State Representative Joel Kretz

01

Says vs does

What this member said while seeking the office, set against how they voted once they held it. We state only whether the two records differ — never why.

02

Voting record

Recorded floor votes across every session we hold. Committee votes are not included — those are recorded per committee, not per member.

Showing the 40 most recent of 13,953 recorded votes. Each tally links to the roll call itself, which names every member.

The tally is what the chamber recorded, not a verdict. Final passage needs a majority of the members elected, an amendment a majority of those voting, and some motions two-thirds; which rule governed a given motion is not in the record we hold.

Votes against their own party’s majority

Source WA Legislature roll-call archive · as of 2026-09-16 · rows 13,953 votes across every session held · key committee votes are not in the archive and are not counted here

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Bills sponsored — and where they stopped

Bills where this member was the prime sponsor. Co-sponsorship is not included; the record we hold names only the prime sponsor.

Source WA Legislature bill status + committee agendas · as of 2026-09-16 · n 128 prime-sponsored bills across every session held · What died in committee

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Committee seats

05

Who funds this seat

Campaign finance reported to the Public Disclosure Commission. The record and the PDC share no identifier, so this is a join — on surname, given name, chamber and district for a legislator, and on the office won and the county it was won in for everyone else. Only where one person fits.

By campaign

Largest reported contributors

Individual contributors, by stated employer

Private individuals are not named here unless their own public conduct already makes them a public figure; their giving appears aggregated by the employer they stated. The full itemised record is public at the PDC.

Spent independently, for and against · not their money

Money spent about this member by committees that are barred by law from coordinating with them. It is not their money, they cannot return it, and it is not in the total above. Spending for someone is not money from them, and the two sides are never subtracted from each other.

1. Spent supporting

   stance filed as “for”

   $421

2. Spent opposing

   stance filed as “against” · not subtracted from the row above

   none filed

• OKANOGAN COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY for · $234 · 2022
• SPOKANE HOME BUILDERS ASSOCIATION PAC for · $187 · 2020

Sources WA PDC C-3 contribution reports · C-6 independent expenditure and electioneering communication reports · as of 2026-09-16 · filer KRETJ 841 · key surname + given name + chamber + district — refused where more than one person fits · n 4 independent-expenditure filings name this candidate id · note independent expenditures are joined on the PDC candidate id, not on a name; they are a separate ledger, never netted against each other and never added to the committee’s own total

06

How the seat was won

Every certified general election this member won, from the Secretary of State canvass. The canvass names winners by printed name and the Legislature issues member ids, so each row is a stated join of the two records — never a guess.

Sources Secretary of State certified results + PDC candidate filings · as of 2026-09-16 · key joined on surname + given name + chamber + district; refused where more than one member fits · note — = value absent from source export

07

Member response

This page is built from public records, and the member it describes gets space to respond to it.

08 · component 08

Connected records

Everything below is a link some document draws for us. Nothing here is our inference. Grouped by how well the record supports it, always in this order, never sorted by interest.

Joined by us, on a stated key · 5

Two documents joined on a key, and the key is named on every row.

• HOLDS SEAT · election 2014-11-04 · certified Joel Kretz

  State House seat 2, Legislative District 7

  joined on: surname + given name + chamber + district

  WA Secretary of State certified general election results, 2014 · as of 2014-11-04

• HOLDS SEAT · election 2016-11-08 · certified Joel Kretz

  State House seat 2, Legislative District 7

  joined on: surname + given name + chamber + district

  WA Secretary of State certified general election results, 2016 · as of 2016-11-08

• HOLDS SEAT · election 2018-11-06 · certified Joel Kretz

  State House seat 2, Legislative District 7

  joined on: surname + given name + chamber + district

  WA Secretary of State certified general election results, 2018 · as of 2018-11-06

• HOLDS SEAT · election 2020-11-03 · certified Joel Kretz

  State House seat 2, Legislative District 7

  joined on: surname + given name + chamber + district

  WA Secretary of State certified general election results, 2020 · as of 2020-11-03

• HOLDS SEAT · election 2022-11-08 · certified Joel Kretz · uncontested

  State House seat 2, Legislative District 7

  joined on: surname + given name + chamber + district

  WA Secretary of State certified general election results, 2022 · as of 2022-11-08

Nothing on file

Source one query on the edge table, grouped by tier · as of 2026-09-16 · edges 0 filed, 5 composite, 0 adjacency · how edges are built

09 · component 09

How to run for this office

This is an office, not a possession. Every seat here is filled by whoever files for it and wins, and the requirements are the same for everyone.

