WA Gov. Jay Inslee won’t seek reelection for fourth term

OLYMPIA — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced Monday he will not run for an unprecedented fourth term, setting up a wide-open 2024 gubernatorial race that will have ripple effects all down the ballot.

Inslee, a Democrat first elected governor in 2012, had for months kept people guessing about his intentions, saying he was unsure whether he’d seek reelection.

He finally ended the speculation with a statement Monday morning.

“Serving the people as governor of Washington state has been my greatest honor. During a decade of dynamic change, we’ve made Washington a beacon for progress for the nation. I’m ready to pass the torch,” Inslee said in the emailed statement, sent out just before 9 a.m.

Inslee, 72, is only the second person, along with Republican Dan Evans, to serve three consecutive terms as Washington governor. Arthur Langlie, a Republican, also served three terms, including two consecutive terms, in the 1940s and 1950s.

At the state Capitol Monday, he said he made the difficult decision not to run again in the last week.

“But I do think there’s a season,” he said, “and the season right now I think is that having a first term, maybe, is more important than having a fourth term.”

Inslee’s departure sets up a competitive open-seat race to succeed him after years of stifled ambitions for other politicians. His replacement will lead a state that’s grown by nearly 1 million people since he first ran for governor.

He still has more than a year and a half left in office, and said among his highest priorities will be passing a new drug possession law to replace the stopgap measure expiring in July. He said he will call on Tuesday for a special legislative session to pass a new drug law, after the Legislature failed to pass one in the waning hours of its regular session.

He said much of his focus over the remainder of his term would be on implementing the suite of housing policy bills passed this year.

“I’ve got 20 more months in the harness and I’m going to be pulling on the plow for 20 more months,” he said.

Inslee served eight terms in Congress, representing districts on both sides of the Cascades, before winning election as Washington’s 23rd governor in 2012, defeating then-state Attorney General Rob McKenna in an expensive and close race.

Inslee has been easily reelected governor twice as Republican prospects in Washington have dwindled.

He beat Bill Bryant, a Seattle port commissioner, in 2016, winning 54% of the vote. In 2020, Inslee took nearly 57% in a lopsided win over Loren Culp, a former small-town police chief who refused to concede and lobbed baseless claims of fraud.

Inslee’s third term win came after an unsuccessful bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, running on an ambitious platform of slashing greenhouse gas emissions — an agenda that won praise from rivals and climate experts but never saw him gain any traction among primary voters.

After President Joe Biden took office, Inslee was frequently rumored as a potential Cabinet pick, although he consistently denied interest.

He said Monday he intends to stay active after leaving office. He hasn’t thought about a Cabinet position but said “anytime a president calls, you always answer the call.”

His gubernatorial campaigns have spent nearly $30 million over the three election cycles, according to the state Public Disclosure Commission.

On the heels of the defeat of a carbon-fee initiative in 2018, Inslee proposed a suite of ambitious legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To date, the state has committed to end the sale of fossil-fueled cars by 2035, phase out fossil-fueled electricity generation by 2045, and, as a whole, become mostly carbon neutral by 2050.

Two prominent Democrats — Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz — are expected to quickly announce their candidacies for governor. Both were preparing to run in 2020, but stood down after Inslee announced his third-term run.

That will in turn clear the way for contests for their seats, creating a domino effect of opportunities for new blood in an array of state elective offices.

Six people — three Republicans, two Democrats and one with no party listed — have raised money for their 2024 campaigns, though only three thus far have raised more than $1,000, according to the state Public Disclosure Commission. Republican Semi Bird, a Richland School Board member and military veteran, has raised the most, with $50,180 as of Monday.

Inslee’s tenure as governor

In his statement Monday, Inslee touted accomplishments including action on climate change, gun laws, a higher minimum wage and protections for abortion rights and gender-affirming care.

“Our last decade of Washington’s storied history is one of growth and innovation. I am proud to have played a role in our state’s leadership on so many fronts,” Inslee added. “We’ve passed the nation’s best climate policies, the most successful family leave benefits, the best college scholarship programs, a more fair legal justice system, and the most protective actions against gun violence. We’ve shown that diversity is a strength worth fighting for. This has been ten years of dynamic success.”

Inslee oversaw the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and over three years was behind some of the nation’s strictest emergency measures to try to stop the spread of the virus.

