Thank you for your contribution to my re-election campaign this year.  The election is finally over and I’ve somehow managed to get 69.27% of the votes. As you might imagine I’m pretty pleased about the outcome here, and your help made it possible.

For unbelievably good reasons campaign contributions are frozen from December 15th until after the legislative session is over, so please don’t force me to incur lots of accounting expense by sending me any money. I’ll just have to send it back.

There’s an ancient Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times” that I believe will apply to this year’s legislative session as we try to work out next year’s budget and respond to the Supreme Court’s McCleary decision on school funding.

You can track what I’m up to at www.rosshunter.info, my non-campaign website. (Campaign information is at www.rosshunter.com.)

My agenda for this year is simple to outline here, but I expect great difficulties in working through it:

1. Produce a budget that balances, resolves the 2013-15 and 2015-17 McCleary decision, implements the Madicaid expansion envisioned in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and projects rationally into the future.
2. Inside the education box make some strategic decisions that enable our K-12 and higher education systems to be more productive, including
   1. More thoughtful allocation of proposed new K-12 spending to fund pre-school for at-risk three and four-year-old children. Most research in the field leads me to believe that this is a more optimum spending plan than what we are currently on a path to do.
   2. Create a strategy for how we fund and manage our higher education system so that a reasonable proportion of Washington students can learn the skills necessary to survive economically in the 21^st century. Our current path is unattractive. I am concerned (optimistic?) about a radical dislocation in higher education driven by the Internet and think the state should do some planning.
3. Take a step forward on transportation infrastructure, including finalizing how we will pay for the remainder of the 520 bridge project. (Tolling I-90 is the current plan, and there are not many alternatives.) There are other transportation projects that need to be considered as part of an overall plan, and the business community is pushing us to consider an increase in the gas tax to fund it.

As usual, I’ll try to write about policy developments on my blog at www.rosshunter.info, and will send out infrequent email updates. If I send them out too frequently you don’t read them, so I try to be careful. Of course when I do this they are tremendously long, but you can’t have everything.

Again, thank you for your support. I will endeavor to go out and earn it.

The Association of Washington Business (AWB) endorsed me this year, one of four House Democrats they’ve chosen to support. The AWB is Washington State’s Chamber of Commerce and provides a useful perspective on legislation. We don’t always agree, but we’ve been able to work together on legislation that makes Washington a better place to live, play, and get some business done.

http://www.washingtonbusinessvotes.com/2012endorsementlist/

I’m pleased to have been endorsed by the Seattle Times this year. http://seattletimes.com/html/editorials/2019251370_editendorsementleg48xml.html I always wish I could write these articles as I might choose to focus on different items, but here’s what they said:

In House, Position 1, Democratic state Rep. Ross Hunter’s footwork helping push government reforms earns him another term in office — although that work is far from over. Within a sometimes uncooperative caucus, he helped secure key reforms to state pensions, public employee health care and K-12 education.

Hunter was first elected to the House in 2002 and has been a champion of public schools. As chair of the House Ways and Means Committee last session, Hunter played a key role producing a budget that held the line on spending and, especially important, did not cut the K-12 system or higher education.

Hunter’s work trying to ensure that businesses could create jobs is why he is one of only four House Democrats endorsed by the Association of Washington Business.

As part of the Democratic leadership, Hunter’s influence can help the coalition of moderate Democrats and Republicans fighting for slower state spending and budget priorities built around education.

It takes a while to finalize the results for elections where all the ballots are sent in by mail. The final result is not a surprise given the numbers on election night, but it’s nice to have such a strong showing. I won the primary with over 69% of the vote, despite the crudeness of this chart from the King County website. Thank you all for your support and I hope to have a comparable showing in November.

I’m happy to report that I have received endorsements and/or campaign support in my re-election campaign from a wide variety of people and organizations this year. I sincerely thank them for their trust and support. A representative sample is shown below:

Business

Premera Blue Cross
Seattle King County Realtors
Microsoft
Boeing
Frank Russell Company
Holland America Line
PEMCO Mutual Insurance
The Seattle Mariners
Vulcan, Inc.
Comcast
Boeing Employees’ Credit Union
Wal-Mart, Inc.
Bristol Meyers Squibb, Inc.
Port Blakely Tree Farms
T-Mobile, Inc.
Independent Business Association
Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp.
Molina Healthcare Inc.
Washington Restaurant Association

Healthcare

SEIU Healthcare 775NW
SEIU Healthcare 1199 NW
Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest
Mental Health PAC
Washington State Medical Association
Washington State Nurses Association PAC

Education

Stand for Children
League of Education Voters
American Federation of Teachers Washington
Washington Education Association PAC

Other Labor

Retired Firefighters of Washington
Bellevue Firefighters Union Local 1604
International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, AFL-CIO District Council #5
Puget Sound Pilots PAC
Laborers Local 440

Other

Washington Fire Chiefs
Washington Conservation Voters
Equal Rights Washington
Young Democrats of Washington
King County Democrats
48^th Legislative District Democrats
Washington Alliance for Humane Legislation
Cascade Bicycle Club

Individuals

John Marchione – Redmond Mayor
Joan McBride – Kirkland Mayor
George Martin – Clyde Hill Mayor
Robert Wallace
Steve and Connie Ballmer
Many others…

This is not a surprise (I’ve been endorsed by LEV in all my legislative races) but gratifying nonetheless. They say nice things about my work:

Ross Hunter was one of the first of a new breed of suburban legislators who made improving education their focus, and did the hard work to make K-12 a priority in the budget — in spite of declining state revenues and drastic cuts. In three terms, Ross not only mastered the intricacies of the state’s archaic K-12 funding formulas, but also the politics. In 2010, he went on to rally a team of legislators to take on the huge task of redefining basic education and redesigning our K-12 funding system to make it more transparent, more accountable and more effective. During the 2011 session, Ross took on the challenge of not only developing the budget but also legislation for Early Learning through Higher Education. Tireless, passionate, pragmatic, Ross puts his formidable intellect and prodigious energy to work on behalf of Washington’s students.

For more information about LEV, their endorsement process, or other candidates they have endorsed, go to http://levpac.org.

I posted a budget summary on www.rosshunter.info, where all the meaty policy wonk content lives. This site is about the campaign. I don’t know anyone who earlier this year thought we’d be able to get out of this session making no reductions in our education funding, including higher ed. We did. This was not an accident – lots of work over a period of years went into this, and lots more work will be required over the next few years to help us step up to where we need to be.

I made a choice earlier this year to pass up a chance to compete for an open seat for the US Congress because I felt that I had greater impact working on the budget in THIS Washington, not the other one. I’m feeling good about that choice at this moment, but to continue to have the impact on budgets and other policy decisions requires that I get re-elected in November.

This is where you come in. Click the BIG RED BUTTON at the top of this website to make a contribution to the campaign. A competitive race in a swing district costs $250,000 and I count on people like you to help out.

Thank you for all the help you’ve given over the years. Who we have in the Legislature really matters.

Thank you for re-electing me!

I don’t use the campaign site much from the end of the election cycle to the beginning of the next, and unlike the US Congress, these dates don’t actually overlap. It is painful to use the same site for both campaign and non-campaign uses, so I post regularly at www.rosshunter.info on all kinds of things – budgets, school funding, economics, etc.