POULSBO — Local state legislators will set policy and write laws related to at least eight areas critical to North Kitsap in 2013.

The 2013 Legislature begins Jan. 14.

The majority Democratic caucus named Rep. Sherry Appleton, D-Poulsbo, vice chairwoman of the Community Development, Housing and Tribal Affairs Committee. She was also named to the Capital Budget and Public Safety committees.

Rep. Drew Hansen, D-Bainbridge, was named vice chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He was also named to the Finance and Higher Education committees.

The state Senate’s Democratic caucus proposed Sen. Christine Rolfes, D-Poulsbo, as chairwoman of the Environment and Growth Management Committee, and proposed her for the pre K-12 Education Committee and the Transportation Committee. The Senate has 26 Democrats and 23 Republicans, but two Democrats have said they prefer to caucus with the Republicans, so committee structure and assignments are still being negotiated.

This term, Rolfes served as vice chairwoman of the Environment Committee, vice chairwoman of the Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee, and member of the Transportation Committee. She also served on the Joint Committee on Veterans’ and Military Affairs, Joint Select Committee on Education Accountability, Joint Select Committee to Address School Funding, and the Ecosystem Coordination Board.

Rolfes was elected Nov. 6 to a full term in the Senate. She served in the state House of Representatives from 2007–11, and as a Bainbridge Island City Council member from 2000–06. She was a project manager and business development officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development from 1995-99. She has a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Washington and a B.A. in economics and environmental science from the University of Virginia.

Appleton was elected Nov. 6 to her fifth term in the House. This term, she served as vice chairwoman of the Health and Human Services Appropriations & Oversight Committee, vice chairwoman of the State Government and Tribal Affairs Committee, and member of the Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Committee. She’s a former member of the state Commission on Judicial Conduct and was appointed by Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton to serve on the state Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Before being elected to the House in 2004, she served two terms on the Poulsbo City Council.

Hansen was elected to a full term Nov. 6; he was appointed in September 2011 to a vacancy created when Rolfes accepted appointment to a Senate vacancy. This term, he served on the following committees: Education Appropriations and Oversight, Environment, Judiciary, and Transportation.

He is a partner at Susman Godfrey LLP, where he represents plaintiffs and defendants in civil litigation. He served for six years as a governor-appointed member of the Community Economic Revitalization Board, and served six years on the Olympic College Foundation Board. He is the author of a book, “The Dream: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech that Inspired a Nation” (HarperCollins, 2005). He has degrees from Harvard and Yale Law School and Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.