Harger: Washington voted for term limits in 1992. Chris Reykdal took the hint
Nov 10, 2026, 6:33 AM
Washington State Superintendent Chris Reykdal. (Photo courtesy of his campaign)
(Photo courtesy of his campaign)
Chris Reykdal could have run for a fourth term as Washington’s schools chief in 2028. No law stopped him. No court stopped him. On Monday, he took himself off the ballot anyway.
“I deeply believe in term limits,” the superintendent of public instruction wrote in his announcement. Since Washington doesn’t have them for statewide office, he figures officeholders ought to set their own.
Reykdal did what Washington voters asked for 34 years ago, then watched the courts take it away. Meanwhile, the senator who first won on that same 1992 ballot, Patty Murray, plans to run again at 78.
Washington voters passed term limits with Initiative 573 in 1992
I was 17 in November 1992, a few months shy of voting age, and I was all in on I-573. Voters approved it 52% to 48%. It capped how long the governor, lieutenant governor, state lawmakers, and our members of Congress could stay on the ballot.
Then the courts got hold of it. In 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states can’t set term limits for Congress. In 1998, the Washington Supreme Court tossed the rest. The justices said qualifications for state office are written into the state constitution, and an initiative can’t add to them. Lawmakers have floated constitutional amendments since. None has made it to your ballot.
So term limits went quiet. The reason I wanted them didn’t. When the same people hold the same seats for decades, younger candidates get frozen out, and so do new ideas. And when there’s a party machine behind the incumbent, a newcomer barely stands a chance. Doesn’t matter which party.
The founders argued about this too. The Articles of Confederation limited delegates to Congress to three years out of every six. When the new Constitution dropped that, Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison that he “greatly” disliked it, warning that a president who could keep getting re-elected becomes “an officer for life.”
Chris Reykdal steps away from OSPI, maybe not from politics
Reykdal has run the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction since January 2017. In his announcement, he wrote that “the position belongs to the people, not to the person holding it.”
Now, Reykdal isn’t necessarily done with politics. In the coming months, he said, he’ll decide whether to “run for a different statewide office in 2028, seek federal office, or walk away from elective office altogether.” Keep an eye on that middle option.
Leaving one office while shopping for the next is term limits with training wheels. Still, he’s letting go of the job he has.
That’s what the 1992 vote was about. Pass the torch to the next generation. Be wise counsel if they ask for it. Step out of the spotlight. Release the grip on power.
George Washington figured that out first. Nothing in the Constitution stopped him from a third term. In 1796, he announced he was going home to Mount Vernon anyway. Jefferson followed him out the door after two terms and explained why in a letter to Vermont lawmakers: “That I should lay down my charge at a proper period, is as much a duty as to have borne it faithfully.” The country followed their lead for nearly 150 years.
I never thought I’d put Chris Reykdal in the same commentary as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Yet here we are.
So far, Reykdal is the only statewide officeholder who has said he won’t run in 2028. The seat that’s been held the longest isn’t opening up.
Patty Murray and the Senate seat that isn’t opening
The same 1992 ballot that passed I-573 first sent Patty Murray to the U.S. Senate. Under that initiative, she’d have been done after 12 years.
She’s now in her sixth term. Murray turned 76 last month, and she told The Spokesman-Review last year that she intends to run again in 2028. She’d be 78 on Election Day. If she wins, that term runs to January 2035. She’d be 84 when it ends.
42 years in the Senate.
Murray makes a strong case for staying. Alexander Hamilton made the same case in 1788, warning that forcing leaders out “would substitute inexperience to experience.” Seniority pays back there, and Murray spent three decades climbing to the top of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the panel that writes the federal checks. Washington projects get funded because she’s in that room.
“It isn’t so much age,” Murray told The Spokesman-Review. “It really is spirit and ability to fight for what you believe in and fight for your state.”
Voters have hired her six times, and in most of those races it wasn’t close. Love her or not, Washington keeps choosing her.
In Washington, the ballot box isn’t much of a check, either. A Republican hasn’t won the governor’s office since John Spellman in 1980, or a U.S. Senate race since Slade Gorton in 1994. The last Republican in any statewide office, Secretary of State Kim Wyman, left in 2021. We’re so deep blue that when a Democrat wins a statewide seat, they keep it as long as they want. And it’s hard to see a strong Republican challenge coming anytime soon.
So the only term limit with teeth is the one you set yourself.
And the longer anybody holds a seat, the more it starts to look like theirs. A whole generation of people in this state who want to serve has been waiting in the lobby since 1992. Does Murray really want to work until 84? Does she want to be in office in 2035, 42 years after she first won the job?
Could Murray change her mind? Sure. Probably won’t. But probably isn’t never.
RELATED STORIES
Washington doesn’t need a law to get term limits
The courts closed the door on term limits by initiative. A constitutional amendment needs a two-thirds vote in the Legislature, and then voter approval, and not many incumbents are lining up to cap their own careers.
Reykdal showed the other path. Any officeholder can do what he did, from the school board to the U.S. Senate.
Washington voters asked for this in 1992. Thirty-four years later, one statewide officeholder took the hint.
Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here.
