Jay Inslee is Washington's new governor, elected in November 2012 to succeed fellow Democrat Christine Gregoire, who was term-limited. Inslee defeated Republican state Attorney General Rob McKenna by three percentage points, 51.5-48.5%. The race was close throughout, though Inslee held small but consistent leads throughout the fall. Read More
Jay Inslee is Washington's new governor, elected in November 2012 to succeed fellow Democrat Christine Gregoire, who was term-limited. Inslee defeated Republican state Attorney General Rob McKenna by three percentage points, 51.5-48.5%. The race was close throughout, though Inslee held small but consistent leads throughout the fall.
Before being elected governor, Inslee represented two distinct parts of Washington in the U.S. House. A telegenic leader in his party on technology and environmental issues, he was long considered to have had his eye on higher office.
Inslee grew up in north Seattle, the son of a high school biology teacher and football coach. He graduated from the University of Washington and Willamette University College of Law. He moved to Selah, in Yakima County east of the Cascades, to practice law and served on the State Trial Lawyers Association board of directors. In 1988, at age 37, he was elected to the state House over a former Yakima mayor. In 1992, when 4th District Congressman Sid Morrison ran for governor, Inslee won the general election to succeed him 51%-49% over Doc Hastings, a conservative supported by the Christian Coalition. In the House, Inslee voted for the Clinton budget and tax increase and for a crime bill with a ban on assault weapons. In 1994, Hastings challenged Inslee and beat him, 53%-47%. After his defeat, Inslee moved to Bainbridge Island and practiced law in Seattle. In 1996, he ran for governor and finished fifth, with 10% of the total vote, in the all-party primary. He briefly served as regional director of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department.
In 1998, Inslee decided to run for Congress again, this time in the 1st District against Republican incumbent Rick White, an economic conservative with liberal votes on some cultural issues. Inslee attacked White for voting to reduce spending on education and the environment and for supporting electricity deregulation, claiming that White was “willing to sell our reasonably priced electricity to California.” White painted Inslee as a carpetbagger. In the September all-party primary, White led 50%-44%. But by November, two issues changed the balance. One was White’s divorce. Inslee ran ads claiming that White intended to spend 10 years in the House and then become a lobbyist, a charge his ex-wife had made in divorce papers. He also ran ads highlighting White’s vote to impeach President Bill Clinton. In the acrimony, the primary numbers were reversed in November, and Inslee won 50%-44%.
Inslee is a moderate-to-liberal Democrat and likes to focus on technology issues. He joined in protecting the privacy of consumer financial records, an issue important to Microsoft. He and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., pressed the Federal Communications Commission in December 2010 for stricter rules on the FCC’s proposed net-neutrality order that some Republicans already said was too unfriendly to business. When security experts reported in 2011 that Apple’s iPhone could secretly track its users’ movements, Inslee called for greater government oversight of data collection.
On the Energy and Commerce Committee, Inslee has focused on conservation and increasing renewable energy sources. As early as 2005, he had introduced bills to address global warming and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. When Republicans skeptical of climate change took control of the House, Inslee criticized what he called the GOP’s “allergy to science,” and toted a stack of more than 20 books to a March 2011 hearing, saying they contained irrefutable evidence of the problem. A book Inslee co-authored about ending the United States’ dependence on foreign oil was published in 2007. He sponsored a provision in a 2009 bill to give rebates to certain industries, such as steel and cement, which face tough competition from international companies. Inslee joined Republicans in arguing against President Obama’s decision to shelve the Yucca Mountain storage project in Nevada, which is destined to receive nuclear waste from Washington state. And in February 2011, he seconded the GOP’s alarm about growing budget deficits and called for closing tax loopholes.
In 2000, Inslee won his first re-election in the district 55%-43%. He gave serious thought to running again for governor in 2004, but decided against it. But when Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire decided to retire in 2012, Inslee leapt into the race, retiring from Congress in March and finishing first of nine candidates in Washington's new blanket primary election in August.
