Washington’s next Secretary of State should be a visible leader, not a passive manager

Some­time in the next few weeks, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee will choose a new mem­ber of Wash­ing­ton State’s exec­u­tive depart­ment to fill the vacan­cy cre­at­ed by the forth­com­ing res­ig­na­tion of Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman, the depart­men­t’s lone remain­ing Repub­li­can, who is leav­ing to take a job in the Biden admin­is­tra­tion.

Who­ev­er Inslee choos­es will prompt­ly take over an impor­tant (but often under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed) port­fo­lio of respon­si­bil­i­ties that includes admin­is­tra­tion of elec­tions, cor­po­ra­tions and char­i­ties, the state library and archives, the state seal, and the apos­tilles and address con­fi­den­tial­i­ty pro­grams. They will serve at least through the Novem­ber 2022 midterm elec­tions and pos­si­bly longer.

Because we rarely see res­ig­na­tions in the exec­u­tive depart­ment — it’s been decades since any­one stepped down pri­or to the end of their term — it’s extreme­ly rare for an open posi­tion to be filled by appointment.

Ordi­nar­i­ly, because the nine posi­tions in the depart­ment are inde­pen­dent­ly elect­ed, join­ing Wash­ing­ton’s exec­u­tive depart­ment entails run­ning an exhaust­ing statewide cam­paign over the course of at least a year and a half. That’s pre­cise­ly how the last new addi­tion to the depart­ment, State Trea­sur­er Mike Pel­lic­ciot­ti (the fea­tured speak­er at NPI’s Eigh­teenth Anniver­sary Pic­nic) got his job.

But state law pro­vides that a vacan­cy in a statewide exec­u­tive posi­tion oth­er than gov­er­nor be filled by appoint­ment. So, for at least a year, Wash­ing­ton will have an appoint­ed Sec­re­tary of State. Then, vot­ers will get a chance to decide who they’d like to have in the posi­tion for the remain­der of the term Wyman was elect­ed to.

As the increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar Capi­tol Hill say­ing goes, per­son­nel is pol­i­cy, so Gov­er­nor Inslee’s choice will be extreme­ly con­se­quen­tial, espe­cial­ly giv­en what’s hap­pen­ing in our state and coun­try right now, with democ­ra­cy and our Con­sti­tu­tion under siege by both for­eign adver­saries and domes­tic ene­mies alike.

The Seat­tle Times edi­to­r­i­al board and oth­er allies of Kim Wyman have sug­gest­ed that her suc­ces­sor could be some­one from Wyman’s office. While that is one path that Gov­er­nor Inslee could take to fill this vacan­cy, the state’s needs should dri­ve this deci­sion, as opposed to polit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions or a desire for continuity.

The Times has argued Gov­er­nor Inslee should appoint a “a prick­ly cen­trist” or “reach across par­ty lines” to find a suc­ces­sor to Wyman. That would, iron­i­cal­ly, be mak­ing a deci­sion based on polit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions, which Gov­er­nor Inslee should not do. The gov­er­nor should instead pick some­one who’s going to be a first-rate Sec­re­tary of State across the board and tack­le the chal­lenges of our times.

Most like­ly that per­son will prob­a­bly iden­ti­fy as a Demo­c­rat, because sad­ly, there is basi­cal­ly no one left in Repub­li­can pol­i­tics who is not a Trump enabler.

Wyman and her sup­port­ers have often char­ac­ter­ized the posi­tion of Sec­re­tary of State as being a non­par­ti­san, admin­is­tra­tive job. But in real­i­ty, that’s not what it is. This is a par­ti­san, elect­ed posi­tion nor­mal­ly vot­ed upon every four years that over­sees a big office. There are cer­tain­ly jobs with­in the office that could be described as non­par­ti­san and admin­is­tra­tive, like that of the Elec­tions Director.

But the per­son hold­ing the title of Sec­re­tary of State is sup­posed to be a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the peo­ple who does­n’t shy away from the issues of the day.

Some of the best Sec­re­taries of State in this coun­try are out­spo­ken advo­cates with a proven record of stand­ing up for their con­stituents. Like Col­orado’s Jena Gris­wold, Ari­zon­a’s Katie Hobbs, or Michi­gan’s Joce­lyn Ben­son.

