Alex Ramel appointed to the Washington State House of Representatives from 40th LD

For­mer State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jeff Mor­ris, who resigned late last year to take a dream job with Schnei­der Elec­tric, has a suc­ces­sor: Alex Ramel.

The envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate jus­tice activist was cho­sen by the What­com Coun­ty Coun­cil, Skag­it Coun­ty Com­mis­sion, and San Juan Coun­ty Com­mis­sion at a joint meet­ing today to rep­re­sent the 40th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict in the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives effec­tive immediately.

Ramel joins State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Debra Lekanoff and State Sen­a­tor Liz Lovelett as one of the peo­ple’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Olympia from the 40th Dis­trict in the state’s north­west­ern cor­ner, which includes por­tions of Belling­ham and What­com Coun­ty in addi­tion to the San Juan Islands and parts of Skag­it County.

Ramel was a con­tender two years ago to select a replace­ment for retir­ing State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kris Lyt­ton. A total of four Democ­rats sought to take over from Lyt­ton: Ramel, Rud Browne, Debra Lekanoff, and Tom Pasma.

Lekanoff was the only Demo­c­rat to move on from the August 2018 Top Two elec­tion to the gen­er­al elec­tion. Ramel fin­ished in third place, just behind Repub­li­can Michael Petr­ish, who became Lekanoff’s autumn opponent.

Ramel gar­nered 7,684 votes (19.13%) of the vote in that elim­i­na­tion elec­tion. While on the trail, he spoke to NPI’s Caitlin Har­ring­ton about his desire to serve the peo­ple as one of the state’s nine­ty-eight state rep­re­sen­ta­tives:

“The skillset I bring is being able finds ways to work togeth­er, find­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties, and doing the hard work and sweat equi­ty of build­ing trust,” Ramel says. This is espe­cial­ly true in his cur­rent job at Stand.earth, where the cur­rent pri­or­i­ty is resist­ing oil indus­try expan­sion projects, and where Ramel has suc­cess­ful­ly found ways to col­lab­o­rate with (instead of alien­ate) refin­ery workers.

Ramel now has the oppor­tu­ni­ty not only to serve in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, but to serve with Debra Lekanoff. How about that!

Here’s a pho­to of the two of them togeth­er fol­low­ing Ramel’s appoint­ment, cour­tesy of Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty Chair Tina Podlodowski:

Ramel will remain in office as a state rep­re­sen­ta­tive at least through the end of next Novem­ber. A spe­cial elec­tion to fill the remain­der of Jeff Mor­ris’ term will be held con­cur­rent­ly with the elec­tion for a new two-year term. If Ramel runs and wins, he would then serve in the House until Jan­u­ary of 2023.