Girmay Zahilay enters King County executive race saying he represents ‘next generation’

King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay announced his plans to run for King County executive Monday, making him the third major candidate in recent weeks to apply for the job of running Washington's most populous county.

County Councilmember Claudia Balducci and County Assessor John Wilson launched their campaigns last month, soon after current Executive Dow Constantine announced he's retiring after an unprecedented four terms.

Zahilay said Constantine was “the right person for the right time” but that Zahilay represents “the next generation” — a 37-year-old South King County representative who came to the U.S. as a Sudanese refugee. His family lived in homeless shelters and public housing in Chinatown, New Holly and Rainier Vista, before he went to Stanford and then practiced law.

"I'm committed to making government way more accessible, way more engaging, and really relying on the people who are most impacted to advocate for themselves," Zahilay said, "and that takes a leader who's going to bring them into the fold."

Zahilay will be seen as the most left-leaning candidate in the race. In 2019, he won his current seat campaigning on a public bank and alternatives to jailing youth. But he also criticized some “performative” parts of county government and said he would focus more on outcomes.

"Rather than having a Department of Equity and Social Justice that is focused on teaching people what words that they should use, we should have departments that are out in low-income communities and communities impacted by the problems that we're trying to solve for," Zahilay said, "knocking on doors, connecting people to services — that should be what equity and social justice means."

The problems facing the county are vast — particularly, an imbalance between how much property tax money is coming in and how much the county is spending. Zahilay wants to aggressively lobby the Legislature the way the attorney general does, drafting and championing legislation that would let him raise property taxes higher than the 1%-per-year cap currently allowed.

"The 1% cap is killing our government," Zahilay said. "It's killing our government, and we need to be much more aggressive about lobbying Olympia to remove that cap and to have a more reformed, equitable tax code."

As for his opponents, Balducci is focusing her campaign on her lengthy experience working for the county jail and holding elected office, as well as fighting for Eastside light rail. Wilson wants to cut departments such as the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, and fund more sheriffs and mental health caseworkers.