Our next Sec­re­tary ought to be some­body com­mit­ted to work­ing dili­gent­ly to pro­tect Wash­ing­to­ni­ans’ rights, includ­ing the right to par­tic­i­pate in free and fair elec­tions. The hor­net’s nest that Don­ald Trump mali­cious­ly kicked after vot­ing end­ed in last year’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion will need to be addressed and faced head on by Wyman’s suc­ces­sor, along with a bevy of oth­er threats. There is no going back to the good old days when elec­tion secu­ri­ty was not a burn­ing topic.

To her cred­it, Kim Wyman did not respond to the events of the last year by keep­ing a low pro­file and hop­ing the storm would sim­ply blow over. She spoke out and stood up. She has right­ly been praised for oppos­ing extreme­ly dam­ag­ing Repub­li­can efforts to under­mine the integri­ty of our elec­tions here and elsewhere.

In her next job with the Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty and Infra­struc­ture Secu­ri­ty Agency (CISA), she’ll be work­ing with elect­ed offi­cials across the coun­try to help them pre­pare for the midterms at a time when their lives are being reg­u­lar­ly threatened.

Her suc­ces­sor needs to build on what she’s done, not keep a seat warm.

Wash­ing­ton deserves a Sec­re­tary of State who will be a vis­i­ble leader as opposed to a pas­sive man­ag­er… some­one who will fierce­ly cham­pi­on vot­ing rights, secure resources to bet­ter pro­tect the data in our state’s care, sup­port the needs of busi­ness­es and non­prof­its, and prop­er­ly safe­guard our state’s history.

Here are the essen­tial qual­i­ties and pol­i­cy posi­tions our team believes Gov­er­nor Inslee ought to look for in Wash­ing­ton’s next Sec­re­tary of State. You’ll notice that “prick­ly cen­trist” is not among them. Our check­list con­sists of ideas and qual­i­fi­ca­tions; it isn’t based on ide­ol­o­gy, par­ti­san iden­ti­ty, or tribalism.

A willingness to be a vocal advocate for voters and voting

Our next Sec­re­tary of State must be a per­son ful­ly invest­ed in democ­ra­cy’s sur­vival. For­tu­nate­ly, the posi­tion of Sec­re­tary of State is a par­ti­san posi­tion, and its hold­er does­n’t have to wor­ry about being “non­par­ti­san.” So let’s get a true par­ti­san for democ­ra­cy in the job — some­one who is not afraid of tough, gru­el­ing, bru­tal polit­i­cal con­flict. Wash­ing­ton’s next Sec­re­tary of State should be a leader who is will­ing and able to be a loud advo­cate for vot­ers and the right to vote, push­ing back hard on pro­posed leg­is­la­tion or oth­er schemes that would infringe upon peo­ple’s right to vote or make it hard­er to vote.

Cybersecurity experience

Wash­ing­ton’s next Sec­re­tary of State should have cyber­se­cu­ri­ty expe­ri­ence, and ide­al­ly, spe­cif­ic expe­ri­ence in work­ing on cyb­ser­se­cu­ri­ty pol­i­cy. The Sec­re­tary them­selves won’t be imple­ment­ing any code to secure our vot­er rolls or data­bas­es of cor­po­rate and char­i­ta­ble reg­is­trants, but they will be mak­ing bud­get requests to state leg­is­la­tors and apply­ing for fed­er­al dol­lars to obtain resources to keep our data secure, and pre­scribe best prac­tices for use at the state and local levels.

A good listener and communicator

Wash­ing­ton’s next Sec­re­tary of State should be a per­son with good lis­ten­ing skills, some­one who is capa­ble of fos­ter­ing a con­struc­tive dia­logue with Wash­ing­ton’s thir­ty-nine coun­ty audi­tors and elec­tions direc­tors as well as state leg­is­la­tors, the gov­er­nor’s office, fed­er­al offi­cials, polit­i­cal par­ties, and oth­er stake­hold­ers. The state’s polit­i­cal par­ties, in par­tic­u­lar, deserve a con­struc­tive part­ner when prepar­ing for pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nat­ing events. In times of cri­sis, good com­mu­ni­ca­tion is essen­tial, as essen­tial as clean air is to one’s abil­i­ty to breathe.

