What is a precinct committee officer? How Washington fills vacant legislative seats

On Jan. 7, 2002, the Metropolitan King County Council voted 12-0 to make Erik Poulsen, a state representative, the new state senator for the 34th Legislative District. One of the 12 yes votes belonged to Dow Constantine, the senator who had held the seat until that day. The Legislature’s own roster records that Constantine resigned from the Senate on Jan. 7, 2002, on joining the county council, and the council’s Motion 11350 says the vacancy existed “due to the resignation of Dow Constantine.”

The motion also records where Poulsen’s name came from. “The 34th legislative district Democrats have met to consider possible replacements for this position,” it reads, and “the King County Democratic Central Committee has submitted the names of three nominees to fill the vacancy.” The council could appoint only one of those three. The same day, it filled Poulsen’s House seat the same way, with Toni Lysen, according to the Legislature’s roster.

That central committee is made up of precinct committee officers. Their list decided who could fill the seat.

It is not rare. From January 2001 through June 2025, the Legislature’s history of its own membership records 106 appointments to fill vacancies — 62 in the House and 44 in the Senate, about four a year, including seven in the first half of 2025. County councils and commissions made 104 of them. The governor made the other two, each time because county officials had not: in 2014, when a county council “did not act,” and in 2015, when two county councils were “unable to agree,” in the roster’s words.

What is a precinct committee officer?

A precinct committee officer is a party official elected by the voters of one precinct — each major party’s officer for that precinct. Under RCW 29A.80.051, the office is voted on at the primary in every even-numbered year: contested races appear on the ballot under each party’s heading, and the candidate with the most votes wins a two-year term that begins Dec. 1.

A county’s precinct committee officers are their party’s county central committee, under RCW 29A.80.030. That committee elects the county party chair and the county’s two members of the party’s state committee, under RCW 29A.80.020, and the elected officers of each legislative district choose a district chair after every even-year general election, under RCW 29A.80.061.

The parties describe the job in their own terms. The Washington State Democratic Party says precinct committee officers “are the main point of information and contact for voters in your precinct and within the Democratic Party.” The Snohomish County Republican Party calls the office “the elected official that represents the voters of a precinct within a major political party in the State of Washington.”

Do precinct committee officers get paid?

The law that creates the office, chapter 29A.80 RCW, sets no pay for it. Its sections cover how the office is filled and which party committees it forms.

How vacant legislative seats are filled in Washington

A legislative seat that comes open in the middle of a term is filled first by appointment and then at the next general election. Article II, Section 15 of the state Constitution gives the appointment to the county legislative authority — the county council or board of commissioners — and limits its choice. The appointee must come from the same district and the same party as the member who left, and “shall be one of three persons who shall be nominated by the county central committee of that party.”

The county cannot go outside the list. In a 2014 opinion about a county prosecutor’s vacancy, which the same section governs, the Attorney General’s office concluded that an appointee whose name is not on the committee’s list would have no legal authority to serve, and that if the person chosen declines, the county may ask the committee for a new list. If a majority of the county’s council or commissioners cannot agree within 60 days, the Constitution requires the governor to appoint someone from the same list within 30 days.

When a district spans more than one county, the three nominees come instead from the party’s state central committee — whose members the county committees elect — and every county in the district appoints jointly. The same section governs vacancies in any partisan county elective office.

Neither the Constitution nor the statute says how a committee picks its three names, and the parties handle it themselves. In December 2013, when Ed Murray left the state Senate to become Seattle’s mayor, KUOW reported that the choice “came down to only about 150 precinct committee officers of the 43rd District Democratic organization,” whose ranked lists went to the King County Democratic Party and then to the King County Council, which “typically approves the party’s first choices.” The Legislature’s roster shows the council appointed both of the party’s picks on Dec. 16, 2013: Rep. Jamie Pedersen to Murray’s Senate seat and Brady Walkinshaw to Pedersen’s House seat.

How the 34th District Senate seat changed hands

The 34th District’s Senate seat shows how one vacancy becomes several. The district lies wholly inside King County, so its vacancies are filled by the King County Council. Since November 2000 the seat has had six senators. Three of them first took it by appointment.

Each of the three appointees was already one of the district’s state representatives, so each Senate appointment opened a House seat, and the council filled those too: Toni Lysen in January 2002, Sharon Nelson in November 2007 and Brianna K. Thomas in January 2025. When Nelson won the Senate seat at an election in 2010, her House seat also went by appointment, to Joe Fitzgibbon.