He issued his first emergency order on Feb. 29, 2020, the day officials announced the first COVID death in the U.S., at a nursing home in Kirkland. In total, his office authored 85 COVID emergency orders with wide-ranging impacts, including stay-at-home orders, remote learning for students and vaccine verification requirements. He lifted Washington’s state of emergency last Oct. 31.

As of April 26, 16,070 people have died of COVID in Washington, with 1.95 million infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both the infection and death rates per 100,000 people are lower than the rates across the U.S.

COVID was a focal point of Inslee’s 2020 race against Culp, who hosted mask-optional rallies and vowed to end all mask and stay-at-home orders. Before the election, Inslee said he knew the decisions he had made related to COVID had been difficult, but “they have been decisions that fundamentally saved lives, and they are based on science.”

The state Republican Party celebrated Inslee’s announcement, saying it’s time to “turn the page on the disastrous Inslee era” in the state.

“For over a decade, Gov. Inslee has taken our state in the wrong direction. His decision to not seek a fourth term presents an opportunity to elect a Republican governor who will put Washingtonians first and prioritize the needs of our communities,” state Republican Party Chair Caleb Heimlich said in a statement.

Heimlich criticized Inslee’s “abuse” of emergency powers during the pandemic, the pilfering of hundreds of millions of dollars of pandemic unemployment funds by fraudsters, and failures to adequately address the state’s homelessness and mental health crises.

One of Inslee’s major initiatives during his tenure was transforming the state’s siloed and complex mental health system. In 2018, after facing a class-action lawsuit and the loss of federal funding, officials promised to transition the state’s psychiatric hospitals by 2023.

But the state hasn’t yet fulfilled that promise. During this year’s legislative session, lawmakers have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to add new mental and behavioral health facilities, and specifically to deal with the backlog of people detained in jails who are waiting for mental health services.

State Democratic Party Chair Shasti Conrad said Inslee’s leadership made Washington a “beacon of hope” in a divided nation and vowed to defend his legacy at the ballot box.

“Gov. Inslee’s steadfast leadership has guided Washington through both times of historic prosperity and unprecedented crisis. He kept us safe and secure through the coronavirus pandemic, and delivered transformational policies on climate change, economic justice, and gun violence prevention,” Conrad said in a statement.

Star athlete to state leader

Born in Seattle, the oldest of three brothers, Inslee is a fifth-generation Washingtonian. His mother was a sales clerk at Sears, and his father was a high- school teacher, coach and counselor, ultimately becoming the Seattle Public Schools athletic director.

Inslee went to Ingraham High School in North Seattle, where he was the starting quarterback on the football team, and a forward on the school’s state championship basketball team.

His ascent from a local star athlete to the state’s leader is recorded in Seattle newspaper archives, though the first mention of Jay Inslee is in a 1954 announcement for a relative’s wedding, where he was the ring bearer. His first professional mention comes three decades later, when as an attorney he represented a couple who sued a prominent Yakima obstetrician on a wrongful birth negligence case. 

After graduating high school in 1969, Inslee went to Stanford University, but he withdrew after one year and enrolled at the University of Washington to study economics.

Inslee and his wife, Trudi, married in 1972 and he went to Willamette University College of Law in Oregon. After law school, they moved to Selah, Yakima County, where he prosecuted cases in Selah Municipal Court.

Inslee first ran for office in 1988, taking on a conservative former mayor of Yakima for state House in a Republican-leaning district. He won by just over 3 percentage points.

He was elected to Congress in 1992, riding a big Democratic wave to represent Central Washington’s 4th Congressional District.

Two years later, he lost that seat in major Republican blowout year that saw the GOP pick up 54 House seats.

Inslee moved across the state to the more liberal 1st Congressional District and defeated Republican incumbent Rep. Rick White in 1998. He remained in that seat until resigning during his run for governor.

Inslee was in jolly spirits Monday as he signed more than two dozen bills, bantering with advocates who’d come to see their legislation become law.

“We’re not done yet, not done yet,” he said after signing one.

When a child asked Inslee to write a note to his teacher, excusing his absence from school, Inslee declared he was writing “an executive order.”

“Mr. Hall, please give Tyler more homework,” Inslee wrote. Turning to the assembled media, he quipped, “Kid needs to learn how politics work.”

Seattle Times staff reporters Isabella Breda and Esmy Jimenez contributed to this report, which includes material from The Seattle Times archives.