Sam Hunt to retire from the Washington State Legislature after many decades of service

One of Wash­ing­ton State’s longest serv­ing and most beloved state leg­is­la­tors has decid­ed against seek­ing reelec­tion and will retire at the end of this term.

Sen­a­tor Sam Hunt (D‑22nd Dis­trict: Olympia) informed his col­leagues and the pub­lic of his deci­sion today, say­ing he feels it’s time to pass the torch.

“The time has come to let some­body else face the chal­lenge of being a state sen­a­tor,” Hunt said. “I would like to thank the many leg­is­la­tors with whom I have served, as well as the bright and ded­i­cat­ed staff who enable the Leg­is­la­ture to do its work. With­out civil­i­ty among mem­bers work­ing togeth­er and the excel­lent staff, Wash­ing­ton would not be in the great shape we find it today.” 

Hunt was first elect­ed to the House in 2000 and moved over to the Sen­ate in 2016, after Karen Fraser’s retire­ment. He has spent much of his time in the Leg­is­la­ture work­ing on vot­ing jus­tice and access to democracy.

“Dur­ing Hunt’s tenure as chair of the House State Gov­ern­ment and Trib­al Affairs Com­mit­tee and as chair of the Sen­ate State Gov­ern­ment and Elec­tions Com­mit­tee, Wash­ing­ton passed land­mark elec­tion leg­is­la­tion,” the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus not­ed in Hunt’s retire­ment announcement. 

“Uni­ver­sal vote-by-mail, the Wash­ing­ton Vot­ing Rights Act, the Native Amer­i­can Vot­ing Rights Act, online and elec­tion day vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, paid return postage for mailed bal­lots, secure state-fund­ed bal­lot drop box­es were all reforms brought about on Hunt’s watch. He also spon­sored and passed leg­is­la­tion to mod­ern­ize Washington’s elec­tions, switch­ing our state from a cau­cus to pri­ma­ry system.” 

“I am par­tic­u­lar­ly proud that under my guid­ance, we have the most secure, accu­rate, and acces­si­ble elec­tion sys­tem in the coun­try,” Hunt said. 

“Wash­ing­ton is a mod­el for oth­er states to fol­low.” 

In a Dear Col­league let­ter, Hunt elab­o­rat­ed on his deci­sion to retire, explain­ing that he has been serv­ing the pub­lic for more than forty years.

“My career in Olympia began in 1980 when I came to work for the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate,” Hunt wrote in his let­ter. “I also worked for Gov­er­nor Booth Gard­ner and the Depart­ment of Infor­ma­tion Ser­vices (now part of DES) before being elect­ed to the House of Representatives.”

“Dur­ing my leg­isla­tive tenure I also served on the House Appro­pri­a­tions, Nat­ur­al Resources, Rules, Labor, and K‑12 Edu­ca­tion Com­mit­tees and Sen­ate Ear­ly Learn­ing & K‑12 Edu­ca­tion and Ways & Means Committees.”

“In addi­tion, I served 11 years as the chair of the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cam­paign Com­mit­tee, start­ing what is the longest con­sec­u­tive time as the major­i­ty par­ty in the House. I was involved in advo­cat­ing for con­sid­er­able civ­il rights mea­sures, includ­ing the state’s land­mark mar­riage equal­i­ty law.”

“We have seen impres­sive increas­es in fund­ing for edu­ca­tion from preschool through high­er edu­ca­tion, includ­ing the Elson Floyd School of Med­i­cine at Wash­ing­ton State Uni­ver­si­ty (Go Cougs!), the sec­ond Taco­ma Nar­rows Bridge, a wider Inter­state 5 between Olympia and Seat­tle and improve­ments to I‑90 across Sno­qualmie Pass. The list of major accom­plish­ments is, indeed, very long.”

“I would like to thank the many leg­is­la­tors with whom I have served, as well as the bright and ded­i­cat­ed staff who enable the Leg­is­la­ture to do its work. With­out civil­i­ty among mem­bers work­ing togeth­er and the excel­lent staff, Wash­ing­ton would not be in the great shape we find it today.”

NPI does a lot of work on elec­toral reform and rev­enue reform because these have pos­i­tive ben­e­fits for a long list of crit­i­cal issues, so we have had many oppor­tu­ni­ties to work with Sen­a­tor Hunt over the years. He is one of the kind­est and most thought­ful leg­is­la­tors we know — an exem­plary lawmaker.

Impor­tant­ly, Sen­a­tor Hunt stood with us in our effort to get rid of Tim Eyman’s mali­cious push polls, which Eyman false­ly called “advi­so­ry votes.”

Thanks to Sen­a­tor Hunt and our prime spon­sor Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Kud­er­er — who has also worked with Hunt for many years as a mem­ber of the Sen­ate State Gov­ern­ment & Elec­tions Com­mit­tee — we were able to get that leg­is­la­tion out of the Sen­ate twice. Last year, with the help of our cham­pi­on State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Amy Walen and State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Joe Fitzgib­bon, we got the bill to Gov­er­nor Inslee’s desk and it was signed into law last spring.

Fit­ting­ly, Sen­a­tor Hunt was with us for the bill sign­ing.

He will be missed in the statehouse.

His good humor and good sense is wide­ly appre­ci­at­ed and admired. Sen­a­tor Hunt is a trea­sure, and we wish him the very best as he begins his next chapter.

The 22nd Dis­trict is a pro­gres­sive bas­tion, so the par­ty should have no dif­fi­cul­ty keep­ing the seat in Demo­c­ra­t­ic hands this autumn. Both of Hunt’s House coun­ter­parts are Democ­rats: Jes­si­ca Bate­man and Beth Doglio. One of them may now switch to run­ning for the Sen­ate to take over for Hunt in 2025.