Two of the six senators went on to sit on the council that fills the seat: Constantine, and McDermott, who left the Senate in 2010 after being elected to it. When Alvarado’s appointment went before voters in November 2025, hers was the only name on the ballot. She received 98.08% of the vote, the rest write-ins, according to the Secretary of State.

An appointment does not guarantee the seat. Nathan Schlicher was appointed to the 26th District’s Senate seat in January 2013 and lost it that November to Rep. Jan Angel, 52.07% to 47.93%, according to the Secretary of State’s results.

Dino Rossi’s appointments and the 2025 cabinet vacancies

In June 2012, Sen. Cheryl Pflug of the 5th District resigned to join the state Growth Management Hearings Board, whose members are appointed by the governor — at the time, Christine Gregoire. On July 9, 2012, the seat Pflug left went by appointment to Dino Rossi, the Republican Gregoire had defeated for governor in 2008. Rossi was appointed to the Senate a second time in December 2016, in the 45th District, after Sen. Andy Hill died. Both appointments are in the Legislature’s roster.

It happened on a larger scale in January 2025. Gov. Bob Ferguson named two legislators to his cabinet, Cascade PBS reported: Sen. Joe Nguyen to lead the Department of Commerce and Rep. Tana Senn to lead the Department of Children, Youth and Families. Both resigned Jan. 15, the roster shows. Within a week, the King County Council had filled three seats: Nguyen’s, Senn’s, and the House seat Alvarado left to take Nguyen’s.

Can a county council member be appointed to the Legislature?

Yes. The Attorney General’s office concluded in 2019 that “nothing in the Washington Constitution, statutes, or case law precludes sitting county commissioners or councilmembers from being eligible for appointment to vacant state legislative positions,” reversing opinions that dated to 1965. It added that ethics rules would keep such a member from taking part in the council’s decision.

Do all parties have precinct committee officers?

No. Chapter 29A.80 RCW ties the office, and the county and state committees built from it, to a “major political party.” Under RCW 29A.04.086, a party is major if its presidential ticket won at least 5% of the vote at the last presidential election, and it keeps that status until a presidential election in which it falls short.

In Washington that means the Democratic and Republican parties. In the 2024 presidential election, theirs were the only tickets above 5% — 57.23% and 39.01% — and the next largest drew 1.4%, according to the Secretary of State. Because the test is a presidential election, no other party can become major before 2028.

What happens if an independent legislator leaves office?

The Constitution does not say. Article II, Section 15 requires the appointee to be of “the same political party as the legislator” who left, and to be one of three people nominated by “the county central committee of that party.” State law creates county central committees only for the two major parties. For a legislator who stated no party preference, or preferred a party without such committees, the first requirement has no party to match, and the second has no committee to make the list.

The statute on filling partisan vacancies, RCW 42.12.040, also speaks of a successor “of the same party as the incumbent.” We found no statute or Attorney General opinion that settles the question.

Washington’s top-two primary makes “party” harder to pin down. Candidates for partisan office state a party preference on their declarations of candidacy, under RCW 29A.24.031, and the words are theirs: in the 2008 governor’s race, Rossi’s line on the ballot read “Prefers G.O.P. Party,” according to the Secretary of State’s results.

For now, the question has not come up in the Legislature: every named member it lists for 2025-26 is a Democrat or a Republican.

How to become a precinct committee officer

A candidate files “for the office of precinct committee officer of his or her party in that precinct,” in the words of RCW 29A.80.041, and must be a member of a major political party, a registered voter in the precinct and at least 18 by the election. An elected officer serves only as long as they remain an eligible voter in that precinct. The positions are open for filing only in even years, and there is no filing fee, according to Whatcom County’s elections office.

There is a second way in. When a precinct has no elected officer — because no one was elected, or because the officer died, resigned or was disqualified — the party’s county chair fills the post by appointment, under RCW 29A.80.031.

What public records show about legislative appointments

The Legislature’s roster records when a seat was filled by appointment. It does not record the party’s nominating vote or the two names that were not chosen; King County’s 2002 motion names only its appointee. The nominating votes are party records, and the appointment votes are kept separately by each county. We found no state dataset that collects either, so we could not say statewide who was nominated and passed over.

Voting for a precinct committee officer, or running as one

Precinct committee officer races appear on the August primary ballot in even-numbered years when they are contested. To vote in one, or to run for one, you must be registered to vote in that precinct — here is how to register to vote in Washington State.