An ability to thoughtfully scrutinize vendors and contracts

The “Vote­WA” tech­nol­o­gy sys­tem that Kim Wyman often touts as a major accom­plish­ment has had an extreme­ly rocky roll­out. Audi­tors were divid­ed on its deploy­ment, with Wyman cast­ing the deci­sive vote on mov­ing for­ward with it. Sub­se­quent prob­lems with the sys­tem made Fil­ing Week 2020 need­less­ly dif­fi­cult for can­di­dates, espe­cial­ly can­di­dates for precinct com­mit­tee offi­cer. Wash­ing­ton will be well served if its next Sec­re­tary of State can thought­ful­ly scru­ti­nize ven­dors and con­tracts to ensure we’re get­ting the best return on invest­ment pos­si­ble, and hold­ing pri­vate firms we hire account­able for the work we’re pay­ing them to do.

An eagerness to knock down remaining barriers to voting

Wash­ing­ton is a nation­al leader in bal­lot access thanks to Gov­er­nor Inslee and Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors. In recent years, we have adopt­ed uni­ver­sal vote-at-home, auto­mat­ic vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, same day vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, pre­reg­is­tra­tion for youth, our own state-lev­el Vot­ing Rights Act, and pre­paid postage on bal­lot return envelopes. We’ve also mod­ern­ized our pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry and added more drop box­es to make return­ing a bal­lot eas­i­er. But there is more to do. Bar­ri­ers to vot­ing still exist in Wash­ing­ton that need to be knocked down, like Tim Eyman’s “advi­so­ry votes.” The next Sec­re­tary of State should enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly join the active, ongo­ing effort to repeal “advi­so­ry votes,” which Kim Wyman refused to do.

Support for phasing out elections in odd numbered years

In addi­tion to tak­ing on bar­ri­ers to vot­ing, Wash­ing­ton’s next Sec­re­tary of State should pri­or­i­tize address­ing elec­tion fatigue and per­sis­tent low turnout in odd years by work­ing with the Leg­is­la­ture on a plan to phase out odd-year elec­tions. We have fifty years of evi­dence show­ing that few­er peo­ple par­tic­i­pate in odd-num­bered years and the prob­lem is only get­ting worse. The three most recent odd year gen­er­al elec­tions saw the sev­enth, sec­ond, and first worst vot­er turnouts in state his­to­ry. Kim Wyman sad­ly took a stand against phas­ing out odd year elec­tions instead of rec­og­niz­ing the prob­lem and try­ing to do some­thing about it.

A champion for voter outreach and turnout

Kim Wyman has con­sis­tent­ly argued that turnout is mere­ly a func­tion of what’s on the bal­lot, a posi­tion we emphat­i­cal­ly dis­agree with and have refut­ed here on The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate. What’s on the bal­lot does affect turnout, but it is hard­ly the only fac­tor. Research sug­gests that encour­age­ment and out­reach can help dri­ve up turnout and get peo­ple accus­tomed to par­tic­i­pat­ing in every elec­tion instead of just pres­i­den­tial ones. Wash­ing­ton’s next Sec­re­tary of State should make obtain­ing resources for wide­spread vot­er out­reach a major pri­or­i­ty and devise a plan for mov­ing our Top Two elec­tion from August to the spring so it does­n’t take place at a time when many peo­ple are on sum­mer vacations.

A passion for making our archives more accessible

Wash­ing­ton State has many archived records that sim­ply aren’t very acces­si­ble to the pub­lic because they have not been dig­i­tized or pub­lished yet. Our next Sec­re­tary of State should cham­pi­on the needs of researchers, his­to­ri­ans, and inter­est­ed cit­i­zens by advo­cat­ing for more resources to address this prob­lem and improve access to the mate­ri­als under the state’s man­age­ment. Our next Sec­re­tary should also lob­by the Biden admin­is­tra­tion enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly for mon­ey to build a new cam­pus for the fed­er­al lev­el Nation­al Archives in Seattle.

