Biography

State Rep. Sherry Appleton, a former two-term Poulsbo City Council member, has called Poulsbo home for three decades.  She was elected to the Washington State House of Representatives in 2004 and is currently vice-chair of the House State Government & Tribal Affairs Committee, as well as a member of the House Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness, and Health Care & Human Services Appropriations committees.

Outside the Legislature, Sherry sits on the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines Commission and chairs the Commission’s Juvenile Sentencing Committee, and was recently appointed to serve on the state’s Public Defense Advisory Committee. She is a charter member of Legislators’ Leadership Council on HIV/AIDS at the Center for Women’s Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.

Sherry is a former member of the Washington State Commission on Judicial Conduct and was appointed by Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton to serve on the Washington State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.  She has served on the Board of Directors of the Association of Washington Cities, on the Northwest Women’s Law Center Legislative Committee, as chair of the NARAL PAC, board member of NARAL, and vice-chair of the Washington State Women’s Political Caucus. In addition, she was elected in 2000 to represent the 1st commissioner district as a freeholder and serve with 20 other elected freeholders to review the Kitsap County Charter.

Since joining the House, Sherry has worked on policy issues ranging from criminal justice to health care to education and transportation. She helped draft and pass the Patients’ Bill of Rights and has been involved in negotiations at every level on the many issues that affect citizens of the state.  During the 2009-10 legislative session, she was instrumental in restoring funding for the Frances Haddon Morgan Center and the Poulsbo Marine Science Center, for family planning clinics throughout the state, and for life-saving digital mammography services for low-income women.

Sherry has a blended family of five children, 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.