Washington State Governor Jay Inslee delivers his final State of the State address

Three-term Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee deliv­ered a State of the State address to a joint ses­sion of the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture today for the final time as Wash­ing­ton’s chief exec­u­tive, reflect­ing on his many accom­plish­ments in office and pledg­ing to be active until the very end of his tenure.

“This is my eleventh time address­ing this cham­ber, and I have a big­ger audi­ence each year,” said Inslee. “There are one mil­lion more Wash­ing­to­ni­ans today than when I took office, because Wash­ing­ton is the place to be. I wel­come our new Wash­ing­to­ni­ans who have seen the genius and promise of our state.”

“The min­i­mum wage was $9 in 2013 and today it’s over $16,” he con­tin­ued. “Wages over­all have grown by 39% — dou­ble the nation­al rate. Our GDP has grown 45% – from $528 bil­lion in 2013 to $768 bil­lion today. And we’re among the few states that rank as both a top state for busi­ness and for workers.”

“As we con­tem­plate this next year and the work ahead, I think back to my dad, who coached track at Sealth High School,” Inslee rem­i­nisced. “He told his run­ners to imag­ine the fin­ish line was ten yards beyond the fin­ish line. My father always said, and this is what sticks with me, ‘Fel­las, run through the tape!’ so they wouldn’t let up before the race was over. We are going to run through the tape this year. Just as I know you’ll give this state your best work, I’ll give mine.”

Inslee addressed the fol­low­ing top­ics in the speech:

• The urgent need for cli­mate action
• Rad­i­cal price trans­paren­cy for fos­sil fuels
• Increas­ing K‑12 edu­ca­tion funding
• Col­lege finan­cial aid and apprenticeships
• The suc­cess of Wash­ing­ton’s paid fam­i­ly and med­ical leave program
• Access to healthcare
• Pro­vid­ing hous­ing to the homeless
• Gun respon­si­bil­i­ty and the recent enact­ment of the assault weapons ban
• Pub­lic safe­ty and the fen­tanyl crisis
• Recruit­ing more police officers
• Improv­ing behav­ioral health services
• Help­ing Wash­ing­ton State Ferries
• Advanc­ing social jus­tice by adopt­ing an equi­ty lens for pub­lic policy
• Pro­tect­ing repro­duc­tive rights
• Threats to Amer­i­can democracy

In atten­dance for the speech — which Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Den­ny Heck presided over, as is cus­tom — were the mem­bers of the House and Sen­ate, two-thirds of the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court, the rest of the exec­u­tive depart­ment (Bob Fer­gu­son, Steve Hobbs, Chris Reyk­dal, Pat McCarthy, Hilary Franz, Mike Pel­lic­ciot­ti, Mike Krei­dler), trib­al and local lead­ers, First Lady Tru­di Inslee, and mem­bers of the con­sular corps, with over a dozen nations represented.

Spe­cial guests were also present in the gal­leries, includ­ing for­mer Gov­er­nor Gary Locke, who went on to serve as Sec­re­tary of Com­merce and U.S. Ambas­sador to Chi­na (and lat­er as the inter­im pres­i­dent of Belle­vue Col­lege). How­ev­er, most of the guests Inslee rec­og­nized in his speech are peo­ple who could be called ordi­nary Wash­ing­to­ni­ans — folks who don’t have name ID or fan­cy titles.

Inslee asked each of them to stand after telling their stories.

The Wash­ing­to­ni­ans he named were:

