As Top Two election nears, remember to take time to get up to speed on downballot races

The hikes, lakes and sun­set view­ing spots on Chuck­anut and Blan­chard Moun­tains, south of Belling­ham, are places that nur­tured this Wash­ing­to­ni­an’s love for nature and expe­ri­ences of long-ago teenage misbehavior.

I found myself, years lat­er, using my posi­tion at the Seat­tle Post-Intel­li­gencer to pro­mote cre­ation of a 1,600 acre pre­serve atop Blan­chard Mountain.

The project was pro­mot­ed and nur­tured by con­ser­va­tion cham­pi­on Hilary Franz, Wash­ing­ton State’s charis­mat­ic Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands.

It worked, although skies opened up on the vic­to­ry celebration.

Our Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources was once known as the “Depart­ment of Noth­ing Remain­ing” because of the vast clearcuts it authorized.

Log­ging debris clogged streams, and trashed ripar­i­an zones in such places as the Clear­wa­ter Riv­er on the Olympic Peninsula.

The pres­ence of a proac­tive Franz, com­bined with Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Ferguson’s mul­ti­ple legal vic­to­ries over Don­ald Trump, deliv­er a basic point about civics in Wash­ing­ton: Down­bal­lot races have a direct impact on our lives.

There’s a flip side, too.

Troy Kel­ley won elec­tion as Wash­ing­ton State Audi­tor in 2012 despite legal con­tro­ver­sies over his busi­ness back­ground. (He had the abil­i­ty to self-finance a tele­vi­sion ad cam­paign.) Kel­ley was indict­ed and con­vict­ed while serv­ing in statewide office. The 9th Cir­cuit Court of Appeals just upheld his conviction.

Kel­ley was not sub­ject­ed to much vet­ting by the press before the dead­line arrived for vot­ers to cast bal­lots in the August 2012 Top Two elec­tion. (Kel­ley secured one of the top two spots and went on to win in the Novem­ber gen­er­al election.)

That wasn’t the case when for­mer Insur­ance Com­mis­sion­er Karl Her­mann sought to regain his old office a few decades ago after hav­ing lost a reelec­tion bid.

Don McGaf­fin of KING TV broke the news that, in lit­i­ga­tion fol­low­ing an acci­dent, Her­mann claimed to have suf­fered brain dam­age. Our lawyers at the Seat­tle Post-Intel­li­gencer vetoed an edi­to­r­i­al head­line: “Her­mann has half a mind to run.”

Down­bal­lot offices hold great author­i­ty – or poten­tial author­i­ty – with vot­ers doing the hir­ing and fir­ing. Friends in British Colum­bia rib me about the mul­ti­tude of posi­tions we elect around here, includ­ing our nine statewide exec­u­tive depart­ment offices (the gov­er­nor­ship and eight low­er pro­file posi­tions). I counter: Vot­ers here have a direct say over state-owned lands.  When you protest the clearcut­ting of old growth forests in B.C., you must chal­lenge the full provin­cial government.

As Attor­ney Gen­er­al, Rob McKen­na signed Wash­ing­ton up for a Repub­li­can law­suit intend­ed to over­turn the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act. No mat­ter that Wash­ing­ton was rapid­ly reduc­ing its rolls of unin­sured. McKen­na did not both­er to con­sult with then-Gov­er­nor Chris Gre­goire, a strong sup­port­er of Barack Obama.

Under Bob Fer­gu­son, Wash­ing­ton took on and blocked Don­ald Trump’s first attempt at a so-called Mus­lim trav­el ban. The state took the Gro­cery Man­u­fac­tur­ers Asso­ci­a­tion to court for laun­der­ing mon­ey in a cam­paign to defeat an ini­tia­tive that sought to require the label­ing of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied foods.

Fer­gu­son has also cre­at­ed new civ­il rights and envi­ron­men­tal law divi­sions in the Wash­ing­ton State Attor­ney Gen­er­al’s office. If you leave a list­ing, oil-leak­ing boat in one of our har­bors, you can be assured that Fer­gu­son will come after you.

A look at this year’s set of exec­u­tive depart­ment races shows mod­els and poten­tial mod­els of new or return­ing down­bal­lot officeholders:

The sinecure: Out­go­ing Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Brad Owen sharply crit­i­cized would-be suc­ces­sor Cyrus Habib in 2016, argu­ing that Habib didn’t under­stand the lim­i­ta­tions and scope of the job. Habib want­ed to do too much. Owen had served as an infor­mal trade ambas­sador, fought teenage drug use with rock music, and presided over the State Sen­ate. He was a cap­i­tal fixture.

“Lite gov­er­nor” has often been a post-stress job, for Repub­li­can Joel Pritchard after Con­gress and John Cher­berg after his rocky tenure as Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton foot­ball coach. U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Den­ny Heck is run­ning for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor as a back-home job after eight pro­duc­tive years in Con­gress. State Sen­a­tor Marko Liias, mean­while, is run­ning as some­one on the way up.

Pro­gres­sive vot­ers have a judg­ment call to make on these two.

Rites of suc­ces­sion: Repub­li­cans have held the Sec­re­tary of State’s job since ex-band­leader Vic Mey­ers was tossed out in 1964. They have groomed suc­ces­sors, and assumed some­thing akin to a right of ownership.

Case in point: In 2016, retired Repub­li­can Sec­re­tary of State Sam Reed sent a how-dare-you email to a reporter giv­ing space to Tina Podlodowski’s chal­lenge to Kim Wyman, Reed’s suc­ces­sor, whom Reed is very pro­tec­tive of.

