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| Jay Inslee |
 |
| 23rd Governor of Washington |
| Incumbent |
Assumed office
January 16, 2013 |
| Lieutenant |
Brad Owen |
| Preceded by |
Christine Gregoire |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Washington's 1st district |
In office
January 3, 1999 – March 20, 2012 |
| Preceded by |
Rick White |
| Succeeded by |
Suzan DelBene |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Washington's 4th district |
In office
January 3, 1993 – January 3, 1995 |
| Preceded by |
Sid Morrison |
| Succeeded by |
Doc Hastings |
Member of the Washington House of Representatives
from the 14th district |
In office
January 3, 1989 – January 3, 1993 |
| Preceded by |
Jim Lewis |
| Succeeded by |
Dave Lemmon |
| Personal details |
| Born |
Jay Robert Inslee
February 9, 1951 (age 63)
Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
| Political party |
Democratic Party |
| Alma mater |
University of Washington, Seattle
Willamette University |
| Religion |
Non-denominational Protestant[1] |
Jay Robert Inslee (born February 9, 1951) is the 23rd
Governor of Washington, in office since January 16, 2013. Previously, he served in the
United States House of Representatives, first from 1993 to 1995 from
Washington's 4th Congressional district, in the central part of the state around
Yakima, and from 1999 to 2012 from
Washington's 1st Congressional district, which included many of
Seattle's northern suburbs in
King,
Snohomish, and
Kitsap counties. He announced his candidacy for
Governor of Washington
on June 27, 2011, and he resigned from Congress on March 20, 2012, in
order to focus on his campaign for Governor. He was declared the winner
of the gubernatorial election on November 9, 2012. He is a member of the
Democratic Party.
Early life, education, and law career
Inslee was born in Seattle, the son of Adele A. (née Brown) and Frank E. Inslee.
[2] He graduated from Seattle's
Ingraham High School, the
University of Washington (
Bachelor of Arts,
Economics), and
Willamette University College of Law.
Inslee has attributed his interest in the outdoors to the years his
parents spent leading student groups on wilderness conservation trips in
cooperation with the SCA in
Mount Rainier in the 1960s and 1970s.
[3] He practiced law for ten years in
Selah, Washington, a city just north of
Yakima.
Washington House of Representatives (1989–1993)
Elections
Inslee ran for the
Washington House of Representatives
in 1988 after incumbent Republican State Representative Jim Lewis
resigned to become political commentator of a Yakima television station.
[4] He was inspired to run after the state legislature undermined a school bond that he had worked to pass after years of failure.
[5]
In the blanket primary, Republican Lynn Carmichael ranked first with
43% and Inslee ranked second with 40%. Republican Glen Blomgren ranked
third with 17%.
[6] In the general election, Inslee defeated Carmichael 52%-48%.
[7] In 1990, Inslee won re-election with 62% of the vote.
[8]
Tenure
In the Washington state legislature, Inslee pursued a bill to provide initial funding to build five branch campuses of the
Washington State University
system. Although the bill failed, Inslee’s tenacity made an impression
on House Speaker Joe King, who said: "He's not afraid to incur the wrath
of the speaker or the caucus."
[9]
In 1991, Inslee voted for a state energy policy which required the
state to devise a cost-effective energy strategy, and also that state
agencies and school districts must pursue and maintain energy-efficient
operation of their facilities.
[10]
Committee assignments
He served on the Higher Education
[11] and Housing
[12] Committees.
U.S. House of Representatives (1993-1995)
Jay Inslee and his wife Trudi Inslee meet with the
Dalai Lama.
Elections
- 1992
In 1992, he ran for and was elected to the
United States Congress representing
Washington's 4th congressional district
in the central-eastern part of the state. His home area of the
district, anchored by Yakima, is relatively rural and agriculture-based,
while the southeastern part of his district is more focused on research
and nuclear waste disposal, anchored by the
Tri-Cities, Washington.
- 1994
He lost his bid for re-election in the
Republican Revolution of 1994 in a rematch against his 1992 opponent,
Doc Hastings. Inslee attributed his 1994 defeat in large part to his vote for the
Federal Assault Weapons Ban.
[13]
Tenure
In Congress Inslee passed the Yakima River Enhancement Act,
[14]
a bill long held up in Congress by brokering a breakthrough with
irrigators and wildlife advocates. He also helped to open Japanese
markets to American apples, and fund and oversee the nation's biggest
nuclear waste site at the
Hanford Nuclear Reservation near
Richland, Washington.
[15]
Committee assignments
Official 109th Congressional photo
In his first congressional tenure, he was placed on the
U.S. House Committee on Agriculture to protect the district's rural areas and the
U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology to protect the
Hanford Reservation.
