State Representative Laurie Dolan to retire from the Legislature after three terms

One of the three Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors rep­re­sent­ing the City of Olympia in the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture will be head­ing for the exits at the end of this year. State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Lau­rie Dolan, who cur­rent­ly rep­re­sents the 22nd Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict in Thurston Coun­ty along­side Sen­a­tor Sam Hunt and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jes­si­ca Bate­man, has decid­ed to retire after three terms in the House.

“It has been such an hon­or and priv­i­lege to serve in the State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives,” said Dolan in a state­ment sent to NPI.

“I am grate­ful to the peo­ple of the 22nd Dis­trict who gave me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work on pri­or­i­ties for our com­mu­ni­ties, as well as the future of our state. I’ll deeply miss work­ing with my col­leagues and con­stituents on issues rang­ing from edu­ca­tion improve­ments to help­ing our hard-work­ing State Employ­ees, but this is a good time for me to step aside and spend more time with family.”

Dolan cit­ed her key accom­plish­ments as follows:

• Work­ing with the Office of the Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion and the League of Women Vot­ers to add civics edu­ca­tion as a manda­to­ry high school grad­u­a­tion requirement.
• Spon­sor­ing enroll­ment sta­bi­liza­tion leg­is­la­tion dur­ing the Covid cri­sis to keep our school dis­tricts fund­ed at the pre-pan­dem­ic enroll­ment levels.
• Estab­lish­ing “Region­al School Safe­ty Cen­ters” in each of our nine edu­ca­tion­al ser­vice dis­tricts, staffed by experts to train school staff in rec­og­niz­ing when a stu­dent may be a dan­ger to him­self or oth­ers, and how to help that stu­dent get the inter­ven­tions needed.
• Set­ting up train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­grams for School Resource Offi­cers to increase under­stand­ing and skills to work with a diverse stu­dent population.

Dolan is Vice Chair of the House Edu­ca­tion Com­mit­tee and a mem­ber of the House State & Trib­al Rela­tions Gov­ern­ment Com­mit­tee. State Gov­ern­ment Chair Javier Valdez is run­ning for the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate, so that com­mit­tee will look very dif­fer­ent when the 2023 Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture convenes.

Dolan not­ed in her retire­ment announce­ment that she has faced can­cer twice and is a vocal pro­po­nent of improved access to healthcare.

Dolan’s HB 1744 seeks to “estab­lish a new col­lab­o­ra­tive part­ner­ship between UW Med­i­cine and Fred Hutchin­son Can­cer Research Cen­ter to accel­er­ate diag­no­sis, treat­ment and pio­neer­ing of cures for can­cer and oth­er diseases.”

Like for­mer NPI board­mem­ber Gael Tar­leton, who left the House at the end of 2020 and now works for Seat­tle May­or Bruce Har­rell, Dolan says she plans to remain active in Wash­ing­ton State pol­i­tics in oth­er capacities.

“I am thrilled to be able to work on so many issues crit­i­cal to the health and well being of our kids, democ­ra­cy, and state work­ers,” said Dolan.

“Just because I am retir­ing doesn’t mean my work to improve K‑12 Edu­ca­tion or health out­comes will end — I hope it’s just a new chap­ter of service.”

We hope so, too. Con­grat­u­la­tions to Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dolan on six great years in the Wash­ing­ton State House. Pub­lic ser­vice is a seri­ous com­mit­ment, and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dolan has served her con­stituents and all Wash­ing­to­ni­ans with dis­tinc­tion these past few years. We wish her all the best.