Representative Denny Heck

Dennis Lynn Heck (born July 29, 1952) is an American politician who has served as the 17th lieutenant governor of Washington since January 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously represented Washington’s 10th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2021 and served in the Washington House of Representatives from 1977 to 1985. Over four terms in Congress, he contributed to the legislative process during a significant period in American history, participating in the democratic process and representing the interests of his constituents in Pierce, Thurston, and Mason counties. He was elected lieutenant governor in 2020 and won election to a second term in 2024.

Heck was born in Vancouver, Washington, in 1952 and raised in the Lake Shore area of Clark County. His early life was marked by family hardship; after his father failed to return home one day, his mother took Heck and his older brother back to Vancouver, borrowing money for bus fare and resuming work as a telephone operator. She later divorced Heck’s father and married Vic Heck, a Teamster truck driver who provided greater economic stability for the family. Vic Heck adopted Dennis and his brother Bob, and Dennis thereafter bore the Heck surname. He graduated from Columbia River High School in 1970 and accepted an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, which he attended briefly before leaving. He then enrolled at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, where he graduated in 1973, and pursued graduate studies at Portland State University from 1974 to 1975.

Heck’s political career began in the Washington House of Representatives, where he was first elected in 1976 from the 17th legislative district, representing parts of Clark, Skamania, and Klickitat counties. He served five terms, from 1977 to 1985, and rose to become House Majority Leader, the second-ranking position in that chamber. During his tenure, he co-chaired the Education Committee and played a central role in drafting Washington’s historic Basic Education Act, which redefined the state’s responsibilities in funding and providing public education. After leaving elective office in the state legislature, he served a term as chief clerk of the Washington House of Representatives and subsequently became chief of staff to Governor Booth Gardner during Gardner’s second term from 1989 to 1993.

Following Governor Gardner’s retirement in 1995, Heck turned to public affairs broadcasting and private-sector ventures while remaining closely connected to civic life in Washington. That year he co-founded TVW, a nonprofit statewide public affairs network modeled on C-SPAN, with colleague Stan Marshburn. TVW provides gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Washington State Legislature and the Washington Supreme Court, as well as public affairs programming. Heck also served as host of the TVW program “Inside Olympia” in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In the private sector, he co-founded Intrepid Learning Solutions with Christopher Hedrick, a company specializing in business-oriented education and training programs, and served as a board director from 1999 until 2012. He also helped found Digital Efficiency, a firm focused on assisting businesses and medical facilities in transitioning to all-digital formats, and by 2003 he was concentrating on building this for-profit enterprise centered on education and training services.

Heck reentered electoral politics at the federal level in 2010, when he announced his candidacy for Washington’s 3rd congressional district to succeed retiring Democratic Representative Brian Baird. He won the Democratic primary with 31 percent of the vote and faced Republican Jaime Herrera (later Jaime Herrera Beutler), who received 28 percent in the primary. Heck was endorsed by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on October 12, 2010, but lost the general election to Herrera by a margin of 47 percent to 53 percent. In the spring of 2011, he indicated that he would seek a seat in Congress again. After Washington’s redistricting commission proposed new maps following the 2010 Census, the state gained a tenth congressional district, encompassing areas in which Heck lived and including Pierce, Thurston, and Mason counties. He announced his candidacy for the newly created 10th district and, in the general election on November 6, 2012, defeated Republican Dick Muri to become the district’s first U.S. representative.

From 2013 to 2021, Heck served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Washington’s 10th congressional district during a period of significant national political and economic change. He was repeatedly returned to office by his constituents, winning reelection with 54.7 percent of the vote over Republican Joyce McDonald, 58.7 percent over Republican Jim Postma, and 61.5 percent over Republican Joseph Brumbles. In Congress, he served on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where he sat on the Subcommittee on Defense Intelligence and Warfighter Support and the Subcommittee on Strategic Technologies and Advanced Research. He also served on the House Committee on Financial Services, including the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Heck was a member of the New Democrat Coalition, the Congressional Arts Caucus, and the U.S.-Japan Caucus, reflecting his interests in economic policy, cultural affairs, and international relations.

During his congressional tenure, Heck became particularly known for his work on financial services issues related to the emerging legal cannabis industry. Beginning in 2013, he and Representative Ed Perlmutter regularly introduced legislation to expand access to banking and financial services for state-legal cannabis businesses, initially under the title Marijuana Business Access to Banking Act. In 2017, this effort was rebranded as the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act. On September 25, 2019, the House of Representatives passed the SAFE Banking Act by a vote of 321–103, marking the first time that a standalone cannabis reform bill had passed either chamber of Congress and underscoring Heck’s role in shaping federal policy in this area.

Heck chose not to seek reelection to the House in 2020 and instead ran for lieutenant governor of Washington. In the 2020 election he was elected as the state’s 17th lieutenant governor, assuming office in January 2021. In this statewide executive role, he has presided over the Washington State Senate and undertaken duties assigned by the governor and legislature, continuing his long involvement in public service. He subsequently won election to a second term as lieutenant governor in 2024, extending a career that has spanned state legislative leadership, executive-branch service, public affairs broadcasting, private-sector entrepreneurship, and federal legislative office.