What are your legislators up to when they’re not meeting with constituents, wading through committee meetings, or plunging into rigorous floor debate on issues of the day? You’ll find these seven score and seven solons pursuing occupations as different as our state’s six and a half million residents, 25 transit districts, 39 counties, 277 communities, 296 school systems, and — well, you get the picture.
Take one Snohomish County legislator as a “for instance.” State Rep. John McCoy will soon trade the marbled legislative halls for ivy-covered higher-education walls at The Evergreen State College (TESC) where he will serve as an adjunct professor in Evergreen’s Master of Public Administration Tribal Concentration program. Representative McCoy will become Professor McCoy, teaching of Tribal Economics and Tribal Policy during the next year.
McCoy’s direction outside Olympia’s lawmaking does not make him uncharacteristic among his peers: the Citizen Legislature that is your Washington State House of Representatives also features at least one veterinarian, urban-housing planner, small-businessperson, school teacher, nurse, firefighter, community activist, and yes, basketball referee.