[16]
Inter-congressional years (1995–1999)
Inslee moved to
Bainbridge Island, a suburb of
Seattle, and briefly resumed the practice of law.
1996 gubernatorial election
He ran for
Governor of Washington in
1996 and lost in the
blanket primary. Democratic
King County Executive and former State Representative
Gary Locke ranked first with 24% of the vote. Democratic
Mayor of Seattle Norm Rice ranked second with 18%, but didn't qualify for the general election. Republican State Senator
Ellen Craswell
ranked third with 15%, and became the Republican candidate to qualify
for the general election. Republican State Senator and Senate Majority
Leader
Dale Foreman ranked fourth with 13%. Inslee ranked fifth with 10%. No other candidate on the ballot received double digits.
[17]
Clinton administration
After Inslee's failed 1996 bid for
Governor of Washington,
President of the United States Bill Clinton appointed him regional director for the
United States Department of Health and Human Services.
Inslee was once touted as a candidate for
United States Secretary of the Interior and for
United States Secretary of Energy in the
Presidential transition of Barack Obama.
[18][19]
U.S. House of Representatives (1999–2012)
Elections
Inslee as a representative
Inslee ran again for Congress in 1998, this time in the 1st congressional district against two-term incumbent
Rick White.
His campaign attracted national attention when he became the first
Democratic candidate to air television ads attacking his opponent and
the Republican congressional leadership for the
Lewinsky scandal.
[20]
Inslee won with 49.8% of the vote to White's 44.1%; he had an
unintentional assist in his successful return by the conservative
third political party candidacy of Bruce Craswell, husband of 1996 GOP gubernatorial nominee
Ellen Craswell.
The 1st was a swing district for most of the 1990s; Inslee's win
marked the third time the district had changed hands in four elections.
However, Inslee was a major beneficiary of the recent Democratic trend
in the Seattle area. Inslee defeated
Washington Senate
Minority Leader Dan McDonald in 2000, taking 54.6% of the vote. Inslee
defeated former state representative Joe Marine in 2002, taking 55.6% of
the vote after the district was made more Democratic in the 2000s round
of redistricting. He would never face another contest nearly that
close, and was reelected three more times with over 60 percent of the
vote.
In July 2003, after
Gary Locke
announced he would not seek a third term as Washington's governor,
Inslee briefly flirted with a gubernatorial bid before deciding to
remain in Congress.
[21]
During the 2009-10 campaign cycle, Inslee raised $1,140,025. In data
compiled for the period 2005 to 2007 and excluding individual
contributions of less than $200, 64 percent of Inslee's donations were
from outside the state of Washington and 86 percent came from outside
his district (compared to 79 percent for the average House member). A
total of 43 percent of Inslee's donations came from Washington, D.C.,
Virginia and Maryland. The largest interests funding Inslee's campaign
were pharmaceutical and health related companies, lawyers and law firms,
and high tech companies.
[22]
In 2010 he won by a 15-point margin, with 57.67% of the votes cast in his favor.
[23] His district went 62% to
Barack Obama in 2008, an indication of how strongly the district then leaned Democratic.
Tenure
Though a member of the
Bill Clinton New Democrat Coalition,
[24] Inslee has accumulated a
liberal voting record and expertise on high-tech issues.
[25]
Inslee was awarded a "Friend of the National Parks" award by the
National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) in 2001 for his support of legislation protecting the integrity and quality of the
National Park System.
[26]
Inslee was the first public figure to propose an Apollo-like energy program with an op ed in the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, on December 19, 2002,
[27] and in a series of similar pieces in other publications. Eventually Inslee co-authored
Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy,
in which he argues that through improved Federal policies the United
States can wean itself off of its dependence on foreign oil and
fossil fuel, create millions of
Green-collar worker jobs, and stop
global warming. Along these lines, he has been a prominent supporter of the
Apollo Alliance.
[28]
Inslee strongly believes the
Environmental Protection Agency should remain authorized to regulate
green house
gas emissions. In a 2011 House hearing, Inslee said Republicans have
"an allergy to science and scientists," during a discussion of whether
the
Regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act should remain in place following a controversial court finding on the issue.
[29]
He has been an outspoken critic of the
George W. Bush administration's decision to
2003 invasion of Iraq. On July 31, 2007, Inslee introduced legislation that called for an inquiry to determine whether then
United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should be impeached. Gonzales eventually resigned.
[30]
Inslee voted for
[31] the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the federal health care law.
In 2011 Inslee voted in favor of authorizing the use of U.S. armed forces in the
2011 Libyan civil war and voted against limiting the use of funds to support
NATO's
2011 military intervention in Libya.
