The effort to bring more pro­gres­sive rep­re­sen­ta­tion to Wash­ing­ton State’s 5th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict (Issaquah, Sno­qualmie, Maple Val­ley, and near­by com­mu­ni­ties) just got a big boost today with the news that Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee is back­ing chal­lenger Ingrid Ander­son over right lean­ing incum­bent Mark Mul­let for the dis­tric­t’s Sen­ate seat, which Mul­let has held for almost eight years.

“As we con­tin­ue fight­ing a glob­al pan­dem­ic, work to keep our kids and com­mu­ni­ties safe, and take steps to ensure a strong future econ­o­my, we need Ingrid’s front­line expe­ri­ence as a nurse, mom, and health care leader,” Gov­er­nor Inslee said in a state­ment released by Ander­son­’s cam­paign. “Right now, there is not a sin­gle nurse in the State Sen­ate. We can change that by elect­ing Ingrid and help­ing all Wash­ing­ton fam­i­lies through this chal­leng­ing time.”

With­out men­tion­ing Mul­let, Inslee went on to explain that he needs allies in the Leg­is­la­ture to ensure that pro­gres­sive leg­is­la­tion can reach his desk.

“I’ve been clear about the urgent need to adopt clean­er fuels and build a clean ener­gy econ­o­my here in Wash­ing­ton State. Ingrid shares this sense of urgency, as a mat­ter of pub­lic health and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion. We need her voice – and her vote – to take over­due action to pro­tect our health and climate.”

“I am so grate­ful for the sup­port of Gov­er­nor Inslee as we enter the home stretch of this cam­paign,” Ander­son said. “We face some real chal­lenges in the com­ing year as we recov­er from this pan­dem­ic, and once treat­ments are avail­able, we will need health care pro­fes­sion­als in office to make sure we enact equi­table poli­cies that ben­e­fit all Wash­ing­to­ni­ans. We also have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to reshape our econ­o­my and make it more fair, sus­tain­able, and self-reliant. I look for­ward to work­ing with the Gov­er­nor to make need­ed pos­i­tive change.”

“I am dis­ap­point­ed but not sur­prised by a call I received from the Gov­er­nor this week­end let­ting me know that he would be endors­ing my oppo­nent,” Mul­let said in a state­ment post­ed on Face­book react­ing to Inslee’s deci­sion.

“I respect that the Gov­er­nor called to tell me this news in-per­son. Cour­tesy is an admirable thing in pol­i­tics and severe­ly lack­ing in our coun­try at the moment. In the future, I look for­ward to work­ing with the Gov­er­nor when we agree and hav­ing a vig­or­ous debate on the issues when we dis­agree. My hope for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty is that it can be a place that accom­mo­dates dif­fer­ent opin­ions like this.”

At the time Mark Mul­let was first elect­ed, in 2012, the 5th LD was a tough bat­tle­ground dis­trict that Democ­rats were try­ing to do a bet­ter job com­pet­ing in.

Mul­let’s vic­to­ry then rep­re­sent­ed a break­through for the party.

It’s easy to for­get that for two years, Mul­let was the East­side’s only Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tor, with the 45th’s seat being held by Repub­li­can Andy Hill, the 48th’s seat being held by Repub­li­can-turned-Demo­c­rat-turned-Repub­li­can again Rod­ney Tom, and the 41st’s seat being held by Repub­li­can Steve Litzow.

In the span of three years, how­ev­er, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty elect­ed three very pro­gres­sive sen­a­tors to each of the oth­er East­side leg­isla­tive districts:

• Cyrus Habib in 2014 in the 48th, who defeat­ed Michelle Dar­nell and served for two ses­sions before leav­ing to suc­cess­ful­ly pur­sue statewide office;
• Lisa Well­man in 2016 in the 41st, who defeat­ed Lit­zow to regain the seat once held by pre­de­ces­sors Randy Gor­don and Bri­an Weinstein;
• Man­ka Dhin­gra in 2017 in the 45th, who defeat­ed Jiny­oung Englund in a spe­cial elec­tion and flipped the State Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic. Dhin­gra suc­ceed­ed Dino Rossi, the late Andy Hill’s appoint­ed replacement.

Pro­gres­sive cham­pi­on Pat­ty Kud­er­er suc­ceed­ed Habib after he became Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor in 2017 and thor­ough­ly best­ed Rod­ney Tom the fol­low­ing year (2018) when Tom unwise­ly tried to recap­ture the seat he had giv­en up in 2014.

The suc­ces­sive elec­tion of three strong pro­gres­sive women to the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate from the East­side of King Coun­ty’s oth­er three leg­isla­tive dis­tricts ought to have tipped Mark Mul­let off to the region’s chang­ing polit­i­cal dynamics.