Wyman is one of the few Repub­li­cans still serv­ing in office in Wash­ing­ton State who belongs to the par­ty’s vaunt­ed Dan Evans wing. Trump’s takeover of the par­ty has put Wyman in a quandary, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en his fre­quent broad­sides against vot­ing at home. Wyman has remained active in Repub­li­can pol­i­tics while declin­ing, as much as pos­si­ble, to either endorse or repu­di­ate Trump’s positions.

The advo­ca­cy and ener­gy for expand­ing vot­ing rights and access to the bal­lot has come from Democ­rats in the Leg­is­la­ture, with Wyman occa­sion­al­ly push­ing back. She is a fre­quent guest on Nation­al Pub­lic Radio, where she peri­od­i­cal­ly com­ments on Wash­ing­ton’s expe­ri­ence with vot­ing at home.

Wyman claims sup­port from coun­ty audi­tors in both par­ties, though she has few­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic back­ers than she did in 2016. NPI board­mem­ber Gael Tar­leton, who is giv­ing up her seat in the House to chal­lenge Wyman, has tak­en on the task of mak­ing a case for change where oth­er high-pro­file Democ­rats have failed.

Upward bound: State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Pel­lic­ciot­ti is an up-and-com­er in the Wash­ing­ton Leg­is­la­ture with a back­ground in the Attor­ney Gen­er­al’s office. Pel­lic­ciot­ti is seek­ing the impor­tant but large­ly invis­i­ble job of State Trea­sur­er, not often a haven of activism in state gov­ern­ment. (Retired Trea­sur­er Jim McIn­tire, who served two terms, did talk can­di­date Jay Inslee out of half-baked pro­pos­al to invest state-man­aged pen­sion mon­ey in tech­nol­o­gy startups.)

Incum­bent Repub­li­can Duane David­son won the Top Two con­test in 2016 in which Democ­rats splin­tered their votes in the August elec­tion and both final­ists for the Novem­ber runoff were Repub­li­cans. That will not hap­pen this year, as Pel­lic­ciot­ti is David­son’s only chal­lenger, hav­ing unit­ed Democ­rats behind his candidacy.

David­son was a long­time Ben­ton Coun­ty Trea­sur­er, is active in the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of State Trea­sur­ers, and is past pres­i­dent of the Wash­ing­ton State Asso­ci­a­tion of Coun­ty Treasurers.

David­son is backed by two Demo­c­ra­t­ic pre­de­ces­sors, Dan Grimm and Mike Mur­phy (the lat­ter known main­ly for wel­com­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates on vis­its.) David­son, a Trump backer, is an affa­ble pres­ence at the Main­stream Repub­li­cans of Washington’s annu­al Cas­ca­dia Conference.

Pel­lic­ciot­ti is going after David­son for miss­ing state pen­sion board meet­ings. The incum­bent has an atten­dance record equiv­a­lent to Frank Sinatra’s in high school.

The bot­tom line: You can be com­fort­able in a down­bal­lot office. You can be part of an old guard net­work of incum­bents. You can take on low-risk projects, like going after car deal­er­ships that mess with odome­ters, or stern­ly warn­ing the good peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton not to acci­den­tal­ly start brushfires.

Or you can be make some­thing of the job… and try (as Hilary Franz has) to get mon­ey to quick­ly respond to wild­fires, or sue Mon­san­to for the tox­ic PCBs (poly­chlo­ri­nat­ed biphenyls) that still con­t­a­m­i­nate our waterways.

The eight statewide down­bal­lot exec­u­tive races before vot­ers this year are:

• Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor: Pre­sides over the State Sen­ate, fills in for the gov­er­nor when out of state, and serves as link between Pacif­ic North­west based con­suls and Wash­ing­ton State government.
• Sec­re­tary of State: Admin­is­ters elec­tions at the state lev­el, along with cor­po­ra­tions, the address con­fi­den­tial­i­ty pro­gram, the state library, and the state archives. Also the cus­to­di­an of the state’s seal.
• Attor­ney Gen­er­al: The state’s chief legal offi­cer, respon­si­ble for over­see­ing what is essen­tial­ly Wash­ing­ton’s largest law firm, which rep­re­sents the state in cas­es at every lev­el of the judi­cial system.
• State Trea­sur­er: The office respon­si­ble for the man­age­ment of the state’s funds, includ­ing its cash­flow (more than $288 bil­lion in Fis­cal Year 2019) and its debts, or accounts payable, to bond­hold­ers and creditors.
• State Audi­tor: Charged under the Con­sti­tu­tion and state statute with con­duct­ing finan­cial and per­for­mance audits of state agen­cies and local gov­ern­ments to ensure they are oper­at­ing responsibly.
• Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands: Heads the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources, tasked with the man­age­ment of the state’s forests and aquat­ic lands, the sup­pres­sion of wild­fires, and geo­log­ic haz­ards mapping.
• Insur­ance Com­mis­sion­er: Reg­u­lates the insur­ance indus­try in Wash­ing­ton State, serv­ing as a vital­ly need­ed check on the pow­er of the firms that sell auto, home, life, long term care, and health­care policies.
• Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion: The admin­is­tra­tor of the state’s pub­lic schools sys­tem, respon­si­ble for allo­cat­ing fund­ing to school dis­tricts and assist­ing them with their cur­ricu­lum and tech­nol­o­gy needs.

Wash­ing­to­ni­ans, when you vote, make sure you vote for each and every one of these posi­tions. The dead­line to return a bal­lot is Tues­day, August 4th, at 8 PM.