Community Government

Solan a candidate for Pierce County Council after court victory

Posted on May 21st, 2026 By: Vince Dice

Mike Solan will be on the ballot as a candidate for Pierce County Council after all.

In Pierce County Superior Court on Monday, May 18, Judge Shelly K. Moss ordered the Pierce County Elections Office to place Solan’s name on ballots as a candidate to represent Council District 7.

Solan, a Seattle police officer running as a Republican, asked the court to reinstate his position on the ballot after the Elections Office ruled that his filing was invalid.

Pierce County Charter

In court filings, the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office civil division — representing the Elections Office — argued that Solan was ineligible to run for the post because he had not been a registered voted in District 7 for at least one year.

Section 4.30 of the Pierce County Charter requires that “all Councilmembers shall be residents and registered voters of their Council districts for at least one year immediately prior to filing for the Council position.”

Mike Solan

Solan’s attorneys argued in court filings that the voter registration requirement “is not part of Washington’s eligibility framework and cannot be used to disqualify an otherwise qualified candidate. It adds an unlawful qualification for public office,” above what the state Constitution and Legislature allow.

Moss ruled in Solan’s favor and ordered his name restored to the ballot.

“It was a great win, man,” Solan told Gig Harbor Now. “People tried to get me off the ballot, I think on purpose. But here I am, I’m a candidate.”

District 7

Solan is seeking the council seat representing the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula area. Incumbent Robyn Denson announced this spring that she would not run for a second term.

Other candidates include Democrat Brenda Lykins, a former Gig Harbor City Council member, and independent Chuck West, a Peninsula School Board member.

Ann E. Jolie also filed to run as a Republican, but she did so only in case Solan was barred from running. Her name will remain on the Aug. 4 primary ballot, however, because the deadline to withdraw her candidacy passed before the court case was resolved.

Jolie supports Solan.

“I certainly hope I get zero votes,” Jolie said.

The case

Solan filed to run for the District 7 seat on May 4, the first day of filing week. Pierce County Elections Manager Kyle Haugh notified him on May 7 that “our records indicate that you first became a registered voter in Pierce County on March 26, 2026.” That made him ineligible to run based on the charter’s one-year voter registration requirement, according to the Elections Office.

Solan’s attorneys filed the lawsuit on Friday, May 8, seeking a court order to restore his place on the ballot. Judge Moss ruled in Solan’s favor on Monday, May 18.

Haugh said he felt the Elections Office had no choice but to invalidate Solan’s election under the charter.

“When the filing was made, the charter is very clear in the language that you have to be both a resident for a year and a registered voter for a year,” Haugh said. “He was not and he admits that in the court documents.”

Katie Blinn, the Pierce County deputy prosecutor who represented the Elections Office, said Moss found the voter registration requirement, on top of the residency requirement, to be excessive.

The statute under which the suit was filed does not allow an appeal, in the interest of meeting elections deadlines.

Haugh said his office reached out to Solan while the case was ongoing to ensure that he submitted information for the voter’s pamphlet, just in case the judge ruled that his candidacy was valid.

A precedent?

Solan said in an appearance on Seattle radio station 570 KVI and in a post-court social media post that his suit “changed charter language.”

Haugh and Blinn aren’t so sure.

Blinn pointed out that one-year voter registration requirements, while less common than residency requirements, are not unheard of. The city of Everett has one, for instance.

“I wouldn’t say that its going to have precedential value and that it erases the charter language. … Usually, you really only have precedential value if it’s an appellate case,” Blinn said.

“The way I read the order is that the judge ordered us to put him back on the ballot for the reasons that were presented,” Haugh said. “It’s hard for me to interpret right now whether this is enforced in the future or not.”

The Pierce County Charter Review Commission could opt to take up the matter during its current review of the county’s governing document. Lykins, another council candidate, is one of three District 7 representatives on the commission.

Separately, the Pierce County Council could propose a charter amendment if it wishes to clean up the voter registration requirement.

‘Political shenanigans’

Reached by phone on Thursday, Solan said he was in “Day 2” of a campaign delayed by the court case.

“I really think there were some political shenanigans that occurred,” Solan said. “I’ll get to the bottom of it at some point. I’m back, I’m ready to take on this role and win the election to properly represent District 7.”

His candidacy will focus on public safety issues, a high-profile topic in the area. Many are concerned about staffing levels in the Peninsula Detachment of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office, which serves unincorporated Gig Harbor and the Key Peninsula.

That’s especially true following a series of violent crimes on the peninsula in late 2025 and early 2026.

The Pierce County Council approved a 0.1% public safety sales tax this year to support the Sheriff’s Office and other law and justice functions. Some Republicans on the council and in the community argued the tax would be unnecessary if the county placed a higher priority on funding deputies.

“The county council is not listening to (voters), particularly when it comes to public safety,” said Solan, a former president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild. “I live in unincorporated Pierce County and I rely on sheriff’s deputies for protection. … We have a serious problem.”

Voter registration

Solan said he did not immediately register to vote upon moving to Pierce County in 2022 as a security measure. Voter registrations are public record, and he wanted to keep his address secret after “a mob” protested outside his former home in West Seattle in 2020.

But he and his wife “decided that if we are going to do something about this, to protect our home,” he needed to run for office and hence register to vote in Pierce County.

“I see why, I think, they’re scared of me and my candidacy. Because I do have a significant chance of winning this election,” he said.

Solan told Gig Harbor Now that he would also campaign on issues of “fiscal responsibility, land use” and the Fox Island Bridge.

Radio appearance

Solan emphasize the same themes during an appearance this week on the Ari Hoffman show on conservative radio station KVI 570. He said he was seeking office “to stop what appears to be a progressive shift, a leftist agenda that is unreasonable and devoid of common sense” in Pierce County.

He also criticized the county’s attempt to remove his name from the ballot.

“I had no problem proving more than a year of residency. We’ve been here almost five years,” Solan said. His court filings indicate he moved to an address in the Artondale area in April 2022. “But it was this voter registration, gray wording, that I thought was laughable.

“I think they thought I was just going to roll over and give up. But that’s not in my DNA. So I sued them, and I won.”