In the span of four years, Mul­let went from being its only Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tor and its most pro­gres­sive voice (in rel­a­tive terms) to its least progressive.

Any lin­ger­ing doubts about the East­side’s trans­for­ma­tion into a pro­gres­sive bas­tion ought to have been erased by the con­vinc­ing vic­to­ries of Bill Ramos and Lisa Callan in the dis­tric­t’s two House races in the 2018 midterms.

The duo sailed into the House only two years after Dar­cy Burn­er and Jason Ritchie failed to defeat Paul Graves and Jay Rodne. This year, Callan is unop­posed for reelec­tion and Ramos is excep­tion­al­ly well posi­tioned to secure a sec­ond term, hav­ing gar­nered 59.07% in the Top Two elec­tion against two challengers.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, instead of rec­og­niz­ing that his dis­trict had evolved and pro­ceed­ing to offer it more pro­gres­sive rep­re­sen­ta­tion, which he could have eas­i­ly done, Mul­let con­tin­ued to take right wing posi­tions and votes in the Senate.

A few examples:

• Mul­let has con­sis­tent­ly refused to sup­port pro­pos­als to levy a cap­i­tal gains tax on the wealthy, which NPI’s research has found robust majori­ties in favor of for more than half a decade now.
• Mul­let vot­ed against enact­ing Ini­tia­tive 1000, the Wash­ing­ton State Diver­si­ty, Equi­ty, and Inclu­sion Act, while every sin­gle one of his Demo­c­ra­t­ic col­leagues vot­ed for it, includ­ing his seat­mates Ramos and Callan.
• Mul­let has repeat­ed­ly backed pro­pos­als to divert pub­lic tax dol­lars to char­ter schools oper­at­ed by pri­vate entities.

Ander­son­’s cam­paign points out that Mul­let also:

• Vot­ed against address­ing wage dis­crim­i­na­tion for women in the work­place (House Bill 1696);
• Vot­ed against Washington’s land­mark long-term care law sup­port­ing seniors (House Bill 1087);
• Vot­ed to extend favor­able aero­space tax give­aways to all man­u­fac­tur­ers (ESHB 1109, Amend­ment 489);
• Vot­ed against a bill to pre­vent tox­ic chem­i­cals from dam­ag­ing pub­lic health and the envi­ron­ment (Sen­ate Bill 5135);
• Vot­ed against an over­whelm­ing­ly bipar­ti­san bill to increase penal­ties on drunk dri­vers (Sen­ate Bill 5299)
• Vot­ed against the oper­at­ing bud­get nego­ti­at­ed by Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers, includ­ing mil­lions of in-dis­trict dol­lars for spe­cial edu­ca­tion, teacher salaries, school safe­ty, men­tal health pro­grams, and more (House Bill 1109).

In a recent Face­book post, Mul­let took a page out of the Repub­li­cans’ play­book and resort­ed to Seat­tle-bash­ing in order to make the case for his reelection.

Mul­let has made it abun­dant­ly clear that he’s not going to change, even though the dis­trict he rep­re­sents has. As a con­se­quence, Ingrid Ander­son decid­ed to chal­lenge him, and is run­ning on a plat­form that embraces the essen­tial pro­gres­sive caus­es that Mul­let has scorned dur­ing his eight years in the Senate.

Despite not hav­ing run for office before, Ander­son beat out Mul­let for the top spot in this mon­th’s Top Two elec­tion, secur­ing 48.57% of the vote. That show­ing undoubt­ed­ly helped per­suade Gov­er­nor Inslee to take sides in the race.

Ander­son already had the enthu­si­as­tic back­ing of the state’s labor move­ment, who have nev­er been able to depend on Mul­let when they need­ed him.

Now she has the sup­port of Gov­er­nor Inslee, the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s most vis­i­ble stan­dard bear­er. This is a big deal.

It’s very rare for an incum­bent Demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nor to back a chal­lenger to an incum­bent Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tor. It’s just not some­thing we usu­al­ly see.

But the cir­cum­stances in this race are some­what unique. Democ­rats are guar­an­teed to win this seat because there’s no Repub­li­can running.

The only ques­tion, then, is what kind of Demo­c­rat the dis­trict will send to Olympia. Will it be an open-mind­ed team play­er who will pro­vide anoth­er vote for bad­ly need­ed pro­gres­sive leg­is­la­tion, or a long­time incum­bent with a record of stand­ing with the oppo­si­tion to keep the bro­ken sta­tus quo in place?

We’ll find out in a few weeks.