Governor Jay Inslee appoints Steve Hobbs to be Washington’s next Secretary of State

Today, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee announced that he has cho­sen State Sen­a­tor Steve Hobbs of Lake Stevens to be Wash­ing­ton’s next Sec­re­tary of State.

Hobbs (D‑44th Dis­trict; Sno­homish Coun­ty) will take over on Novem­ber 22nd from Repub­li­can Kim Wyman, the last Repub­li­can hold­ing statewide office on the Left Coast, who is resign­ing on Novem­ber 19th to take a job in the Biden admin­is­tra­tion. He will be the first Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sec­re­tary of State in more than half a century.

“Steve is a ded­i­cat­ed pub­lic ser­vant,” said Inslee. “He has a strong nation­al secu­ri­ty per­spec­tive from his work in the Army and Nation­al Guard. His knowl­edge of cyber-secu­ri­ty will be cru­cial as elec­tion sys­tems around the coun­try con­tin­ue to face threats,” Inslee said. “Impor­tant­ly, Steve has demon­strat­ed polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence. That is cru­cial dur­ing this time of polit­i­cal polar­iza­tion and distrust.”

Inslee’s announce­ment also includ­ed a sub­stan­tive quote from out­go­ing Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman, sug­gest­ing that the gov­er­nor con­sult­ed Wyman before mak­ing his choice and that Hobbs’ selec­tion meets with her approval.

“Sen­a­tor Hobbs is a proven leader and ded­i­cat­ed pub­lic ser­vant. As a lieu­tenant colonel in the Wash­ing­ton Army Nation­al Guard, I am con­fi­dent Steve will bring that same com­mit­ment to ser­vice and integri­ty to the Office of the Sec­re­tary of State,” Wyman’s part of the state­ment begins. “As a state sen­a­tor, Steve has a demon­strat­ed record of seek­ing bipar­ti­san solu­tions to com­plex prob­lems, which is essen­tial to the posi­tion of sec­re­tary of state.

“It is imper­a­tive the sec­re­tary of state — the state’s chief elec­tions offi­cial — serve as a neu­tral arbiter in order to inspire con­fi­dence across the polit­i­cal spec­trum in our elec­tion process­es and results,” Wyman continued.

“This approach is just as essen­tial when over­see­ing the preser­va­tion of and access to our state’s his­tor­i­cal trea­sures, pro­vid­ing a stream­lined reg­is­tra­tion process for Wash­ing­ton cor­po­ra­tions and char­i­ties, admin­is­ter­ing var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty pro­grams, and so much more.”

“This is a tremen­dous hon­or and respon­si­bil­i­ty,” Hobbs said. “I want to thank the gov­er­nor for putting his faith and trust in me to per­form the duties of this office. There is noth­ing more sacred than the right to vote.”

“I’ve fought for that right over­seas and will do every­thing in my pow­er to pro­tect that right here in Wash­ing­ton. Our state leads the nation in vot­ing access and secu­ri­ty and under my watch I will ensure that we only move to solid­i­fy our nation­al stand­ing in this arena.”

NPI under­stands from speak­ing with mul­ti­ple sources who have knowl­edge of the appoint­ment process that there were five final­ists who were con­sid­ered for the appoint­ment: Hobbs, Thurston Coun­ty Audi­tor Mary Hall, retired State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and NPI board­mem­ber Gael Tar­leton, King Coun­ty Elec­tions Direc­tor Julie Wise, and Pierce Coun­ty Audi­tor Julie Anderson.

Inslee then picked Hobbs after con­duct­ing inter­views and vet­ting each candidate.

The gov­er­nor is in Glas­gow for COP26 and announced his deci­sion via video.

Inslee’s announce­ment states that Hobbs will be run­ning in 2022 to hold the posi­tion and will not mere­ly serve as a care­tak­er through next Novem­ber. The office will be con­test­ed in next year’s midterms due to Wyman’s resignation.

“I want to con­grat­u­late Sen­a­tor Hobbs on his appoint­ment today and thank him for his long ser­vice in the state Sen­ate,” said Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Andy Billig.

“He has always been a strong voice in the Leg­is­la­ture and a stead­fast cham­pi­on for our state’s trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture, vot­ing rights, repro­duc­tive rights, health­care, and the needs of his district.”

“I look for­ward to see­ing him guide the Sec­re­tary of State’s office with the same pas­sion and integri­ty he brought to the halls of the Senate.”

“I want to con­grat­u­late Sen­a­tor Hobbs on this his­toric appoint­ment — the first per­son of col­or and mem­ber of the Asian Amer­i­can Pacif­ic Islander com­mu­ni­ty to serve as our Sec­re­tary of State,” said Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty Chair Tina Pod­lodows­ki, who her­self ran for Sec­re­tary of State five years ago.

“He’s worked to help pass so many of the major vot­ing reforms we have here in Wash­ing­ton like the Vot­ing Rights Act and same-day and auto­mat­ic vot­er reg­is­tra­tion. He’s respect­ed on both sides of the aisle in the leg­is­la­ture and has worked to solve big, com­plex prob­lems — a skill that’s so impor­tant in the Sec­re­tary of State’s office,” Pod­lodows­ki added.

Repub­li­cans blast­ed the appoint­ment, offer­ing no con­grat­u­la­tions, only jeers.

“What a crass polit­i­cal move. Gov­er­nor Inslee appoints an obsta­cle to his rad­i­cal agen­da in the Sen­ate, so that Democ­rats can appoint a rub­ber stamp for his rad­i­cal agen­da. Instead of doing right by the vot­ers, Inslee plays pol­i­tics. Typ­i­cal,” tweet­ed Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair Caleb Heim­lich.

