Yesterday, the City Council's Governance, Accountability & Economic Development Committee agreed to send a bill to the full council that will allow councilmembers to vote on matters impacting their own financial interests. Committee members Cathy Moore, of District 5, and Maritza Rivera, of District 4, voted in favor of the bill, while all other members (Council President Sara Nelson, District 7's Bob Kettle, and District 3's Joy Hollingsworth) abstained.
From its inception, the bill, when Nelson floated it in January, was incredibly controversial. The current version was sponsored by Moore and drew ire from an incredibly diverse array of Seattleites, including four current and former City Councilmembers. Former District 3 Councilmember Kshama Sawant showed up at the committee's first hearing on the bill to stage a mini protest, while District 6 Councilmember Dan Strauss tore it apart from the dais.
Separately, former District 7 Councilmember Andrew Lewis had nothing nice to say, while District 8 Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck sent her constituents a call to action to show up and speak against the bill at yesterday's meeting. Similarly, Sawant's Workers Strike Back group plastered the city's telephone poles with agitprop-style posters urging Seattleites to come express their ire in person at City Hall.
Long story short, approximately no one liked the idea of letting councilmembers vote on things that could financially benefit them. People especially disliked, and many suggested, that the whole point of the move might be to allow Councilmembers Maritza Rivera and Bob Kettle, both landlords themselves, to vote on legislation rolling back tenant protections.
In forcing the bill through anyway, then, the committee — and by extension Nelson, despite her abstention — doubled down on the current council's proclivity to do what they want over loud, vociferous protest. Doing away with an incredibly important anti-corruption measure should, in my opinion, be disqualifying for public office, but we the public won't get to weigh in on that for quite some time with regard to most members of the current council.
As District 2 candidate Eddie Lin pointed out in a recent Instagram post, that is exactly why this ethics change is such a disaster. Even if councilmembers disclose conflicts of interest and then cast a vote that clearly benefits themselves, it could be years before voters get a chance to correct that behavior. Instead, we should have robust protections in place to keep it from happening. But here we are.
Now that the primary is locked in, it's endorsement season. While candidates are still out there soliciting democracy vouchers, corporate slush money, or both, they are also now forcing interns to fill out an inhumane number of questionnaires. All in search of those sweet, sweet endorsements.
As mayoral challenger Katie Wilson herself said, in a recent call to action, "Logos don't win elections — people do. This campaign isn't powered by political insiders or wealthy donors; it's powered by you." A noble sentiment, but anyone who has seen behind the curtain of local politics knows that insiders do, in fact, matter a ton. And don't get us started on wealthy donors. We might think our voucher system makes for a level playing field, but have you heard of independent expenditures? Kind of defeats the whole purpose if shadowy PACs can still spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on behalf of a campaign, doesn't it?
But about those endorsements! Our incumbent, Mayor Bruce Harrell, has the coveted endorsement of the MLK Labor Council, probably the largest labor organization in King County. That's a lot of votes. But Wilson is not without a few notable logos to add to the old website. She took home the endorsement of the Democratic party groups for three major Seattle legislative districts: the 32nd, 36th, and 46th. She also garnered the endorsement of the King County Democrats and, for good measure, the UAW 4121. While UAW 4121 isn't exactly a hard-hat and orange-vest type of union — they represent academic student employees, postdocs, and researchers at the University of Washington — it's still labor. It still counts!
Anyway, will Wilson's quiver of endorsements from local Democratic party groups and advocacy organizations propel her to a win? Or will Harrell's coalition of labor and big business take the day? Funny you should ask, because a new poll from the Northwest Progressive Institute (NPI) thinks Wilson does, in fact, have the juice to unseat Bruce.
NPI's "Civic Heartbeat" poll has her ahead of Harrell 36 to 33 percentage points. It also clocked Harrell's approval rating among respondents at a measly 37%. Additionally, when speaking with undecided voters, whom pollsters presented with a simple summary of each candidate's platform, the poll found that more than twice as many "undecided voters broke for Wilson as the incumbent."
All that led Wilson to conclude, as she said in a statement announcing the poll's results, that, "This poll confirms what I and my campaign team and volunteers already know from talking with Seattle voters across the city every single day. People are eager for new leadership."
Since we last checked, a couple bills we've been covering got their final seal of approval from Gov. Bob Ferguson: House Bill 1217, which limits rent increases to 7% plus inflation (not to exceed 10% in total), and Senate Bill 5041, which provides six weeks of unemployment benefits to striking workers. All of the tax increases we covered are still awaiting signatures, although he did sign off on a bill increasing liquor licensing fees by 50%. Remember, these are one-time fees, so anyone who tells you this is why a beer costs $11 now is lying. That's because of the housing crisis, as aforementioned mayoral challenger Wilson explained last week.
Got something *political* I should know? Tell me about it: tobias.cb@seattleemerald.org.
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Tobias Coughlin-Bogue is a writer, editor and restaurant worker who lives in South Park. He was formerly the associate editor of Real Change News, and his work has appeared in The Stranger, Seattle Weekly, Vice, Thrillist, Thrasher Magazine, Curbed, and Crosscut, among other outlets.
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