My final legislative newsletter

Dear friends and neighbors,

After 12 years, this is my final week as a Washington state senator. I’m so honored to have had the chance to serve you for three terms. Every day I’ve worked hard to represent the values of our district and the principles of good government. I’m sure we’ve disagreed from time to time, but I hope I still earned your respect as somebody who had his heart in the right place. I’ve always strived to work together with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and find compromise and bipartisan solutions whenever possible. As a result, I’m proud of some of the things I’ve delivered for the district in that time:

Funding for the Highway 18/I-90 interchange replacement work and the Highway 18 widening project — I think this will make traffic better, and more importantly, a lot safer
Record investments in K-12 and higher education
The biggest ever state commitment to affordable housing construction
Teaching financial literacy in high school
Expanding access to retirement plans
And a whole lot more!

My first Senate floor speech in 2013 on a law I sponsored allowing schools to keep EpiPens on hand, so they are available if a student without a pre-diagnosed allergy needs one. I ran a bunch of different EpiPen access bills over the years — one of the most interesting parts of being a legislator is finding these little niches of public policy where one person can make an out-sized impact.

I wish the best to the legislators who will represent you (and me!) next session — Rep. Bill Ramos, my successor in the Senate, Rep. Lisa Callan, and our new incoming representative, Victoria Hunt. The 2025 Legislature will face some big challenges, and I encourage them to remember ours is a moderate swing district, neither far right nor far left. There are issues where our community is strongly united and other ones where we’re still deeply divided, and I believe the best way to represent that is to work hard to hear all sides and seek common ground whenever possible.