[32]
On March 20, 2012, Inslee left Congress to focus on his campaign for Governor of Washington.
[33]
Committee assignments
Caucus memberships
Governor of Washington (2013–present)
2012 gubernatorial election
On June 27, 2011, Inslee announced his candidacy for Governor of Washington in
2012.
[34]
His campaign focused on job creation, outlining dozens of proposals to
increase job growth in clean energy, the aerospace industry and
biotechnology. He also supported a ballot measure that would legalize
gay marriage, which passed, and opposed tax increases.
[35] He won election by a very slim margin over his Republican opponent,
Rob McKenna, with 51% of the vote.
[36] While votes were still being counted, McKenna did not immediately concede.
[35]
Tenure
During the 2013 session, the
legislature
failed to create a fiscal budget plan during the initial session, and
Inslee was forced to call two special sessions in order to give time for
a budget to be created. The
Republican-controlled
Senate and the
Democratic-controlled
House both passed their own budgets, but could not agree with one.
[37]
Finally, in June 2013, Inslee was able to sign a compromised $33.6
billion budget that both houses had agreed upon, albeit hesitantly. It
was the first time in 20 years that the legislature reached a budget so
late in the year.
[38]
On June 13, 2013, Inslee signed an additional
estate tax into law. The estate tax had bipartisan support and passed the senate in a 30-19 vote.
[39]
In December 2013, he was elected to serve as finance chair of the
Democratic Governors Association.
[40]
In January 2014, Inslee gave a speech commending machinists who voted to renew
Boeing's contract with Seattle, allowing the company to build it's
Boeing 777x
aircraft in Seattle. Inslee said the contract will bring Washington to a
new industrial plateau and be a turning point for Washington jobs.
“These jobs are in the thousands and it is not only on the 777X, the
first model of the 777X but all the subsequent derivative models as
well." The plan prevents Boeing from building part of the aircraft in
Washington and part of it somewhere else, which they did with the
Boeing 787, which was partially constructed in
South Carolina.
[41][42]
On 11 February 2014, Inslee announced that he was issuing a
moratorium on
executions in Washington.
He said: "There have been too many doubts raised about capital
punishment, there are too many flaws in this system today. There is too
much at stake to accept an imperfect system." He cited the high cost of
pursuing the death penalty, the randomness with it was sought, and a
lack of evidence that it is a deterrent.
[43][44]
Electoral history
| Date |
Position |
Status |
Opponent |
Result |
Vote share |
Opponent vote share |
| 1988 |
WA Representative |
|
|
Elected |
|
|
| 1990 |
WA Representative |
Incumbent |
|
Re-elected |
|
|
| 1992 |
U.S. Representative |
Open seat |
Doc Hastings (R) |
Elected |
51% |
49% |
| 1994 |
U.S. Representative |
Incumbent |
Doc Hastings (R) |
Defeated |
47% |
53% |
| 1996 |
WA Governor |
Open seat primary |
Gary Locke (D), others |
Defeated |
|
|
| 1998 |
U.S. Representative |
Challenger |
Rick White (R) |
Elected |
50% |
44% |
| 2000 |
U.S. Representative |
Incumbent |
Dan McDonald (R) |
Re-elected |
55% |
43% |
| 2002 |
U.S. Representative |
Incumbent |
Joe Marine (R) |
Re-elected |
56% |
41% |
| 2004 |
U.S. Representative |
Incumbent |
Randy Eastwood (R) |
Re-elected |
62% |
36% |
| 2006 |
U.S. Representative |
Incumbent |
Larry W. Ishmael (R) |
Re-elected |
68% |
32% |
| 2008 |
U.S. Representative |
Incumbent |
Larry W. Ishmael (R) |
Re-elected |
68% |
32% |
| 2010 |
U.S. Representative |
Incumbent |
James Watkins (R) |
Re-elected |
57% |
43% |
| 2012 |
WA Governor |
Open seat |
Rob McKenna (R) |
Elected |
51% |
49% |
Personal life
Inslee and his wife Trudi were high school sweethearts and were
married on August 27, 1972. They have three sons, Jack, Connor, and Joe,
and live on
Bainbridge Island.
[45]
Inslee is an avid basketball player and a member of "Hoopaholics",
[46]
a charity group dedicated to "treatment of old guys addicted to
basketball and who can no longer jump" as Inslee has often joked. In
October 2009, he played basketball at the White House in a series of
games featuring members of Congress on one team and members of the
administration, including President Obama, on the other.
[47]
Works
- Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks, Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy, Island Press (October 1, 2007), ISBN 978-1-59726-175-3
google.com
