”

Those sen­ti­ments were not shared by Palum­bo’s 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic opponent.

“My neme­sis, Guy Palum­bo, has resigned his Sen­ate seat with­out even fin­ish­ing his first term,” wrote for­mer State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Luis Moscoso.

“I under­stand The Stranger and oth­er media will be expos­ing more of his rea­sons for this. And I will not be sur­prised to learn that his res­ig­na­tion is tied to uneth­i­cal behav­ior like what he did in his 2016 [Top Two] race against me.”

Palum­bo’s two seat­mates in the House are both Democ­rats (Derek Stan­ford and Shel­ley Klo­ba) and it is pos­si­ble one or both will ask the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty to nom­i­nate them to take Palum­bo’s place in the Senate.

Because Palum­bo resigned after Fil­ing Week, no spe­cial elec­tion will be held this year for his seat. Instead, a spe­cial elec­tion will be held next year, con­cur­rent­ly with the elec­tion where the posi­tion would ordi­nar­i­ly be contested.

The process for fill­ing a Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­isla­tive vacan­cy under par­ty rules and the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion in this case is as follows:

• For a leg­isla­tive dis­trict span­ning mul­ti­ple coun­ties like the 1st, the Chair of the Wash­ing­ton State Democ­rats (cur­rent­ly Tina Pod­lodows­ki) is required to call a spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus con­sist­ing of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic precinct com­mit­tee offi­cers in the 1st Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict. The spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus must choose a list of three peo­ple to fill the vacancy.
• The statu­to­ry state cen­tral com­mit­tee or the exec­u­tive com­mit­tee of the statu­to­ry state com­mit­tee must then approve the list of three peo­ple, although under par­ty rules, this is a for­mal­i­ty — it’s oblig­ed to.
• The King and Sno­homish Coun­ty Coun­cils must then choose from among the list of three nom­i­nees. If they can­not agree on who to appoint with­in six­ty days, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee will make the appoint­ment instead.

If either Klo­ba or Stan­ford (or both) stand for the Sen­ate vacan­cy in the nom­i­nat­ing process, then the par­ty will also pre­pare a list of three names to fill the House vacan­cy that would be cre­at­ed by their move across the Rotun­da to the Sen­ate, so that the House vacan­cy could be almost simul­ta­ne­ous­ly filled.