Mike Pellicciotti

Pellicciotti attended Alfred University, where he was elected student body president.^[5] After college, he received a Master of Rural Development as a Fulbright Scholar at Brandon University in 2003.^[6][7][8] Pellicciotti then attended Gonzaga University School of Law, where he nationally represented almost 50,000 students as chair of the student division of the American Bar Association and led student advocacy to Congress for student debt relief.^[9][10]

Pellicciotti began his legal career as law clerk to Associate Chief Justice Charles W. Johnson of the Washington Supreme Court.^[11] Pellicciotti then served as a King County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, prosecuting domestic violence and sex trafficking offenders in South King County.^[12] Attorney General Bob Ferguson appointed Pellicciotti an Assistant Attorney General to manage prosecution of corporate health care fraud and elder abuse in Washington, where he returned over $30 million to taxpayers.^[13][14][15]

Mike Pellicciotti was first elected to the Washington State House of Representatives in 2016, defeating multi-term Republican incumbent Linda Kochmar by 9 points to secure a one-seat Democratic majority of the Washington State House of Representatives.^[16][17] President Barack Obama endorsed Pellicciotti in the campaign.^[18][19][20] Pellicciotti was re-elected in 2018, defeating former Rep. Linda Kochmar again, this time with over 60% of the vote.^[21]

Pellicciotti has rejected all corporate campaign contributions.^[22][23] As a legislator, he led campaign finance reforms, including passing a law to remove ”dark money” from politics.^[24] He introduced legislation to close the lobbyist ”revolving door” in Washington State, and he wrote and passed into law the Corporate Crime Act that increased penalties for corporate crimes for the first time in nearly a century.^[25] He was also the first legislator to speak out against the Legislature's attempt to hide lawmakers’ public records, while voluntarily disclosing his own.^[26][27][28]

In May 2019, Pellicciotti announced his candidacy for Washington State Treasurer in 2020.^[29] Pellicciotti defeated incumbent Republican Duane Davidson in the general election, the first time in state history that a challenger defeated a sitting Washington State Treasurer.^[30] In 2020, Pellicciotti was the only Democratic candidate for any statewide executive office in the United States to defeat a Republican incumbent.^[31]

At 42 years old, Pellicciotti was Washington’s youngest statewide elected official when he was sworn in as State Treasurer in January 2021.^[32] During his first year in office, Pellicciotti refinanced state debt to save Washington State over $370 million dollars.^[33][34][35] He increased pension funding and returned budget reserves to pre-pandemic levels.^[36] In 2022, Washington maintained Moody’s top credit rating.^[37]

Pellicciotti proposed creating a Washington Future Fund to address the wealth gap.^[38] The proposal is modeled after the Baby bonds concept that invests state money today to create future home ownership, educational, and small business opportunities two decades later when those born of limited means reach adulthood.^[39][40] The 2022 state budget created the Washington Future Fund Committee to examine Pellicciotti’s proposal and study generational wealth inequities in the state.^[41]

After a rash of robberies of cash-heavy cannabis retailers in Washington state in 2022, Pellicciotti went to Washington D.C. to unite state treasurers and Congress in support of cannabis banking.^[42][43][44] He was a leading advocate for the Senate to pass the SAFE Banking Act in order to legalize cannabis banking in the United States.^{[45][46][47][48]}

Pellicciotti was reelected in 2024, receiving 57% of the vote against Republican Sharon Hanek.^[49]