Denny Heck to retire from Congress, creating an open seat in Washington’s 10th District

Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Den­ny Heck announced today that he will leave Con­gress at the end of his term and pass the hon­or of rep­re­sent­ing Wash­ing­ton’s 10th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict in the House to some­one new.

“Being away so much from Paula, my best friend and wife of near­ly forty-four years, can be lone­ly even when I am in a crowd­ed room. At our age, how­ev­er many ‘good years’ we have left togeth­er is not a grow­ing num­ber,” Heck wrote in a let­ter released by his office and pub­lished on Medium.

“In the spir­it of com­plete open­ness, part of me is also dis­cour­aged. The count­less hours I have spent in the inves­ti­ga­tion of Russ­ian elec­tion inter­fer­ence and the impeach­ment inquiry have ren­dered my soul weary.”

“I will nev­er under­stand how some of my col­leagues, in many ways good peo­ple, could ignore or deny the President’s unre­lent­ing attack on a free press, his vicious char­ac­ter assas­si­na­tion of any­one who dis­agreed with him, and his demon­stra­bly very dis­tant rela­tion­ship with the truth,” Heck added.

“Con­gress­man Den­ny Heck is a cher­ished Mem­ber of our Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cau­cus and a crit­i­cal force in the Con­gress for the eco­nom­ic and nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Amer­i­can peo­ple,” said Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi. “His years of lead­er­ship in Wash­ing­ton State and in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. have strength­ened Amer­i­ca, and his guid­ance and friend­ship will be missed by his many friends in the Congress.

“Since Day One, Con­gress­man Heck has dis­tin­guished him­self as a leader of out­stand­ing integri­ty and char­ac­ter.  A cham­pi­on of edu­ca­tion and oppor­tu­ni­ties for all, he came to Wash­ing­ton com­mit­ted to lift­ing up hard-work­ing fam­i­lies and small busi­ness­es, and his ser­vice on the Finan­cial Ser­vices Com­mit­tee has helped tilt the play­ing field back to the side of work­ers. His patri­o­tism, pas­sion and per­sis­tence have been crit­i­cal to the Intel­li­gence Committee’s work to keep Amer­i­ca safe, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing this chal­leng­ing time for our democracy.”

“In his retire­ment state­ment, Den­ny spoke with rev­er­ence of the great hon­or that Mem­bers have to hold pow­er in trust on behalf of our con­stituents. Denny’s humil­i­ty, integri­ty and absolute ded­i­ca­tion to his dis­trict will con­tin­ue to be a bless­ing to our insti­tu­tion and our nation for years to come. We thank his wife, Paula, and his sons, Bob and Trey, for shar­ing Den­ny with the Con­gress and the coun­try, and wish them the best in all their future endeavors.”

“I just spoke to Den­ny and thanked him for his tire­less advo­ca­cy on behalf of the peo­ple of the 10th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict,” said Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee in a state­ment sent to NPI short­ly after this post was ini­tial­ly published.

“No one is more ded­i­cat­ed to serv­ing this region than Den­ny,” the Gov­er­nor declared. “With­out fail, any­time I attend an event in his dis­trict, Den­ny is there. His ded­i­ca­tion and ener­gy are unmatched, and he will be missed.”

“Den­ny has fought hard for a strong democ­ra­cy, been a pow­er­ful voice at the nation­al lev­el and is nev­er afraid to do what’s right. Here at home, Wash­ing­to­ni­ans will ben­e­fit for gen­er­a­tions from his remark­able lead­er­ship on recov­er­ing the Puget Sound, reau­tho­riz­ing the Export-Import Bank and so many oth­er issues.

“No mat­ter what he does next, one thing is for sure – the Con­gres­sion­al Record will be short­er with­out him. I wish Den­ny the very best in his retire­ment and hope he has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to spend more time in the real Wash­ing­ton, enjoy­ing the peo­ple and places he’s fought so hard for in Thurston, Pierce and Mason Counties.”

“Den­ny Heck is a good, kind and decent man who – over four decades – served our state and our nation with hon­or and dis­tinc­tion,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Pra­ma Jaya­pal, who joined the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives four years after Heck did.

“I am proud to have been his col­league and am par­tic­u­lar­ly grate­ful for his stew­ard­ship of Wash­ing­ton state’s nat­ur­al resources, most notably his efforts to restore the Puget Sound. I will miss his guid­ance and friend­ship, but I wish him and his fam­i­ly great hap­pi­ness in the years ahead.”

Heck has rep­re­sent­ed Wash­ing­ton’s 10th Dis­trict in Con­gress since it was cre­at­ed in the last round of redis­trict­ing. The dis­trict encom­pass­es much of the South Sound area, includ­ing the state’s cap­i­tal of Olympia and south­ern Pierce Coun­ty. While not a lib­er­al bas­tion like Wash­ing­ton’s 7th or 9th, the 10th is reli­ably Demo­c­ra­t­ic, so Heck­’s retire­ment should not alter the par­ti­san make­up of the state’s delegation.

Espe­cial­ly giv­en that he’s retir­ing in a pres­i­den­tial cycle.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic strate­gists pre­fer that Demo­c­ra­t­ic office­hold­ers retire in pres­i­den­tial cycles because an open seat is eas­i­er to defend in a high turnout elec­tion, whether it’s in Con­gress, a state Leg­is­la­ture, or a local government.

A num­ber of Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors live in Wash­ing­ton’s 10th Dis­trict and sev­er­al of them will undoubt­ed­ly now begin con­tem­plat­ing a bid for Congress.

In 2012, when Norm Dicks opt­ed to retire, State Sen­a­tor Derek Kilmer was able to clear the field and run a low-dra­ma cam­paign. Will the same thing hap­pen this time around, or will mul­ti­ple Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­tenders square off in the Top Two?