• Elisa Gar­cia, a farm­work­er in Top­pen­ish. “Her home was one of 32 in Yaki­ma Coun­ty that had rooftop solar installed, thanks to a state pro­gram specif­i­cal­ly geared toward farm­work­ers,” Inslee told leg­is­la­tors. “Her home now pro­duces 100% of its ener­gy from her own roof. Her family’s ener­gy bills are zero and it would not have been pos­si­ble with­out this Leg­is­la­ture. Elisa and her daugh­ter, Jas­min, are here with us today. Thank you, both.”
• Bryan Ori­huela of Auburn. Bri­an “was going to be an engi­neer, but then he was in a trau­mat­ic car acci­dent, fol­lowed by high med­ical bills,” the gov­er­nor explained. “He had to leave col­lege. For­tu­nate­ly, he got con­nect­ed to Com­put­ing for All’s pre-appren­tice­ship pro­gram, which this Leg­is­la­ture helped sup­port with Career Con­nect Wash­ing­ton grants. Now he’s a devel­op­er at a men­tal health app, and Bryan is also here today. Bryan, thank you.”
• Sheena and John Wil­son from Mount Ver­non. “Sheena’s hus­band John was diag­nosed with can­cer,” Inslee relayed. “Sheena expect­ed their health costs would go up to $3,000 a month, until she accessed the ben­e­fits of our Cas­cade Care pub­lic option. Her fam­i­ly now pays $108 a month and the most they’ll pay out-of-pock­et this year for her husband’s can­cer treat­ment is $2,500 total. John and Sheena are here with us today from Mount Ver­non. Thank you both and good luck, too.”
• Starr Drap­er from Seat­tle. “This time last year a woman named Starr Drap­er found her­self in a right-of-way encamp­ment at First Avenue and Michi­gan Street in Seat­tle,” said Inslee. “No one can live in dan­ger and expect their con­di­tions to improve. No one can be swept from one dark cor­ner to anoth­er and expect life to get bet­ter. We must lift peo­ple up and give them the tools, the ser­vices and the pow­er of com­mu­ni­ty nec­es­sary to get life on track. State and local col­lab­o­ra­tion got Starr on her jour­ney to well­ness. Starr said this pro­gram, quote, ‘renewed my trust.’ She’s got work, she’s got a safe, pri­vate place to live, and Starr is here today. Thank you for inspir­ing us.”
• Clau­dia Fuentes from Pas­co. “We’re joined today by the Pas­co Police Department’s own Clau­dia Fuentes,” said Inslee. “Clau­dia would not be a police offi­cer today if this Leg­is­la­ture had not invest­ed in more Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Train­ing Cen­ters like in Pas­co. It was impos­si­ble for a par­ent to spend four and a half months away from home for train­ing in Burien. But because we invest­ed in these train­ing cen­ters, Offi­cer Fuentes got to go home from the acad­e­my every night. And because she had this resource, the peo­ple of Pas­co are safer. Thank you, Claudia.”
• Holle Edwards from the Swinomish trib­al com­mu­ni­ty. “We’re going to sup­port peo­ple with sto­ries like Holle Edwards, a mem­ber of the Swinomish Tribe whose life lan­guished in addic­tion to meth and hero­in before she got help at local resource cen­ters,” said Inslee. “Holle got her life back — and she’s now a recov­ery coun­selor help­ing peo­ple on the same jour­ney at a well­ness cen­ter in Ana­cortes. Holle is here today.”

It’s always nice to see poli­cies con­nect­ed to peo­ple, and Gov­er­nor Inslee did that in spades with his 2024 State of the State remarks. He did­n’t just rely on soar­ing rhetoric to car­ry the speech — he told the sto­ries of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans who have been helped by new state laws passed by Wash­ing­ton’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic majorities.

It made his address more mem­o­rable and resonant.

I pho­tographed the spe­cial guests as they each stood with a tele­pho­to lens, and it was love­ly to see them beam­ing as the law­mak­ers down below applaud­ed them.

The gov­er­nor con­clud­ed his address by opti­misti­cal­ly look­ing to the future.

“When I took office, we had auda­cious goals that defied the odds to become real­i­ty. I had con­fi­dence we could tack­le these chal­lenges because I’ve always believed in the unique tal­ent and ambi­tions of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans,” said Inslee.

“Wash­ing­to­ni­ans have more resilience, more love for our state, and more endurance to push toward the sun­ny uplands of the future than any oth­er peo­ple on the plan­et. The next two months, we’re going to make this state bet­ter at men­tal health, safer against opi­oids, more sup­port­ive for edu­ca­tors and stu­dents, and more com­mit­ted to our climate.”

“We’ve made hope for the future pos­si­ble because Wash­ing­to­ni­ans are nev­er restrict­ed by the past or the bog of the sta­tus quo.”

Inslee did not bring up Bri­an Hey­wood and Jim Wal­sh’s six destruc­tive ini­tia­tives, though in many ways, his address felt like a rebut­tal of the com­ments Hey­wood and Walsh have been mak­ing over the past six weeks as they turned in sig­na­tures for I‑2117, I‑2109, I‑2081, I‑2111, I‑2113, and I‑2124 — all ini­tia­tives that seek to part­ly or total­ly roll back key laws that Inslee has signed in the last four years.

