King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci is a mom, transportation and affordable housing leader, and a former public safety official. Representing Council District 6 in East King County, Claudia Balducci is committed to making King County government works better. She always looks forward to tackling the most pressing issues our region is facing and building a brighter future for all King County residents. She works hard to make King County a place where all residents have a safe and decent place to live, educational and career opportunities, physical and mental health care, and a healthy and sustainable environment.

Claudia first became active in civic life when she joined her neighbors to advocate for the revitalization of her local shopping center in the Lake Hills community of Bellevue. She went on to serve on the Bellevue City Council, including one term as Mayor. Elected in 2015, and now in her third term on the King County Council, Claudia works across the region as chair of the Sound Transit Board’s System Expansion Committee, immediate past president of the Puget Sound Regional Council, chair of the King County Affordable Housing Committee, chair of the King County Council Committee of the Whole, and chair of the Regional Water Quality Committee.

Transportation Choices Champion

Claudia has advocated for improvements to SR 520 and I-405, expanding the 42-mile Eastrail, and better bike lanes in Bellevue. In 2015, she sponsored Bellevue’s Vision Zero policy, and in 2022 led the charge for our metropolitan planning organization, PSRC, to prioritize its federal transportation funding by using a Safe System Approach framework that builds and reinforces multiple layers of protection to both prevent crashes from happening in the first place and minimize the harm caused to those involved when crashes do occur.

As a Sound Transit board member, she successfully advocated for the early opening of the 6.6 mile, 8 station “Eastside Starter” light rail line that connects Bellevue and Redmond. She has led impactful reform work at Sound Transit, including sponsoring legislation that formed a panel of experts whose recommendations are now leading key improvements to speed up project delivery on Sound Transit’s multibillion dollar portfolio of capital projects. She gets around mostly by bike and bus, often together.

Affordable and Emergency Housing Leader

Because runaway housing costs and homelessness are regional problems that require regional solutions, Claudia has worked with stakeholders and leaders across King County to find solutions. In 2017 and 2018 she initiated and co-chaired the Regional Affordable Housing Taskforce, which included elected representatives from the County, Seattle, and other cities to develop recommendations toward a common goal of making housing throughout King County more affordable. She now chairs the Affordable Housing Committee, a regional body that in 2023 unanimously adopted new city-by-city affordable housing targets that will now be incorporated into every comprehensive plan in King County.

As Mayor of Bellevue and County Councilmember, Claudia has worked with Eastside cities to create the full spectrum of services, emergency shelter, and permanent housing that provide people experiencing homelessness the support they need to get on a path out of homelessness and into safe, stable housing.  She was an early and steadfast advocate for siting the first permanent men’s shelter in East King County, work she began as Mayor of Bellevue and culminated in Porchlight’s 100-bed men’s shelter opening in 2023.

She played a key role in Plymouth Housing’s efforts to build the Eastside’s first permanent supportive housing, which opened its doors in 2023, as well as supporting the siting of permanent supportive housing as part of King County’s Health through Housing initiative in Redmond, which celebrated its grand opening in April 2024, and in Kirkland, which is expected to welcome residents in 2025.

Connecting Parks and Open Space with People

As Chair of the Budget and Fiscal Management Committee she led Council’s work on the 2020-2025 King County Parks, Recreation, Trails, and Open Space Levy, which 70% of voters approved in 2019. The renewed levy makes investments across the county, including over $50.5 million to build out Eastrail. It also funds open space, pools, and playfields across the Eastside. As a leader to build Eastrail, the 42-mile regional trail stretching from Renton to Woodinville, she has coordinated partnerships to leverage local, county, state, federal, and private partnerships that now total over $150 million.

Leader for the Arts

After work on the state and local level for almost two decades, in December 2023 the King County Council unanimously approved Doors Open legislation that Councilmember Balducci co-sponsored. The new levy will provide nearly $800 million in projected funding for access to science, heritage, arts, and culture in King County. Over seven years it will fund equitable access, support programming in public schools, increase tourism and revenue, and feed the workforce pipeline. The levy will help the science, heritage, arts, and culture community not only rebound from pandemic cuts and closures – particularly in marginalized or otherwise disadvantaged communities – but flourish to new levels with more funding than has ever been spent through public programs in King County.

Public Safety Official

Claudia has served on the Council’s Law & Justice Committee for her entire tenure on the King County Council.  She is a member of the Regional Office of Gun Violence Prevention’s Executive Leadership Advisory Group which supports the development, implementation, and sustainability of a regional approach to addressing gun violence.  Claudia advocates for a criminal justice system that is effective, accountable, and humane.  Recently, she introduced legislation that will ensure that youth in juvenile detention have access to one-on-one programming in support of behavior management, de-escalation, educational programming, skill-building and recreational activities.

Steward for Cleaner Water

As Chair of the Regional Water Quality Committee, Claudia has led long-term wastewater planning to protect the health of our streams, rivers, lakes, and Puget Sound. She sponsored and passed legislation to identify strategies to keep “forever chemicals” like PCBs and PFAS out of our waterways to preserve the health of people and animals – especially our endangered Southern Resident Orcas. And at King County’s regional stormwater summit, she advocated for a vision of clean water in all our municipal policies, programs, plans, and projects and will continue to advocate for stormwater improvements in 2024.

In the Community

Claudia is a strong advocate for education and the arts, supporting great organizations like Eastside Culture Coalition, KidsQuest Children's Museum, Music Works Northwest, Bellevue Youth Theater, Youth Theatre Northwest, and many more. In 2022, she procured $500,000 for Friends of Youth’s new permanent emergency shelter for youth and $300,000 for LifeWire as they created a comprehensive center for survivors of domestic violence wit housing and onsite services.

In 2021 she secured $900,000 to help fund Together Center’s campus transformation, a first-of-its-kind national model that hosts a variety of human services providers in one location, topped by five floors of affordable housing. She also obtained $1 million for Lake Washington Institute of Technology to rebuild its Early Learning Center, which supports LWTech students with children, of whom 100% are low-income women and 32% are people of color.

A longtime, vocal advocate for women’s rights, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade she led the King County Council in a motion reaffirming a woman’s right to choose and helped secure $500,000 to Northwest Abortion Access Fund for their work helping people secure abortion care in the Pacific Northwest.

In 2021, she spearheaded a first-in-the-nation program to help immigrants apply for documented status and citizenship. Combined with over $11 million in COVID relief for undocumented immigrants, this assistance helped some of King County’s approximately 94,000 undocumented immigrants through the pandemic.

In 2023, she received the Housing Development Consortium’s Public Sector Champion Award for her work to expand affordable housing across the Puget Sound region. In 2022, she was named Woman of the Year by WTS Puget Sound for her efforts to advance women in transportation, and The Puget Sound Business Journal named her the Transportation Executive of the Year in 2019. In 2016, Claudia was inducted into the Transportation Choices Transportation Heroes Hall of Fame. In 2015, Claudia was recognized as “Elected Official of the Year” by the Alliance of Eastside Agencies (Human Services) and the Washington State Democratic Party.

Claudia is a graduate of Providence College and the Columbia University School of Law. She lives in Bellevue with her husband, Jim, teenager, Victor, and adopted shelter dog, Angel.