Chopp at the recent 43rd District Town Hall

(Image: Statewide Poverty Action Network)

A progressive Democrat and champion of affordable housing who held off repeated challenges from the left, Frank Chopp announced this week he will not seek reelection to the state House of Representatives and is bringing three decades representing the 43rd District in Olympia to an end.

“I’ve always been driven by the belief that everyone deserves a foundation of home, health, and hope,” Chopp said in his announcement. “These are the basic needs for economic success, for better education outcomes, for restoring lives and reaching potential. I am proud to have played a role in helping people throughout Washington gain access to services and support that help them gain independence and realize their dreams.”

Shaun Scott of the Statewide Poverty Action Network who lost his 2019 race against Alex Pedersen to represent the University District on the Seattle City Council has announced a run for the now open 43rd District seat.

Chopp’s final political race in 2022 turned out to be an anticlimax. CHS reported here on the Democratic leaders in Capitol Hill’s state legislative district running unopposed. In recent reelection races, Chopp’s biggest political battles have been fending off younger, hugely more progressive challengers in the primary including community organizer and sex worker Sherae Lascelles in 2020. Chopp was also able to make a stand against upstart Socialist Alternative candidates including his 2012 defeat of Kshama Sawant which put her on her path to a decade at Seattle City Hall.

Along the way, Chopp has faced only tepid competition from Republican challengers.

“I’ve been working to enact and carry out progressive policies for many years and I’m very energized and organized to do even more,” Chopp told CHS in 2020. “So in the case of socialists running against me — the last time they did it… I won 82.3% of the vote, that’s 82.3% of the vote, but because I don’t take anything for granted. I’m working and campaigning very hard this year on progressive policies. … I have a very good, very strong, progressive record for years and we’re building on that.”

Scott’s announcement of his candidacy for Chopp’s seat focuses on the candidate’s connections to the political veteran and recent work together on Bill 1474, “a groundbreaking law that addressed racial segregation with housing assistance to families redlined from exclusive neighborhoods.”

It also focused on local successes to respond to the Black Lives Matters protests and the COVID-19 crisis with progressive policies including the creation of a public social housing developer in Seattle.

“In 2020, we participated in the largest civil rights uprising in American history, urging elected officials to turn a new leaf from the failed public safety policies of the past by funding the urban programs we all use,” Scott said in his announcement.

Chopp at the 2014 debut of 12th Ave Arts

In his announcement, Chopp said he was proud of his record fighting for affordable housing including the State Housing Trust Fund and for his work backing programs “providing free college and university tuition for all low-income students.”

Chopp has championed housing initiatives like the Home and Hope project, turning public property spaces into affordable housing units, and the Workforce Education Investment Act, providing full grants for college tuition to low-income students, and partial scholarships for middle-income students. In a 43rd District Town Hall last month on First Hill, Chopp updated constituents on his work including continuing effort to convert surplus Sound Transit property into affordable housing developments.

Chopp’s Capitol Hill credentials go back to the 1970s when he was among the earliest residents of 16th and Aloha’s PRAG House. In 1995, he began his first term in the state legislature and became speaker in 1999 before stepping down from the post in 2018 as Washington’s longest-serving House speaker.

In 2014, he told CHS one of his proudest accomplishments was helping to create the state Housing Trust Fund. At the time, Chopp counted more than 70 projects in the 43rd District that benefited from the fund, including 12th Avenue Arts development that opened in 2014 with affordable housing, nonprofit office space, and theaters on land formerly home to the East Precinct parking lot.

Chopp, 70, says he will continue working for the important causes that have driven his political career. “As I leave legislative office, I am excited for the next generation of leaders carrying on this work, as I continue to advocate and organize efforts in the public interest as a public citizen,”  Chopp said in his statement. “As people know about me, I am not the retiring type.”

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