For instance, on cli­mate, Inslee said: “We will not relent to our great­est chal­lenges. We will not go back­ward. This is the Ever­green State and the Ever For­ward State. And we’re going ever for­ward on our ever­green agenda.”

“Cli­mate change is our present, but cli­mate col­lapse does not have to be inevitable. This Leg­is­la­ture put us on a clear — and nec­es­sary — path to slash green­house gas­es 95% by 2050. We will stay the course. Any delay would be a betray­al of our children’s future. We are on the razor’s edge between promise and peril.”

With­in the cham­ber, Wash­ing­ton State’s Repub­li­can minor­i­ty lis­tened polite­ly and did not inter­rupt or heck­le the gov­er­nor, in sharp con­trast to how House Repub­li­cans have treat­ed Pres­i­dent Joe Biden dur­ing State of the Union address­es. Online, how­ev­er, Repub­li­cans respond­ed with negativity.

“Crime and the cost of liv­ing con­tin­ues to sky­rock­et in Wash­ing­ton,” a tweet from the Sen­ate Repub­li­can cau­cus began. “The fen­tanyl cri­sis wors­ens, many stu­dents are fail­ing in school, our fer­ry sys­tem is bro­ken, and home­less camps remain chron­ic. And yet, Gov­er­nor Inslee calls our state ‘a bea­con of progress.’ Wash­ing­to­ni­ans deserve bet­ter.” Tacked onto the tweet were a bunch of hash­tags Repub­li­cans love to use: #Unsafe­WA, #Unaf­ford­able­WA, #Unac­count­able­WA.

Mean­while, House Repub­li­cans put up this video, laden with stock images:

As men­tioned above, Gov­er­nor Inslee raised the top­ics Repub­li­cans are grip­ing about dur­ing his speech. He talked about edu­ca­tion, he talked about fix­ing the fer­ries, he talked about get­ting peo­ple out of home­less encamp­ments and into hous­ing, he talked about deal­ing with the fen­tanyl cri­sis. His speech both cel­e­brat­ed progress that Wash­ing­ton has made while call­ing for more action across a range of issues. It did not ignore the state’s chal­lenges at all.

Repub­li­cans were part of some of the accom­plish­ments that Inslee spoke of — paid fam­i­ly and med­ical leave was a bipar­ti­san accom­plish­ment, for example.

Yet, rather than join­ing Inslee in offer­ing a bal­anced assess­ment of where Wash­ing­ton stands, they con­sis­tent­ly take a glass half emp­ty view, fail­ing to appre­ci­ate that there are two sides to every equa­tion. But per­haps this behav­ior is to be expect­ed. Their base is unhap­py with Demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance and unhap­py with the Repub­li­can Par­ty’s repeat­ed elec­toral fail­ures over the past few cycles.

In a strik­ing moment dur­ing the speech, Repub­li­cans sat stone-faced and did not applaud when Inslee called for a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to pro­tect repro­duc­tive free­dom. (The rest of the cham­ber gave Inslee a stand­ing ova­tion, includ­ing the gal­leries.) Repub­li­can votes would be required to send such an amend­ment to vot­ers, and they have zero inter­est in sup­port­ing one. There are no Repub­li­cans who favor repro­duc­tive rights on either side of the rotun­da anymore.

Aside from Dan Evans and Arthur Lan­glie — both Repub­li­cans from eras when pro­gres­sives were wel­come in the Repub­li­can Par­ty — no one has served as Gov­er­nor of Wash­ing­ton State for longer than Jay Inslee has. He is just the third per­son, after the two of them, to have been elect­ed to the posi­tion thrice, win­ning by a big­ger mar­gin each time. Inslee is also cur­rent­ly the gov­er­nor with the most senior­i­ty. No oth­er cur­rent­ly serv­ing state gov­er­nor has been in office for longer.

Inslee will leave office next Jan­u­ary. He has pledged to remain active after his tenure comes to an end. But he’s still got one more year to go, and he has no inten­tion of being a lame duck. “Run through the tape” is his mantra for these final twelve months, includ­ing the remain­der of the short leg­isla­tive ses­sion and the com­ing cam­paign to defeat Bri­an Hey­wood and Jim Wal­sh’s initiatives.

Know­ing Gov­er­nor Inslee, this isn’t just lofty talk. He means it and will be work­ing every day to secure as many more accom­plish­ments as he can before turn­ing over the gov­er­nor’s man­sion to his suc­ces­sor in Jan­u­ary of 2025.