West Seattle's newly appointed state senator, Joe McDermott, has been named to three Senate committees.

McDermott will serve on the Early Learning and K-12 Education, Governmental Operations and Elections and Judiciary committees.

"All three of these committees work on issues and policy that I'm deeply committed to," McDermott said. "I will use my passion for education, commitment to civil rights equality and efforts with elections reform and government accountability to work with my colleagues to make a real difference for people around the state and in West Seattle, White Center, Burien and on Vashon."

During his time as a member of the state House of Representatives, McDermott was the House Democrats' Education Policy Leader and worked to pass two historic civil rights measures - creating the Domestic Partnership Registry, giving state-registered domestic partners basic rights and protections, and the Anti-Discrimination Bill of 2006, adding sexual orientation to Washington's discrimination laws.

"It's an honor to serve the 34th District in the Senate, and I'll bring my experience from the House to hit the ground running when we come back to Olympia in January," he said.