Advocacy for the future of the United States Postal Service

The Sec­re­tary of State of Wash­ing­ton is the ide­al per­son to con­vey the state’s strong oppo­si­tion to the regime of Post­mas­ter Gen­er­al Louis DeJoy, who has yet to be held account­able for the harm he’s cur­rent­ly try­ing to inflict on our nation’s mail sys­tem. Our next Sec­re­tary of State should speak out often about what’s hap­pen­ing to the USPS and work to mobi­lize state and nation­al efforts to remove DeJoy and save the post office, includ­ing help­ing Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son with cur­rent and future legal chal­lenges to rules craft­ed by DeJoy’s regime.

Redistricting reform

Wash­ing­ton’s next Sec­re­tary of State should also be a leader on redis­trict­ing and should active­ly encour­age leg­is­la­tors to devel­op a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to mod­ern­ize our state’s redis­trict­ing com­mis­sion before 2030 and 2031 arrive. Cur­rent­ly, the com­mis­sion con­sists of just four mem­bers appoint­ed by the four leg­isla­tive cau­cus­es and one non­vot­ing chair. The com­mis­sion should be enlarged and should have vot­ing mem­bers who are not select­ed by Wash­ing­ton’s leg­isla­tive lead­ers, an approach that is gain­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty across the country.

Public campaign financing

Wash­ing­ton’s next Sec­re­tary of State should be open to ideas for pub­lic cam­paign financ­ing instead of hav­ing a closed door and a total lack of inter­est. It would be espe­cial­ly valu­able to see if pub­lic cam­paign financ­ing could improve obscure elec­tions for judi­cial posi­tions in Wash­ing­ton State as a start­ing point.

Protecting the people’s power of initiative from bad actors

Wash­ing­to­ni­ans are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly guar­an­teed the right to pro­pose laws direct­ly to their fel­low cit­i­zens via the ini­tia­tive. This right must be pro­tect­ed. Wash­ing­ton’s next Sec­re­tary of State should cham­pi­on long over­due reforms to pre­vent bad actors like Tim Eyman from using the ini­tia­tive pow­er for their own prof­i­teer­ing and destruc­tive ends. The abu­sive, manip­u­la­tive prac­tice of “bal­lot title shop­ping” needs to be out­lawed, we should pro­vide for a cit­i­zen ini­tia­tive review process, and the respon­si­bil­i­ty of writ­ing bal­lot titles needs to be trans­ferred to a team of peo­ple with exper­tise in the law, lin­guis­tics, and pub­lic opin­ion research rather than being the job of one or two Assis­tant AGs.

Our next Sec­re­tary of State should also be will­ing to defend the ini­tia­tive when it comes under attack else­where, like neigh­bor­ing Ida­ho, where leg­isla­tive Repub­li­cans and Gov­er­nor Lit­tle recent­ly tried to sab­o­tage the peo­ple’s right to pro­pose laws direct­ly via ini­tia­tive (they were turned back by the Supreme Court.)

Concluding thoughts

There a lot of links between the cri­te­ria we’ve out­lined. They go togeth­er. There are already appli­cants for the appoint­ment who would pro­vide active, capa­ble, strong lead­er­ship. For instance, NPI’s Gael Tar­leton is seek­ing the appoint­ment. So is Thurston Coun­ty Audi­tor Mary Hall, Wyman’s suc­ces­sor at the local level.

Again, the per­son who gets appoint­ed does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly need to iden­ti­fy as a Demo­c­rat, but the appointee must be pro-democ­ra­cy and must be will­ing to stand up and be a vis­i­ble leader as opposed to being a pas­sive man­ag­er of staff.

NPI is not and will not be tak­ing a posi­tion as to who should be appoint­ed, but as stat­ed, we believe it’s imper­a­tive that the gov­er­nor select a can­di­date who espous­es the qual­i­ties and pol­i­cy posi­tions we’ve outlined.

Lead­er­ship is about lead­ing peo­ple to new posi­tions. Adding a depend­able leader to the exec­u­tive depart­ment as our next Sec­re­tary of State would be one of the great­est gifts Gov­er­nor Inslee could give his fel­low Washingtonians.

The gov­er­nor’s three Supreme Court appoint­ments (Mary Yu, Raquel Mon­toya-Lewis, G. Helen Whiten­er) have each been out­stand­ing. Vot­ers have retained them all on the high court. We hope the gov­er­nor fol­lows the prece­dent of select­ing thought­ful­ly and well when he announces Kim Wyman’s successor.