Freshly reelected Inslee addresses election, priorities for 2021
Gov. Jay Inslee spoke Wednesday about his reelection, and about the ballots still being counted across the country.
“We all need a good healthy dose of patience,” Inslee said about the results of the presidential election at a virtual press conference. “... This kind of process we’re in is anxiety producing, but it is normal, and it is healthy for democracy to make sure we count all the valid ballots.”
The governor said that “we may not know the results of the presidency on a final basis for some period of time. I will say the math clearly favors rather strongly Joe Biden in the race right now.”
He also said he has faith in the state and local officials running the elections across the country.
“Valid, legally cast ballots for both parties are being received and we need to count them,” he said. “... We will not allow the president to stop us from counting those valid ballots in the state of Washington.”
He noted some of those ballots still being counted are from members of the military serving overseas.
Speaking about the governor’s election, Inlee said, “Last night Washingtonians certainly had their voices heard and it was loud and clear. I am deeply honored by this vote of confidence in our administration and this tremendous potential to serve as a third term governor for the great state of Washington.”
He also said, “State voters will be sending more women and more representatives of color to our Legislature. Representation matters, and this is something I think we should be proud of in our state.”
Asked about his priorities for his third term, Inslee spoke about knocking “down the COVID pandemic so that we can reopen our economy fully.”
He said that “we need to have a balanced budget that I will propose in December,” and talked about the need to create clean energy jobs and address climate change, reduce homelessness, continue reforming the mental health care system, and address racial inequities.
“All of them are things we can start working on on day one,” he said.
He said he hopes early in the Legislative session to “pass some measures to give greater credibility to investigations of police and citizen violence,” and that he “obviously wants the Legislature to knuckle down and look at the budget as fast as humanly possible.”
This story was originally published November 4, 2020 at 5:44 PM with the headline "Freshly reelected Inslee addresses election, priorities for 2021."
