Keith Swank is a United States airborne infantry veteran, and a twenty-eight year veteran Commander of the Seattle Police Department. He is running for United States Senate against Maria Cantwell, the incumbent.

Some people have asked him, “What makes you qualified to be a senator?” Keith says, “That is the problem with how we think. I meet all of the qualifications set forth in the Constitution. I am over thirty years old, I’ve been a citizen for more than nine years (actually 50 years), and I live in Washington state. Those are the requirements. I’m actually even qualified to be President of the United States, as are many of you.”

Our founders wanted citizen legislators, meaning we go do the work of the people for a period of time and then we come back home and take care of our personal business. As you know, most politicians would stay in office until they die, if they could. They make up the swamp.

Keith grew up on a small farm in rural Pennsylvania where he learned a strong work ethic. When he was 18, he joined the Army. He was an airborne infantryman stationed at Fort Lewis for three years. When he was discharged from the Army he enrolled in college at the University of Washington. During his freshman year at college he was hired by the Seattle Police Department. After finishing the academy, he went back to school and graduated with a BS in Psychology.

Keith is married, and has four children. His oldest son graduated from The United States Military Academy (West Point), oldest daughter graduated from the University of San Diego, his second son is a sophomore in college, and his youngest daughter is in seventh grade. His wife is a small business owner.

Keith spent the first 15 years of his career as a patrol officer. Then he was promoted to Sergeant. He was assigned to the 911 center, and stayed there for four years, part of the time as the second in command of over 100 employees. Keith returned to patrol as a Sergeant for a few years. After that he was promoted to Lieutenant and spent two tours as a watch commander. He oversaw a section of the city and had 50 officers and Sergeants working with him. In between his two stints as a watch commander, he was second in command of the training unit. Recently he was promoted to Captain, and currently works as a night duty commander, the highest- ranking officer in the city during the night shift.

Keith was instrumental in training the officers to comply with the settlement agreement imposed by the Department of Justice. He did such a good job that the Department of Justice hired him to teach De-escalation and Crisis Intervention to other police agencies across the United States.

Keith’s experience as a police officer and police commander has given him the ability to make sound decisions. He has had to make possible life and death decisions as an officer and commander. So, making decisions is what he does for a living.

Keith says, “Making decisions in Washington will be very easy. No to amnesty, yes to the wall, no to deficit spending, yes to tax cuts, no to activist judges, yes to constructionist judges, no to buying foreign oil, yes to energy independence, no infringements on our second amendment, yes to improving the military.”

In 2012 Keith ran for US Representative in the 8th district. He believed then as he does now, that there are many things we need to do to make our country great.

Back then he didn’t use the term “swamp” to describe the Washington scene, but he listed many of the issues that we faced, and the establishment was the reason we needed to correct them. We have made some inroads thanks to President Trump’s leadership, but there is much more to do.