Rebecca Saldaña bows out of 2024 contest for Commissioner of Public Lands

Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Sen­a­tor Rebec­ca Sal­daña has decid­ed against con­tin­u­ing with her 2024 can­di­da­cy of Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands, reduc­ing the num­ber of cred­i­ble Demo­c­ra­t­ic hope­fuls to three and improv­ing the par­ty’s chances of avoid­ing a gen­er­al elec­tion lock­out that would effec­tive­ly guar­an­tee a Repub­li­can pick­up of the office. 

“It’s with so much grat­i­tude to you — my com­mu­ni­ty, sup­port­ers, fam­i­ly, friends, and team-that I am sus­pend­ing my cam­paign to become Wash­ing­ton State’s next Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands,” said Sal­daña in a state­ment post­ed to social media chan­nels.

“I decid­ed to run for Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands (CPL) because I care so deeply about this beau­ti­ful place I get to call home. I believe that our great­est resources are the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton. I was called and recruit­ed by envi­ron­men­tal­ists who know me and know my work — which held the ‘grand bar­gain’ togeth­er in the state sen­ate and gave Wash­ing­ton the Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act, the Healthy Envi­ron­ment for All Act, the Clean Fuels pol­i­cy, Move Ahead Wash­ing­ton and rev­enue to sup­port nat­ur­al cli­mate solu­tions and clean ener­gy investments.”

“I know that when we cen­ter racial, social, envi­ron­men­tal, and eco­nom­ic jus­tice and cre­ate orga­nized space for the voic­es of his­tor­i­cal­ly and present­ly exclud­ed com­mu­ni­ties — we can find inno­v­a­tive solu­tions that expand what is pos­si­ble for all of us. I want to uplift endorse­ments from orga­ni­za­tions and labor unions that tru­ly act on their val­ues, includ­ing the Lati­no Vic­to­ry Fund, Pro­gre­so: Lati­no Progress, Wash­ing­ton CAN, OneAm­er­i­ca Votes, Wash­ing­ton Machin­ists Coun­cil, and Win With Women.”

“I whol­ly believe I am still the best can­di­date in the CPL race to take on the Repub­li­can can­di­date, win, and gov­ern for long-term suc­cess. How­ev­er, I had can­cer, under­went six months of chemother­a­py while serv­ing all Wash­ing­to­ni­ans in the state leg­is­la­ture, and faced a three-month fundrais­ing freeze. These hur­dles impact­ed our cam­paign in finances only. I’ve nev­er felt stronger or more clear-head­ed about my pri­or­i­ties and mis­sion. At the end of the day, mon­ey in the hands of too few peo­ple con­tin­ues to under­mine rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­ra­cy in Wash­ing­ton.”

Empha­sis is Sen­a­tor Saldaña’s.

Sal­daña now plans to focus on win­ning her bat­tle against can­cer, lead­ing the Kennedy Fund (an arm of the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus), and defeat­ing Bri­an Hey­wood and Jim Wal­sh’s slate of destruc­tive ini­tia­tives, which the Defend Wash­ing­ton coali­tion and NPI are orga­niz­ing oppo­si­tion to. Her lengthy state­ment observed that if we don’t defeat those ini­tia­tives, espe­cial­ly I‑2117, which seeks to elim­i­nate the Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act, much of the cli­mate and envi­ron­men­tal progress we’ve made in recent years will be reversed or grave­ly jeopardized. 

How­ev­er, Sal­daña’s line “it does­n’t mat­ter who is the next CPL” should have been omit­ted from the state­ment. Our team knows what she means, but that was­n’t a good choice of words. Regard­less of what hap­pens with Hey­wood and Wal­sh’s ini­tia­tives, it does mat­ter who is the next Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands, and that’s why Sal­daña’s with­draw­al from the race is a big deal. It is a self­less act that’ll be well received. 

By tak­ing one for the team, Sal­daña is increas­ing the like­li­hood that Democ­rats keep con­trol of the office. This will have con­se­quences for cli­mate, con­ser­va­tion, emer­gency man­age­ment, and geo­log­ic haz­ards mit­i­ga­tion poli­cies. Wash­ing­ton’s Top Two elec­tion sys­tem rewards par­ties that uni­fy around a stan­dard bear­er before the fil­ing peri­od and sets up those that don’t for poten­tial pun­ish­ment. Lock­outs have become com­mon, even at lev­els where we did­n’t used to see them. Con­sid­er the history:

• In 2016, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic field of can­di­dates for State Trea­sur­er split the Demo­c­ra­t­ic vote so well that two Repub­li­cans went on to the gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lot, effec­tive­ly guar­an­tee­ing the office would flip into Repub­li­can hands.
• In 2020, the Repub­li­can field of can­di­dates for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor split the Repub­li­can vote so well that two Democ­rats went on to the gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lot, effec­tive­ly guar­an­tee­ing the office would remain in Demo­c­ra­t­ic hands.
• In 2022, the the Repub­li­can field of can­di­dates for Sec­re­tary of State split the Repub­li­can vote so well that Repub­li­cans were assured of hav­ing no chance to regain the only statewide office they had con­tin­u­ous­ly held for over half a century.