This section appears on every office page on this site, contested or not, filled or vacant. Its presence is not a comment on whoever holds the seat, and we do not say whether a seat is winnable — that would be a prediction, and this page carries records.

Source Election cycle derived from past regular elections in PDC candidate filings; requirements from RCW 29A.24 — candidate filing · as of 2026-09-16

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What this page will not compute

Each of these is a number a reader might reasonably expect. None of them follow from the records we hold, so we do not publish them.

What the money bought

Where a filing is matched we show what was raised and from whom. Connecting that to how the member voted would be a causal claim from two records that were never linked, and campaign money is not the only thing that moves a vote.

A complete funding career

Cycles are shown back to 2009. A member who served before that has earlier campaigns we do not hold, so the career total is a floor rather than a lifetime figure.

Employers we cannot see

The employer field is filled in by the donor and left blank more often than not, so the bundling table shows employers we can see rather than every one that exists.

Whether a difference was a broken promise

Where a stated position and a vote differ we show both records and say only that they differ. Why is not in either one — an amendment, a procedural vote, or a bill that changed under the member all produce the same pair.

A complete set of statements

Positions are found and cited one at a time by a person. An empty or short list means nobody has done that reading, not that a member has said little.

Advertising

Meta’s ad library and PDC independent expenditures targeting this member are both public and neither is loaded.

What a divergent vote means

We can say a member voted against their party’s majority on a given roll call. Whether that was principle, a local interest, a drafting objection or a trade is not in the record, and the count is not a measure of independence.

Committee influence

Chair and ranking-member roles decide which bills get heard. The roster gives membership without role, so every seat here looks alike.

A member’s response

The design reserves space for one. We have no process yet for soliciting or publishing it, so the section is absent rather than empty.

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Common questions

Which Legislative District does Joel Kretz represent?

Joel Kretz is a Republican state representative representing Washington’s 7th Legislative District.

How often does Joel Kretz break with their party?

Across 13,953 recorded floor votes we hold, Joel Kretz voted against the majority of their own party 3,435 times. That count is a description of the record, not a measure of independence — the record does not say why any single vote diverged.

How many bills has Joel Kretz sponsored?

Joel Kretz has prime-sponsored 128 bills, of which 28 became law. Co-sponsorship is not in the record we hold. 48 of them died without ever getting a public hearing.

How long has Joel Kretz served in the Legislature?

Joel Kretz appears in the member roster for 1 biennium, most recently 2023-24. This counts biennia on record, not continuous years.

How many state legislators represent each Washington district?

Three — one state senator and two state representatives, elected to Position 1 and Position 2. All three represent the same geography; the positions are not sub-areas.

When are Washington legislative elections held?

In even-numbered years. All 98 House seats are up every two years; Senate seats run on staggered four-year terms.

Answers are generated from the same fields as the sections above and emitted as FAQPage structured data, so a machine reader gets the identical text a person sees.

Cite this page

This is public-records reporting. Use it, and say where it came from.

“State Representative Joel Kretz,” WashingtonIndependents.org, data as of 2026-09-16, accessed 2026-09-17. https://washingtonindependents.org/official/joel-kretz/

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Our tables, figures and notes on this page are released under CC BY 4.0 — reuse them, including commercially, with attribution. The underlying records are public records of the State of Washington and were never ours to license.

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Where this page comes from

Every figure above is read from a primary source and rebuilt on a schedule. Nothing here is modelled or inferred; where a source is silent the page says so rather than filling the gap.

WA Legislature member roster

Name, party, district, chamber and contact details, per session served.

WA Legislature roll call service

Every recorded floor vote. Committee votes are recorded per committee rather than per member and are not included.

Party divergence

Derived, not published by the Legislature. For each roll call we take the majority position of the member’s own party and flag votes against it, counting only roll calls where that party had a clear majority.

WA Legislature legislation records

Prime sponsorship, and each bill’s outcome and hearing status. Co-sponsorship is not in the record we hold.

Public Disclosure Commission candidate filings

Contributions, expenditures, the largest reported contributors and their stated employers, for every cycle back to 2007. Matched on surname and given name plus chamber and district for a legislator, or the office won and the county it was won in for everyone else — never on name alone — and only published where one person fits. Across the record that resolves 1,938 of 13,879 officials over 3,548 cycles, with 45 refused as ambiguous; the rest say why they did not match.

Not loaded

Public statements, advertising, committee roles, and committee votes by member.