“So sad Repub­li­cans can’t applaud Inslee for look­ing past polit­i­cal dif­fer­ences to appoint an inde­pen­dent voice for Sec­re­tary of State,” Ever­green Action’s Jamal Raad tweet­ed in response. (Raad has worked with and for Inslee for years.)

“If Gov­er­nor Inslee tru­ly cared about pick­ing an inde­pen­dent voice, he would have picked an Inde­pen­dent,” Heim­lich tweet­ed in response.

“There are lots of qual­i­fied coun­ty audi­tors to choose from. Instead he made the selec­tion based on polit­i­cal ben­e­fit to his agenda.”

While there are thir­ty-nine audi­tors or elec­tions direc­tors cur­rent­ly in office in Wash­ing­ton State, the field of poten­tial appointees sim­ply was­n’t as large as Heim­lich implied in the above-repro­duced tweet because many sim­ply weren’t inter­est­ed in the job. Clark Coun­ty Audi­tor Greg Kim­sey, for instance, made it abun­dant­ly clear he did not want to be Wash­ing­ton’s next Sec­re­tary of State.

Hall, Wise, and Ander­son were all con­sid­ered, as men­tioned above, but I doubt that Heim­lich would con­sid­er any of them to be true independents.

Heim­lich want­ed Wyman replaced with anoth­er Repub­li­can, but that was­n’t going to hap­pen, because serv­ing in office as a Repub­li­can nowa­days requires being an enabler of Don­ald Trump. If you’re not for Trump and you’re not will­ing to be part of the cult that wor­ships Trump, you’re not wel­come in the Repub­li­can party.

The Con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides that vacan­cies in leg­isla­tive or par­ti­san coun­ty elect­ed office be filled by some­one from the same par­ty as the depart­ing office­hold­er. But there is no such con­sti­tu­tion­al require­ment for vacan­cies in statewide office.

That left Inslee free to appoint a fel­low Demo­c­rat — and he did.

Inslee’s choice of Hobbs will neces­si­tate Hobbs’ res­ig­na­tion from the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate, cre­at­ing a vacan­cy in a key leg­isla­tive dis­trict, and also an open­ing for a new Trans­porta­tion Chair, just in time for the 2022 leg­isla­tive session.

Cit­ing those leg­isla­tive dynam­ics, The Her­ald’s Jer­ry Corn­field respond­ed to the news of the appoint­ment with this humor­ous com­ment: “Darn. By mak­ing [this] Sec­re­tary of State appoint­ment from Scot­land, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee and Steve Hobbs [get to] avoid [an] awk­ward news con­fer­ence in which the guv and Hobbs would have [got­ten] ques­tions about their frus­tra­tion with each oth­er on car­bon mea­sures, road pack­ages dat­ing back six years.”

As Trans­porta­tion Chair, Hobbs has clashed with Inslee and oth­er Sen­ate Democ­rats on cli­mate and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion leg­is­la­tion. He is what many pro­gres­sive advo­cates con­sid­er a road war­rior — a leg­is­la­tor who pri­or­i­tizes invest­ing in roads and high­ways as opposed to pri­or­i­tiz­ing transit.

With Hobbs leav­ing the Sen­ate, the insti­tu­tion will be get­ting a new Trans­porta­tion Chair (pos­si­bly Vice Chair Rebec­ca Sal­daña of the 37th Dis­trict) just as Inslee and leg­isla­tive lead­ers are try­ing to ham­mer out a new trans­porta­tion pack­age in the wake of Con­gress’ pas­sage of the Infra­struc­ture Invest­ment and Jobs Act, which might soon be fol­lowed by con­gres­sion­al pas­sage of the larg­er Build Back Bet­ter Jobs and Fam­i­lies Plan.

Corn­field also report­ed that Hobbs’ House col­league John Lovick is ready to seek the appoint­ment to suc­ceed Hobbs in the Sen­ate. Lovick is cur­rent­ly one of two Speak­ers Pro Tem in the House and is wide­ly liked by his col­leagues. Lovick has already called the dis­tric­t’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic precinct com­mit­tee offi­cers, Corn­field said.

Incum­bent State Rep­re­sen­ta­tives often pur­sue Sen­ate appoint­ments when there is a Sen­ate vacan­cy. When they are cho­sen to move over to the small­er cham­ber, that opens up yet anoth­er vacan­cy — on the House side of the Rotunda.

In this case, Wyman’s res­ig­na­tion will have led to Hobbs’ res­ig­na­tion, which will prob­a­bly lead to Lovick­’s res­ig­na­tion, which means the State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives will also soon be get­ting a new mem­ber from the 44th District.

Per the Con­sti­tu­tion, that indi­vid­ual will be a Demo­c­rat like Lovick, and will serve through the end of next Novem­ber, until a suc­ces­sor is elect­ed or the appointee retained by the vot­ers of the 44th. Com­pli­cat­ing the elec­toral land­scape for 2022 is that the bound­aries of the 44th are not yet known and could change depend­ing on the out­come of the Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion’s work.

NPI con­grat­u­lates Sen­a­tor Hobbs on being entrust­ed with the respon­si­bil­i­ty of admin­is­ter­ing our elec­tions, safe­guard­ing our her­itage, and sup­port­ing the needs of busi­ness­es and non­prof­its. Our exec­u­tive depart­ment will ben­e­fit from hav­ing a Sec­re­tary of State with nation­al secu­ri­ty expertise.

We look for­ward to work­ing with Sec­re­tary-des­ig­nate Hobbs on repeal­ing “advi­so­ry votes” and advanc­ing vot­ing rights in Wash­ing­ton State and beyond.