Lock­outs have been com­mon at the leg­isla­tive lev­el since the Top Two sys­tem was ruled con­sti­tu­tion­al by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008. In the red­dest dis­tricts, gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lots usu­al­ly have two ide­o­log­i­cal­ly sim­i­lar Repub­li­cans, and in the bluest dis­tricts, gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lots usu­al­ly have two ide­o­log­i­cal­ly sim­i­lar Democ­rats. This is bad for vot­er choice. NPI opposed the Top Two sys­tem when Sam Reed and the Grange sold it to Wash­ing­ton vot­ers in 2004 and we con­tin­ue to strong­ly oppose it today. 

But until it’s replaced with a real pri­ma­ry — and prefer­ably one that uses a more equi­table vot­ing method like ranked choice vot­ing — the Top Two sys­tem is just some­thing that both par­ties and their strate­gists have to deal with. Repub­li­cans are cog­nizant of the need to uni­fy, too, and it’s why they’re plan­ning to make an unprece­dent­ed set of endorse­ments before the fil­ing peri­od at their upcom­ing con­ven­tion in Spokane. 

If Wash­ing­ton had a real pri­ma­ry, each par­ty would be guar­an­teed a spot on the gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lot. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty would­n’t need to wor­ry about vote split­ting, because the Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers would pick a nom­i­nee and that nom­i­nee would go for­ward regard­less of whether they received a major­i­ty or a plu­ral­i­ty. Even if Democ­rats had twen­ty can­di­dates split­ting the vote, a real pri­ma­ry would still pro­duce a nom­i­nee. Crowd­ed fields could be sort­ed by vot­ers. But again, with no real pri­ma­ry in place, it’s in the par­ty’s inter­est to nar­row its field of can­di­dates before the fil­ing period.

Sen­a­tor Sal­daña did not men­tion this in her state­ment, but last week, Wash­ing­ton Con­ser­va­tion Action made the long-await­ed deci­sion to endorse her rival, King Coun­ty Coun­cil Chair Dave Upthe­grove. WCA is wide­ly respect­ed in the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment for its elec­toral lead­er­ship and many strate­gists and activists had been look­ing to the orga­ni­za­tion for guid­ance on who pro­gres­sive vot­ers should be sup­port­ing for Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands. The writ­ing has been on the wall since then, so to speak.

Upthe­grove issued a state­ment prais­ing Sal­daña and com­pli­ment­ing her work.

“I want to com­mend Sen­a­tor Sal­dana for run­ning a strong and sub­stan­tive cam­paign,” said Upthe­grove. “She helped define the issues in this race in a mean­ing­ful way, guar­an­tee­ing that issues of envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice will remain front and cen­ter as this cam­paign moves for­ward. And she is a fight­er. I deeply admire her courage and strength, and deeply respect her integri­ty and her com­mit­ment to pro­gres­sive val­ues. She remains a respect­ed leader and ded­i­cat­ed pub­lic ser­vant who will con­tin­ue to make her mark in Wash­ing­ton State pol­i­tics in oth­er ways.”

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic field now con­sists of Upthe­grove (in our esti­ma­tion, the fron­trun­ner), State Sen­a­tor Kevin Van De Wege, who has some deep pock­et­ed back­ers but has oth­er­wise got­ten no trac­tion, and DNR trib­al liai­son Patrick DePoe. DePoe has Franz’s endorse­ment and has fared bet­ter than Van De Wege in our polling, but is behind Upthe­grove in fundrais­ing. A fifth can­di­date, for­mer State Sen­a­tor Mona Das, with­drew from the race sev­er­al weeks ago, months after ceas­ing cam­paign fundraising.

If either DePoe or Van De Wege or both also with­draw, that will fur­ther increase Democ­rats’ odds of hold­ing on to this office. Repub­li­cans have two declared can­di­dates: Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler and Sue Kuehl Ped­er­sen. If they were to get more votes than three or more Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates this sum­mer, that would result in a Repub­li­can pick­up of a key statewide office that has juris­dic­tion over Wash­ing­ton’s forests and aquat­ic lands. Our Novem­ber and Feb­ru­ary polling in this race sug­gest­ed that this was a real pos­si­bil­i­ty if Democ­rats did­n’t win­now their field. Two can­di­dates have now exit­ed, and if one more fol­lows suit, the par­ty will be in great shape for the August Top Two election.