Rep. Michelle (Caldier) Valdez Will Not Run for Reelection

Rep. Michelle Valdez (R-26th)

Washington State Legislature

You want balance in government and right now we don't have it.”

After 12 legislative sessions and seven elections over 10 years, state Rep. Michelle Valdez (formerly Caldier, R-26th) completed her last stint in Olympia in March after announcing that she will not seek reelection in November.

“It’s such a huge sacrifice to run for office, I feel like I just needed a pause,” she said. “I have a wonderful new husband, and it’s seven elections in a swing district. I get beat up from the right; I get beat up from the left. I’ve never had an easy election.”

Valdez, 49, was married in December 2025. She was already active in state politics when she joined the Legislature in 2015.

“When I first came in, the Senate was controlled by Republicans by one vote, the House was controlled by Democrats by one vote; we all had to work together,” she said. “Now the Democrat Party has supermajorities in both the House and the Senate, and there are only a few people who have power: I’m referring to the speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader, and a handful of others. It’s not me. It’s not (Rep. Adison Richards, D-26th) and it’s not (Sen. Deb Krishnadsan, D-26th). The frustrating thing is that there are dissenting voices within the majority party, and they’re not being heard at all.”

Valdez pointed to the last week of the recent session as an example, singling out the overnight marathon debate on the so-called millionaire’s tax.

“For those of us who were on the appropriations committee, we started at 8 o’clock that morning, so it wasn’t a 24-hour debate. It was more like a 34-hour-long day,” she said. “And, we could have paused. We’ve done that in the past. Let people sleep and then come back and debate. The Democrats didn’t want to do that. They knew they were going to pass the income tax. We all knew they were going to pass the income tax. Why didn’t they do it earlier?”

Senate Bill 6346, officially called “Establishing a tax on millionaires,” targets capital gains income over $1 million at the rate of 9.9% for individuals. Gov. Bob Ferguson signed it into law at the end of March, and it will begin collection in 2029 to fund education and childcare, and reduce other taxes.

“I think if the public knew how the Legislature was run, they would be so frustrated because I don’t think that’s what they’re voting for,” Valdez said.

“The larger a party gets — and I would say the same thing if the Republican Party had super majorities — the more they care about gaining power than they do about representing the people, or listening to dissenting voices.”

Valdez ran into trouble with her own party in 2022, after disagreements with colleagues and staff. “If you speak up too loudly, you run the risk of having your own leadership go after you. I didn’t care because at the end of the day, my job isn’t to give myself more power or make sure I get reelected. My job is to serve the people.”

She left her caucus until the leadership changed in 2023, following an internal investigation into her conduct. Together, they managed to do some good for voters in recent sessions, she said, but there were obstacles they could not overcome.

“I would say we stopped some of the taxes, saved some of the bad cuts, but that was it. When you’re in such a steep minority, that’s about as great a win as you can get. But then the frustrating part is that they come back the following year,” she said.

“I think that the Democrat Party does a really good job of dangling Trump in front of everyone, but Trump didn’t cut millions of Medicaid dollars from our budget. Trump didn’t raid the pensions for firefighters and police officers to the tune of $4 billion. Trump didn’t create the spending problems that we have. … I had a number of people who came to me and said, I’ve always liked you, I’ve always voted for you, but I don’t like our president, and I just can’t bring myself to vote for you this year. And I think there’s a good chance Democrats are going to pick up more seats. And if that happens, it is going to be even worse because the few people in the Democrat Party who are willing to stand up to the leadership and willing to take on the backlash, their voices are going to get drowned out even more. You want balance in government. And right now, we don’t have it.”

There are three contenders for the seat Valdez is leaving: Republican Katy Cornell and two Democrats, Renee Hernandez Greenfield and Tedd Wetherbee.