Washington State House Democrats set committee assignments for 2023 session

Last month, vot­ers in Wash­ing­ton State decid­ed to return expand­ed Demo­c­ra­t­ic majori­ties to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate for the 2023–2024 bien­ni­um, ensur­ing that the Ever­green State will con­tin­ue to have a blue tri­fec­ta until at least 2025. With the elec­tion now cer­ti­fied and the only leg­isla­tive con­test recount fin­ished, leg­is­la­tors are hard at work prepar­ing for session.

At the begin­ning of this month, the House and Sen­ate held what are known as com­mit­tee days — meet­ings of com­mit­tees held dur­ing the inter­im for plan­ning and infor­ma­tion gath­er­ing pur­pos­es. The Sen­ate’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can cau­cus­es released their com­mit­tee assign­ments dur­ing that time.

The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives — which has twice as many mem­bers and more pieces to decide how to fit into place — is now fol­low­ing suit, with the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus final­iz­ing its com­mit­tee names and assign­ments yesterday.

Sev­er­al com­mit­tees have been giv­en new names and scopes, and sev­er­al have new chairs. The mem­ber­ship of most com­mit­tees has also changed in the wake of retire­ments and the elec­tion of new mem­bers to the House.

Com­mit­tees with sig­nif­i­cant­ly dif­fer­ent names or scopes are:

• Pub­lic Safe­ty is now Com­mu­ni­ty Safe­ty, Jus­tice, & Reen­try. Roger Good­man (D‑45th Dis­trict: Kirk­land & East King Coun­ty) remains its Chair.
• Hous­ing, Human Ser­vices & Vet­er­ans is now just Hous­ing. Strom Peter­son (D‑21st Dis­trict: Muk­il­teo and Sno­homish Coun­ty, who is also now a Sno­homish Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber) remains its Chair.
• Chil­dren, Youth & Fam­i­lies is now Human Ser­vices, Youth, & Ear­ly Learn­ing. This com­mit­tee will take over the human ser­vices port­fo­lio that the Hous­ing Com­mit­tee used to have. Tana Senn (D‑41st Dis­trict: Mer­cer Island, Belle­vue, East King Coun­ty) will remain its Chair.
• Com­mu­ni­ty & Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment is now Inno­va­tion, Com­mu­ni­ty & Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment, & Vet­er­ans. That’s such a long name that the com­mit­tee will prob­a­bly end up get­ting referred to with an acronym, per­haps ICEDV. Cindy Ryu (D‑32nd Dis­trict: North King Coun­ty and South Sno­homish Coun­ty) remains its Chair.
• Col­lege & Work­force Devel­op­ment is now Post­sec­ondary Edu­ca­tion & Work­force. Van­dana Slat­ter (D‑48th Dis­trict: Belle­vue and East King Coun­ty) remains its Chair.
• Com­merce & Gam­ing is now Reg­u­lat­ed Sub­stances & Gam­ing. Shel­ley Klo­ba (D‑1st Dis­trict: Both­ell and North­east King Coun­ty / South­east Sno­homish Coun­ty) remains its Chair.
• Rur­al Devel­op­ment, Agri­cul­ture & Nat­ur­al Resources has a sim­pler name: Agri­cul­ture & Nat­ur­al Resources. Mike Chap­man (D‑24th Dis­trict: Olympic Penin­su­la) remains its Chair.

New chairs include:

• April Berg (D‑44th Dis­trict: Sno­homish Coun­ty) is the new Chair of Finance, tak­ing over from Noel Frame, who moved to the Senate.
• Bill Ramos (D‑5th Dis­trict: Issaquah and East King Coun­ty) is the new Chair of State Gov­ern­ment & Trib­al Rela­tions, tak­ing over for Javier Valdez, who moved to the Sen­ate and will be vice chair of its equiv­a­lent committee.
• Liz Berry (D‑36th Dis­trict: Seat­tle), is the new Chair of Labor & Work­place Stan­dards, tak­ing over from Mike Sells, who retired.
• Mar­cus Ric­cel­li (D‑3rd Dis­trict: Spokane), is the new Chair of Health Care & Well­ness, tak­ing over from Eileen Cody, who retired.
• Amy Walen (D‑48th Dis­trict: Belle­vue and East King Coun­ty) is the new Chair of Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion & Busi­ness, tak­ing over from Steve Kir­by, who retired.
• Beth Doglio (D‑22nd Dis­trict: Olympia) is the new Chair of Envi­ron­ment & Ener­gy, tak­ing over from Joe Fitzgib­bon, who is now Major­i­ty Leader.
• Davina Duerr (D‑1st Dis­trict: Both­ell and North­east King Coun­ty / South­east Sno­homish Coun­ty) is the new Chair of Local Gov­ern­ment, suc­ceed­ing Ger­ry Pol­let, who has joined the pow­er­ful House Rules Committee.

Two of the new chairs issued state­ments fol­low­ing their selection.

“I am hon­ored and excit­ed with this oppor­tu­ni­ty to work on poli­cies that strength­en our democ­ra­cy, rein­force our rela­tion­ships with First Nations, and increase account­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy in our elec­tions,” said Bill Ramos in a state­ment after being named Chair of State Gov­ern­ment & Trib­al Relations.

