After a decade working in the tech sector, Joe Nguyen tackled his new role as a state senator like any good program manager. He sat down and created a process document, breaking down the journey from a bill to a law into 153 steps and identifying the key points of failure.
It proved a worthwhile exercise.
Nguyen logged more wins than most freshman lawmakers and passed some bills that “should have been dead,” according to the techie-turned-lawmaker.
“Folks are like, ‘How did you know how to do that?'” Nguyen said.
Since taking office in 2019 as a Democratic senator from West Seattle, Nguyen has landed important leadership roles as the chair of the Environment, Energy and Technology Committee and vice chair of the Ways and Means Committee. He has sponsored significant legislation addressing climate change and clean energy, facial recognition technology and computer science education.
For his civic work, Nguyen is being honored at the 2024 GeekWire Awards as this year’s Public Policy Champion for Innovation Award. The awards event is Thursday, May 9 at the Showbox SoDo in Seattle.
The Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) is partnering with GeekWire in sponsoring this award recognizing outstanding elected officials for their contributions to the tech sector.
Nguyen’s tech-related efforts include lead sponsor of:
- Senate Bill 5838, which created the state’s Artificial Intelligence Task Force.
- Senate Bill 5401, allowing Washington’s community and technical colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees in computer science.
- Senate Bill 6280, a measure restricting the use of facial recognition technology.
- Senate Bill 6058, creating a linkage between Washington’s carbon marketplace with those in California and Québec.
- Senate Bill 5165, which addresses challenges with the power grid and supports the deployment of clean energy.
In his role as a board member for the Technology Services Board, which advises on Washington’s IT investments, Nguyen successfully pushed for the adoption of best practice requirements for software development.
Nguyen also picked up the baton for data privacy legislation, continuing an effort initiated by former Sen. Reuven Carlyle, a past Public Policy Champion for Innovation. The measure hasn’t succeeded, but Nguyen said the foundation is there and he’ll continue working on the issue.
Nguyen credits his success in part to applying tech tools and strategies to his legislative duties.
He quickly adopted the Calendly scheduling tool when he realized how much time his staff was wasting manually arranging meetings — though he met resistance for using an unauthorized application. Nguyen incorporated Microsoft Power BI to better communicate with constituents and track the issues being raised. He started using social media more extensively than many of his colleagues, creating a Facebook series dubbed “Olympia Explained.” During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, he facilitated virtual legislative hearings and activities in the chambers.
In his role on the Ways and Means committee, Nguyen was helping write a multi-billion dollar budget with hundreds of items. So he turned to ChatGPT to create summaries and craft positions on issues.
The use of all of the tools has significantly boosted his efficiency.
“We were able to scale the work that we do in my office,” he said. “You’re able to deliver more to constituents simply because we’re using technology to our advantage.”
Nguyen even set up his legislative office in a manner that was copied from his almost nine years at Microsoft. The main room where aides and interns usually sit is traditionally decorated with heavy drapes, imposing mahogany desks and “pictures of dead people,” as Nguyen describes it. He turned it into a “tech break room” with snacks, a TV, an Xbox and chairs. The office what would normal go to the lawmaker became a space with hot desks for whomever needed one. For himself, Nguyen took a smaller side office usually reserved for aides.
“You’re able to deliver more to constituents simply because we’re using technology to our advantage.”
– Sen. Joe Nguyen
But not all of his techie ways have translated well to Olympia.
“The personality is probably where I have the hardest part,” Nguyen confessed. His hard-charging, data-driven, coming-in-hot approach rubbed some lawmakers the wrong way, he said. And the structure of the Legislature, where seniority and hierarchy are often valued over meritocracy, has taken getting used to.
Then there’s the dress code. At the start of his term, Nguyen was rolling into the Capitol Building in hoodies, yoga pants and sneakers, which got him nowhere, further undermining his status as a new lawmaker who was decades younger than some colleagues.
So he made a conscious decision to start “dressing up like a senator” and switched to nice suits and ties. The response “was like night and day,” Nguyen said, leading to better leadership positions.
“You cannot go in full Zuckerberg or Bezos,” he said “It is more methodical than that. I learned a lot.”
That doesn’t mean Nguyen has shied away from upsetting the status quo or stopped taking controversial actions — his goal is still good governance and good policies, he said, even it that means following paths that could be detrimental to his long-term career in the Senate.
Nguyen, who is Washington’s first Vietnamese American senator, has succeeded against adversity before. His parents and older sister fled Vietnam as refugees during the war, eventually making their way to Seattle where Nguyen grew up. His father, who had served in the South Vietnamese Navy, was seriously injured in a car wreck when Nguyen was a child. To help support his family, the future lawmaker was a janitor at his high school and worked an evening job, and in college washed dishes to help pay his bills. He’s OK breaking norms in Olympia.
“I’m here because I want to be here,” he said. “I’m here because I want my kids to have better futures.”
