With less than one month to go until the begin­ning of the 2022 leg­isla­tive ses­sion, the Sno­homish Coun­ty Coun­cil on Wednes­day made two leg­isla­tive appoint­ments to bring the 44th Leg­isla­tive Dis­tric­t’s del­e­ga­tion to Olympia back up to full strength fol­low­ing Steve Hobbs’ departure.

Hobbs, who resigned to join Wash­ing­ton’s exec­u­tive depart­ment as the first Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sec­re­tary of State in decades, will be suc­ceed­ed by his House col­league John Lovick, a wide­ly respect­ed State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive who served a par­tial term as Sno­homish Coun­ty Exec­u­tive in between two stints in the House.

New­ly appoint­ed Sen­a­tor John Lovick, pic­tured speak­ing at his Novem­ber 2021 Cajun turkey feed, is an expe­ri­enced state leg­is­la­tor, hav­ing served two stints in the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

Lovick announced weeks ago he would seek the Sen­ate appoint­ment, and his selec­tion was con­sid­ered all but a for­mal­i­ty. But it was­n’t obvi­ous who would take his place in the House. After inter­view­ing the nom­i­nees, the Coun­cil ulti­mate­ly chose Brandy Don­aghy to fill the vacan­cy cre­at­ed by Lovick­’s jump to the Sen­ate, cre­at­ing the first all-Black leg­isla­tive del­e­ga­tion in coun­ty history.

Don­aghy is a Demo­c­ra­t­ic PCO, an art docent with Everett School Dis­trict, and a FEMA-cer­ti­fied mem­ber of the Com­mu­ni­ty Emer­gency Response Team pro­gram. She chal­lenged Repub­li­can incum­bent Sam Low for Sno­homish Coun­ty Coun­cil in the just-con­clud­ed 2021 local elec­tions, but came up short.

Now she’s head­ed to the Wash­ing­ton State House of Representatives.

New­ly appoint­ed State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Brandy Don­aghy (Cam­paign photo)

The Sno­homish Coun­ty Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty had the respon­si­bil­i­ty of nom­i­nat­ing three can­di­dates for the Sno­homish Coun­ty Coun­cil to pick from, and the par­ty ful­filled that respon­si­bil­i­ty by call­ing a spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus of precinct com­mit­tee offi­cers from the 44th Dis­trict. The cau­cus select­ed Mill Creek plan­ning com­mis­sion­er Sean Pad­dock, Don­aghy, and Joyce Cop­ley of Lake Stevens, who took on an incum­bent for Lake Stevens City Coun­cil but nar­row­ly lost.

Pad­dock was the PCOs’ first choice, but the Coun­cil was not oblig­at­ed to appoint him. The Con­sti­tu­tion states that when a leg­isla­tive vacan­cy occurs, the coun­ty or state cen­tral com­mit­tee belong­ing to the polit­i­cal par­ty of the depart­ed office­hold­er shall draw up a list of three nom­i­nees to be a suc­ces­sor, any of whom may then be cho­sen for the posi­tion by the appoint­ing leg­isla­tive authorities.

In many cas­es, the PCOs’ top choice does get the appoint­ment. But not always. In this case, the Coun­cil went with Don­aghy, who will become April Berg’s seat­mate. Doanghy’s appoint­ment will strength­en the diver­si­ty of the State House.

Lovick, mean­while, is get­ting an enthu­si­as­tic wel­come in the State Senate.

“John Lovick has spent his life in ser­vice to our state and coun­try,” said Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Andy Bil­lig, D‑3rd Dis­trict (Spokane). “He brings a wealth of knowl­edge from almost every lev­el of gov­ern­ment imag­in­able, and also invalu­able expe­ri­ence as a vet­er­an and first respon­der. There will be no learn­ing curve for Sen­a­tor Lovick. I am excit­ed to work more close­ly with Sen­a­tor Lovick and excit­ed to wel­come him to our cau­cus and the Senate.”

“I’m excit­ed to get to work,” Lovick said in a cau­cus press release. “We’ve over­come so much as a state, but hard work remains. There’s no prob­lem we can’t solve if we do it togeth­er, and I’m excit­ed to get start­ed in this new role.”

The Sen­ate Democ­rats are so excit­ed to have Lovick, in fact, that they announced this morn­ing that he has been select­ed to be part of the cham­ber’s lead­er­ship. Lovick will serve as 2nd Vice Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore of the Senate.

Lovick­’s com­mit­tee assign­ments are:

• Busi­ness, Finan­cial Ser­vices & Trade
• Envi­ron­ment, Ener­gy & Technology
• Trans­porta­tion

Trans­porta­tion has a new Chair, Marko Liias, who rep­re­sents the neigh­bor­ing 21st Dis­trict in Sno­homish Coun­ty. Due to tak­ing the Trans­porta­tion gav­el, Liias is leav­ing his post as Major­i­ty Floor Leader. Sen­a­tor Jamie Ped­er­sen will take over, and in turn, Sen­a­tor Man­ka Dhin­gra will become the chair of the Law & Jus­tice Com­mit­tee, with Sen­a­tor David Frockt becom­ing the Chair of Beha­vo­r­ial Health.

That’s not all: Sen­a­tor Claire Wil­son will be chair­ing Human Ser­vices, Reen­try & Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Com­mit­tee and new­ly appoint­ed Sen­a­tor Yas­min Trudeau will become Vice Chair of Law & Jus­tice, serv­ing with Sen­a­tor Dhin­gra. Sen­a­tor Trudeau will serve on Human Ser­vices, Reen­try & Reha­bil­i­ta­tion with Sen­a­tor Wil­son plus the Hous­ing com­mit­tee chaired by Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Kuderer.

NPI con­grat­u­lates Sen­a­tor Lovick and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Don­aghy on their new roles. We look for­ward to work­ing with them to improve Wash­ing­ton’s qual­i­ty of life.

The six­ty day 2022 leg­isla­tive ses­sion is slat­ed to begin on Jan­u­ary 10th, 2022.