“In our cur­rent polit­i­cal land­scape, ensur­ing that gov­ern­ment at all lev­els reflects the diver­si­ty of our state is a pri­or­i­ty,” Ramos added. His state­ment also not­ed that four Demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­bers in his com­mit­tee are peo­ple of color.

“Our state’s great­est strengths are our diverse work­force and inno­v­a­tive busi­ness­es,” said Liz Berry in a state­ment after being named Chair of Labor & Work­place Stan­dards. “I’m deeply hon­ored to take on this new posi­tion and remain com­mit­ted to giv­ing all Wash­ing­to­ni­ans a seat at the table as we address the most urgent work­place chal­lenges they face.”

Now, here are the com­mit­tee assign­ments for each new member:

• Clyde Shavers, D‑10th Dis­trict: Island Coun­ty, por­tions of Skag­it Coun­ty, Sno­homish County 
  • Cap­i­tal Budget
  • Edu­ca­tion (Vice Chair)
  • Inno­va­tion, Com­mu­ni­ty & Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment, & Veterans
• Sharlett Mena, D‑29th Dis­trict: Pierce County 
  • Envi­ron­ment & Energy
  • Trans­porta­tion
  • State Gov­ern­ment & Trib­al Relations
• Emi­ly Alvara­do, D‑34th Dis­trict: Seat­tle and Vashon Island 
  • Cap­i­tal Budget
  • Hous­ing (Vice Chair)
  • Local Gov­ern­ment (Vice Chair)
• Julia Reed, D‑36th Dis­trict: Seattle 
  • Cap­i­tal Budget
  • Hous­ing
  • Post­sec­ondary Edu­ca­tion & Workforce
• Chipa­lo Street, D‑37th Dis­trict: Seattle 
  • Envi­ron­ment & Energy
  • Finance (Vice Chair)
  • Inno­va­tion, Com­mu­ni­ty & Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment, & Veterans
• Julio Cortes, D‑38th Dis­trict: Sno­homish County 
  • Inno­va­tion, Com­mu­ni­ty & Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment, & Veterans
  • Trans­porta­tion
  • Human Ser­vices, Youth, & Ear­ly Learn­ing (Vice Chair)
• Mary Fos­se, D‑38th Dis­trict: Sno­homish County 
  • Labor & Work­place Stan­dards (Vice Chair)
  • Cap­i­tal Budget
  • Com­mu­ni­ty Safe­ty, Jus­tice, & Reentry
• Joe Tim­mons, D‑42nd Dis­trict: What­com County 
  • Edu­ca­tion
  • Post­sec­ondary Edu­ca­tion & Workforce
  • Trans­porta­tion (Vice Chair)
• Darya Fari­var, D‑46th Dis­trict: Seattle 
  • Cap­i­tal Budget
  • Civ­il Rights & Judi­cia­ry (Vice Chair)
  • Com­mu­ni­ty Safe­ty, Jus­tice, & Reentry
• Chris Stearns, D‑47th Dis­trict: Auburn and South King County 
  • Cap­i­tal Budget
  • Reg­u­lat­ed Sub­stances & Gaming
  • State Gov­ern­ment & Trib­al Rela­tions (Vice Chair)

And for return­ing mem­bers Beth Doglio and Kris­tine Reeves, who left the Leg­is­la­ture to run for Con­gress in 2020 and did not serve in 2021–2022:

• Beth Doglio, D‑22nd Dis­trict: Olympia 
  • Ener­gy & Envi­ron­ment (Chair)
  • Labor & Work­place Standards
  • Trans­porta­tion
• Kris­tine Reeves, D‑30th Dis­trict: Fed­er­al Way and South King County 
  • Agri­cul­ture & Nat­ur­al Resources (Vice Chair)
  • Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion & Busi­ness (Vice Chair)
  • Reg­u­lat­ed Sub­stances & Gaming

You might have noticed that every sin­gle new mem­ber is a com­mit­tee vice chair. That’s by design. House Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­er­ship likes to give first ter­m­ers the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with a com­mit­tee chair to move leg­is­la­tion through the process. Vice chairs are typ­i­cal­ly called upon to help run hear­ings and to make motions to adopt amend­ments and move bills in com­mit­tee exec­u­tive session.

It’s also not a coin­ci­dence that almost every first ter­mer got assigned to Cap­i­tal Bud­get. That’s the com­mit­tee that works on what is some­times also infor­mal­ly known as the con­struc­tion or pub­lic works bud­get. (In the House, the oper­at­ing bud­get is the purview of Appro­pri­a­tions and the trans­porta­tion bud­get is han­dled by Trans­porta­tion; rev­enue is worked on by Finance.)

The 2023–2024 House Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty will have fifty-eight mem­bers, up from fifty-sev­en. The House Repub­li­can minor­i­ty will con­sist of forty members.

The House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus’ com­plete com­mit­tee assign­ments are avail­able in the PDF embed­ded below. Our team has not yet reviewed the House Repub­li­can cau­cus’ com­mit­tee assign­ments yet, but expects to shortly.