Thanks to Mary Jane F.
Dear friends and neighbors, When Rep. Frank Chopp retires from the Legislature at the end of the year, he will leave a legacy of transformational change for the 43rd Legislative District and our entire state. Frank’s remarkable 30-year career in Olympia has helped improve countless lives. I am incredibly grateful for his service, partnership, and friendship over the years.  Frank was a skilled community organizer when he was first elected to the House in 1994. In that election, Democrats suffered a catastrophic defeat, losing 29 seats and going from a 65-33 majority to a 62-36 minority. Frank led his caucus back to the majority, serving as Speaker of the House from 1999 to 2019. His leadership produced many historic moments for our state, including the passage of the marriage equality bill in 2012 (which he had just signed in the photo above). For the last few years, freed of his leadership duties, Frank focused tirelessly on housing and behavioral health. He has helped lead the legislature’s efforts in creating affordable housing through the Housing Trust Fund; expanding healthcare to children through the Apple Health for Kids program; and integrating behavioral health and healthcare systems and building out new facilities such as the UW Behavioral Health Hospital. He also played a key role in our state’s efforts to fund education, make our economy more fair, help workers organize, protect our air and water, and invest in critical infrastructure. On a personal level, Frank has been a mentor and friend who has helped shape my own approach to public service. I’d like to share three moments from my last three years serving in the House with Frank.  In the 2011 session, Frank collaborated closely with me, Rep. (and now Speaker) Laurie Jinkins, and Sen. David Frockt to develop a challenge to a series of Tim Eyman-backed initiatives that purported to require 2/3 supermajorities for the Legislature to raise taxes. For nearly 20 years, those initiatives had prevented the Legislature from doing anything but cutting services to balance our budgets – and the Supreme Court had rejected multiple challenges on procedural grounds. But in our case, League of Education Voters v. State of Washington, the Supreme Court struck down all of those initiatives and held that the state constitution required that tax bills pass or fail based on the will of a majority of legislators in each chamber. That decision has freed us to make rational policy over the last 10 years as we worked to make our tax system more fair and adequate to meet the needs of the people of Washington. In the 2012 session, I was the House prime sponsor of the marriage equality bill. We had agreed that the Senate would try to pass the bill first, because we did not know if we had a majority in support. My job was to help that effort by proving that we had the votes in the House to pass it. I needed 50 signatures to demonstrate that we had a majority – but I had several colleagues who said that they would vote for the bill but did not want to put their name on it. So for a few days, I was stuck at 49. As House Speaker, Frank had a strong policy of never sponsoring bills so that he could demonstrate that he led the chamber fairly. But when I went to him and asked him to be the 50th sponsor, he did not hesitate to break his self-imposed rule and thanked me for asking him. In the 2013 session, in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting, Frank and I worked closely on a bill requiring background checks for all gun purchases. He shut down floor action in the House for days as we worked furiously to marshal the votes for the bill. Although we were unsuccessful that year, the voters passed the bill as Initiative 594 in November 2014, and Washington began its sustained work to enact gun violence prevention legislation, continuing to this day. In all of those efforts – and many others – Frank’s passion, skilled organizing, and strong progressive values helped achieve success. I am certain that dozens of my legislative colleagues could tell similar stories about the issues on which he has improved the lives of people in our state.  Frank, thank you for your service and commitment to the people of Washington. I will miss serving with you. Thanks for taking the time to read my newsletter. This will conclude my series of e-newsletters on the 2024 legislative session. |