Manka Dhingra | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of theWashington State Senate from the45th district | |
| Assumed office November 29, 2017 | |
| Preceded by | Dino Rossi |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1973 or 1974 (age 51–52) |
| Party | Independent (before 2016) Democratic (2016–present) |
| Spouse | Harjit Singh |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | University of California, Berkeley (BA) University of Washington (JD) |
| Signature |  |
| Website | Campaign website |
Manka Dhingra (born 1973 or 1974)[1][2] is an Indian-born American attorney and politician who is aWashington State senator. A member of theDemocratic Party, she was elected to represent the45th legislative district, onSeattle'sEastside inKing County, during a2017 special election.[3] Dhingra is the firstSikh elected to any state legislature in the United States.[4]
Dhingra, an Indian immigrant, founded the woman's advocacy organization API Chaya in 1996, and later worked under several elected officials at the state level. She joined theKing County Prosecuting Attorney's office in 2000 and led the department's expanding mental health and veterans courts. Dhingra faced criticism in 2023 and 2024 for the data she used to support her positions on police pursuits[5] and for claiming she still worked at the Prosecutor’s Office.[6]
Dhingra was born inBhopal, India to aPunjabiSikh family; her father worked forUnion Carbide and her mother was a schoolteacher. After her father died ofcolon cancer, Dhingra moved to California with her mother at the age of 13,[2] joining her relatives.[7] She graduated from theUniversity of California, Berkeley, earning aBachelor of Arts in history and political science in 1995,[2] before moving with her husband Harjit Singh toRedmond, Washington.[7]
Dhingra founded Chaya, a non-profit organization to combat domestic violence against South Asian women, in 1996.[8] She would later work in the offices ofstate Supreme Court justiceBarbara Madsen and theAttorney GeneralChristine Gregoire, while earning a degree from theUniversity of Washington School of Law in 1999.[7][8] Dhingra joined theKing County Prosecuting Attorney's office in 2000 and served as a Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for King County; she was last in that role in 2021.[9] Her work in the office's mental health court and theKing County District Court Regional Veterans Court earned membership in various mental health and anti-hate crime advocacy organizations.[2][7]
Dhingra identified herself as a nonpartisan prior to the2016 presidential election. A few months after attending her first Democratic meeting,[10] she declared her candidacy for thespecial election created by the death ofRepublicanAndy Hill.[1][11] Dhingra defeated Jinyoung Englund, the Republican nominee, on November 7, 2017, with 55% of the votes. Dhingra's election overturned the Republicancoalition majority in theWashington State Senate, giving theWashington Democratic Party complete control over the state's government for the first time since 2012.[12][13] She was sworn in on November 29 and became the first Sikh woman to enter a state legislature.[4][14] Dhingra was named as the deputy majority leader in the Senate and assigned as the chair of the Behavioral Health Subcommittee.[15] She retained the 45th district seat by being re-elected in 2018[16] and 2022.[17]
In 2023, Dhingra was fined by Washington’s Legislative Ethics Board.[18]
That same year, Dhingra received media coverage of her stances on restoring Washington’s reasonable suspicion standard for police pursuit, including refusing to hold a hearing for a relevant bill in a committee she chairs[19] and promoting problematic data about pursuits.[20] In 2024, Dhingra was criticized for limiting public testimony during a hearing she oversaw about Initiative 2113.[21]
She ran in the2024 Washington Attorney General election to becomeAttorney General of Washington, as the position was being vacated byBob Ferguson, who successfully ran for Washington State Governor.[22] During the campaign, Dhingra was criticized for claiming she was still formally associated with the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.[23] Following that criticism, her campaign website was eventually updated, without including an admission of fault on Dhingra’s behalf.[24] Dhingra came third in the top-two primary, and the election was ultimately won byNick Brown.[25]
In 2025, Dhingra introduced a bill to repeal state code criminalizing concealed births.[26]
Dhingra met her husband, Harjit Singh, while at the University of California, Berkeley.[7] Singh works forSpaceX in Redmond.[27] The couple have two children.[2]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)