Sen. Brian Weinstein, D-Mercer Island, who represents 41st Legislative District, has confirmed his earlier decision to not seek reelection this November. The district includes a portion of Bellevue.

Weinstein was elected in 2004 and serves as chair of the Senate Consumer Protection & Housing Committee. He will continue to serve out the remainder of his term.

Weinstein previously had announced that he planned on returning to his law practice fulltime once his term ended in early January 2009, but he had agreed to reconsider his decision after being asked by numerous consumer protection advocates to run again.

“We made enormous progress in the field of consumer protection this past legislative session,” said Weinstein. “While the president and Congress debate what to do about the subprime debacle, we took the bull by the horns and passed some very meaningful legislation that will go a long way towards protecting homebuyers. ”

Weinstein said he was proud of what had been accomplished in education and consumer protection throughout his term.

“I am very proud of sponsoring, at the governor’s request, the Washington Learns Bill. I believe this bill and the various studies generated by this bill, will lead to a complete overhaul of education funding in Washington,” Weinstein said. “The obvious eventual goal being the creation of the best education system in the United States.”

Weinstein said his passion continues to be consumer protection, “and I am most proud of sponsoring and passing the Fair Insurance Conduct Act, which survived a referendum challenge last year in the form of R67. ”

When asked about his greatest disappointment, Weinstein answered, “Anyone who has read the newspaper or watched the evening news in the last year has to know that I was unable to secure for Washingtonians the Homebuyer’s Bill of Rights.”

The bill passed the Senate and the House Judiciary Committee for two consecutive years, but the Speaker of the House refused to bring it up for a vote, Weinstein said.

“I will spend the remaining time in my term continuing to bring awareness to the problem of the lack of builder accountability for shoddy construction.”