Mark Mullet, state senator from Issaquah, making Democratic pitch in already-crowded field to succeed Jay Inslee

Democratic state Sen. Mark Mullet is hoping his work guiding the passage of capital budgets – plus pushback against some of the positions of Gov. Jay Inslee – will help differentiate him in an already-crowded 2024 gubernatorial field in Washington.

“I want solutions that work in all 39 counties, not just one county,” Mullet, the 50-year-old owner of ice cream and pizza shops on the West Side and former Issaquah City Council member, said Tuesday, after a campaign stop with members of local chambers of commerce and business owners.

Mullet, who announced his candidacy earlier this month

, faces two prominent Democrats who have won statewide elections in Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz in a bid to succeed Inslee, who announced he would not run for a fourth term next fall. He’s held his seat in the Senate for 11 years, most recently narrowly winning re-election by just 57 votes against Ingrid Anderson, a Democrat who Inslee endorsed in the 2020 general election. More than 85,000 ballots were returned in that race.

In a Tuesday interview, Mullet expressed his concern about a new long-term care tax that goes into effect in Washington next month, defended his position on a health care data-sharing bill and made a push for lifting what he believes are permitting barriers to building more affordable housing.

Mullet also said he doesn’t believe the Legislature is through addressing drug crimes after this year’s special session resulted in a law making possession a gross misdemeanor, among other provisions. Legislators pursued a new law after enacting a short-term response to a 2021 Washington Supreme Court ruling that found the state’s drug possession law was unconstitutional because a person could be prosecuted without knowing they were holding drugs.

“I think we’re going to have to figure out what carrot does the state need to provide,” Mullet said. “Does the state have to provide a financial carrot to say we’re actually going to encourage people to enforce this? Because I think it’s a key element of keeping our public areas safe for families.”

Mullet said the new payroll tax to pay for long-term care, a program called WA Cares that will begin drawing from worker’s paychecks next month, was wrong for the state. He said he preferred something more akin to what’s in place in Oregon, where workers have a payroll deduction paid into an individual account and can opt out at any time.

“To me, that’s a 10-times smarter way for people to prepare for retirement than the long-term care payroll tax,” he said.

Ferguson has already released a campaign ad critical of Mullet’s vote on a law passed during the 2023 session intended to protect the privacy of health data on smartphone apps and websites. Supporters said the law would prevent the unauthorized sharing of reproductive health care information, which could be used under some new state laws to prosecute those seeking an abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Mullet, the only Democrat to vote against the law in the Senate, said he believes reproductive health care information should be private. He objected to a provision of the law that allowed individual consumers to bring lawsuits, arguing such an arrangement amounted to “a boondoggle for trial lawyers.”

“I don’t think we’re going to make Washington state a better place to live by making it easier to sue people,” Mullet said. The attorney general’s office should instead take the lead on such lawsuits, he added.

To address the state’s lack of affordable housing, Mullet said he doesn’t support measures to control the cost of rent, saying such actions drive private investment out of a community. Instead, he said, state government should seek to reduce the cost of permitting housing projects and revisit boundaries drawn as part of the Growth Management Act, the state law governing where development can occur

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The election is set for November 2024. The primary, in which the two top vote-getting candidates advance regardless of party affiliation, is Aug. 6, 2024.