Rebecca Saldaña, Patrick DePoe announce candidacies for Commissioner of Public Lands

The field of can­di­dates hop­ing to suc­ceed Hilary Franz as Wash­ing­ton’s Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands is grow­ing again.

Last week, Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources leader Patrick DePoe entered the race; today, he was fol­lowed by State Sen­a­tor Rebec­ca Saldaña.

They join two oth­er Democ­rats, for­mer State Sen­a­tor Mona Das and State Sen­a­tor Kevin Van De Wege, who each jumped in ear­li­er in the summer.

Sal­daña (D‑37th Dis­trict: Seat­tle) cur­rent­ly serves as the Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus’ Vice Chair in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate. In 2016, she was appoint­ed to the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate to suc­ceed Prami­la Jaya­pal, who is now the 7th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­tric­t’s Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Con­gress. Sal­daña was retained by vot­ers in a spe­cial elec­tion and has eas­i­ly won reelec­tion since.

Sal­daña is known as a stal­wart and prac­ti­cal pro­gres­sive, wide­ly respect­ed in the state­house. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, many of her Sen­ate col­leagues are back­ing her can­di­da­cy for Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands, includ­ing Sen­a­tors Yas­min Trudeau, Emi­ly Ran­dall, Clau­dia Kauff­man, Liz Lovelett, and Javier Valdez.

“Sen­a­tor Rebec­ca Sal­daña is the only pop­u­lar, pro­gres­sive elect­ed offi­cial with a proven record of bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er,” her web­site says (pre­sum­ably in ref­er­ence to the rest of the field cur­rent­ly run­ning for Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands in Wash­ing­ton State, because there are def­i­nite­ly oth­er pop­u­lar pro­gres­sive lead­ers in pol­i­tics with a record of bring­ing peo­ple together).

“She’s changed the way pol­i­tics hap­pens in our state — start­ing with those impact­ed by pol­i­cy and bring­ing peo­ple along with real, authen­tic relationships.”

Sal­daña’s cam­paign notes that her record as a cham­pi­on for envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion in the Leg­is­la­ture includes the HEAL Act… “the first statewide law to address the dis­pro­por­tion­ate expo­sure Black, Indige­nous, and oth­er com­mu­ni­ties of col­or face, along with low-income com­mu­ni­ties, to envi­ron­men­tal hazards.”

NPI sup­port­ed the HEAL Act, as did most oth­er pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions active in grass­roots leg­isla­tive lob­by­ing in the State of Washington.

Sal­dana’s web­site is here and a short clip of her announc­ing is here.

DePoe, mean­while, is cam­paign­ing with a real­ly impor­tant endorse­ment: that of Com­mis­sion­er Franz, who is run­ning for gov­er­nor rather than seek­ing reelection.

In a state­ment on DePoe’s web­site, Franz says: “Patrick’s Trib­al com­mu­ni­ty depends on nat­ur­al resources for their cul­ture and their liveli­hoods which shapes his approach to con­ser­va­tion, nat­ur­al resources and rur­al eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. His life expe­ri­ence, deep knowl­edge of land man­age­ment and thought­ful lead­er­ship make him unique­ly qual­i­fied to lead this department.”

“I’m proud to endorse Patrick because he’s the most qual­i­fied per­son and will make an out­stand­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands.”

DePoe joined Franz’s exec­u­tive team ear­li­er this year. If he wins, he would be the first Native Amer­i­can elect­ed to statewide office in the his­to­ry of Wash­ing­ton State. As his web­site points out, he has exten­sive trib­al gov­ern­ment experience.

“He’s worked as a com­mer­cial fish­er­man, a land man­ag­er, and spent six years as an elect­ed mem­ber of the Makah Trib­al Coun­cil, where he led Trib­al coor­di­na­tion with state and fed­er­al agen­cies on cli­mate resilience and habi­tat restora­tion. Patrick earned his degree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, where he began near­ly two decades of work­ing and vol­un­teer­ing in emer­gency response: skip­per­ing a 110-foot boat to clean up oil spills, and lead­ing pre­ven­ta­tive work to make our forests more resilient to wild­fires and the effects of cli­mate change.”

DePoe’s web­site is here and launch video is here.

King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Dave Upthe­grove has also filed paper­work to run, but has not been rais­ing mon­ey or made a for­mal cam­paign announcement.

Shore­line City Coun­cilmem­ber Kei­th Scul­ly has like­wise been explor­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of run­ning for Lands Com­mis­sion­er but has not declared.

The Wash­ing­ton State Stan­dard­’s Jer­ry Corn­field spoke to Peter Gold­man about the con­test as part of his arti­cle about Sal­dana and DePoe’s entry into the race, not­ing that envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions like Wash­ing­ton Con­ser­va­tion Action have yet to endorse a can­di­date, which might have the effect of win­now­ing the field.

“We’re look­ing at the field right now and we’re hop­ing to make an expe­dit­ed deci­sion,” Gold­man, one of the state’s most promi­nent envi­ron­men­tal­ists, told Corn­field. “Our sole goal is to put some­one in there who is vision­ary and will shake things up and bring a more cli­mate-friend­ly forestry approach on state lands.”

On the Repub­li­can side, Franz’s 2020 oppo­nent Sue Kuehl Ped­er­sen is run­ning. For­mer Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler is also rumored to be mak­ing plans to enter the con­test but has not yet done so.