When it became clear that big business would successfully buy a slate of corporate shills in the 2023 Seattle City Council election, progressives sorted themselves into two camps. Some wanted to give the newbies a chance to pleasantly surprise them. Others predicted the new council would threaten all the marginal victories they won under the last council. 

But after the City’s unofficial legislative session ended this month, it doesn’t look like the council pleasantly surprised any of their progressive constituents. Instead, the council steamrolled them, stifled them, betrayed them, belittled them, and arrested them–all in the service of a wealthier, older, and whiter Seattle. The only pleasant surprise came in the form of the body’s incompetence and fragility, which delayed some of its most egregious attacks on working people and the poor.  

As City Hall transitions from its policymaking period into its budget negotiation period, The Stranger proudly presents a (probably) exhaustive list of the new city council’s many, many, many transgressions against progressives, the working class, and the norms of local democracy.

I. The Queen Ascends 

The new council really set the tone for the year when they elected Council Member Sara Nelson as president of their body. When Nelson ran for office in 2021, she marketed herself as a backlash candidate to those elected in the anti-corporate wave of 2019. She spent her first two years on council advocating for cops, landlords, and big business. Though she found regular allies in former Council President Debra Juarez and former Council Member Alex Pedersen, Nelson would never have won a popularity contest on the last council. 

But after allegedly recruiting and publicly supporting a slate of stooges, the conservative outcast went from eating her lunch in the bathroom stall to accepting a sash and crown as prom queen —metaphorically, of course. 

The role of council president sets the council's agendas, assigns bills to committee, and sits in for the Mayor when he needs a mental health day or something. Juarez, who held the position before Nelson, took a hands-off approach to the job. Casual news enjoyers probably didn’t even realize Juarez had a special role because she really only flexed her power to scold lone socialist Council Member Kshama Sawant for calling her and her colleagues “D*mocrats.” 

But Nelson has used the role to elevate her own profile and influence, so much so that politicos think she may challenge Mayor Bruce Harrell when he’s up for re-election next year. That said, no reporter has substantiated those rumors. Plus, the move may amount to political suicide, as Nelson enjoys about half the approval rating of Harrell, according to a June survey from the Northwest Progressive Institute. 

II. Off With Her Head

In one of Nelson’s first acts as president, she fired the head of central staff, Esther Handy, who had a progressive background, and replaced her with the director of the City’s Office of Economic and Revenue Forecasts (OERF), Ben Noble, a proponent of fiscal austerity.

As council president, Nelson totally can axe the head of central staff, but, as I’ve written before, it’s a really agro, atypical, and probably ideologically motivated move that undermines the supposed objectivity of central staff and the council’s “good governance” messaging. 

Many longtime council staffers have left this year, including Communications Director Dana Robinson Slote, Deputy Central Staff Director Aly Pennucci, and, most recently, Communications Strategist Joseph Peha.

Earlier this summer, Nelson replaced Robinson Slote with former City of Bellevue communications director and consultant Brad Harwood. Harwood, as Publicola reported, has a strong Republican streak. He worked for Republicans, donated to some of their campaigns (along with those of Democrats), was quoted as a Republican spokesperson in 2006, and included on his LinkedIn his experience as a board member for an annual Republican retreat. In what may be the clearest display of his city-level political bias, Harwood donated $1,000 to now deputy mayor Tim Burgess’s People for Seattle Political Action Committee (PAC) in 2019. The PAC spent hundreds of thousands to elect “good governance” candidates over progressives such as Council Member Tammy Morales. 

III. Woo’s Participation Trophy 

At the beginning of its term, the newly elected city council tabled all other business to conduct an appointment process for the vacancy former progressive Council Member Teresa Mosequeda left behind when she won a seat on the King County Council. They performed the whole song and dance just to pick recently failed city council candidate Tanya Woo, who befriended many of the new council members when she ran alongside them in Nelson’s pseudo slate.  

Not only did the pick feel nepotistic, it also came at the command of big business. Harrell’s right-hand man, consultant, and corporate PAC-wrangler, Tim Ceis, sent an email to his friends in the big business donor class instructing them to back Woo. He said that the donors’ success in buying the recent election gave them “the right” to tell the council who to pick. 

Nepotism and corporate influence aside, picking Morales’s opponent for the position felt very high school mean girl. Morales represented the only seat on council not bought by big business, so she had already come in for her second term pegged as an outsider. The council majority’s decision to pick Woo, the candidate who tried to challenge Morales, sent a clear message about their preferred candidate in that race. Lord knows if the district seat vote had gone the other way, then they wouldn’t have appointed Morales!  

IV. Guards, Seize Them! 

The council’s anti-progressive power trip culminated in a meeting that will go down in Seattle City Council history. On February 27, a long-neglected group of asylum-seekers and their lefty allies came to City Hall to ask the City to fund housing so hundreds of Venezuelan, Angolan, and Congolese refugees, including many children, could stop camping outside after they were evicted from the hotel that was housing them in Kent. 

Nelson didn’t want to hear it, so she limited public comment to just 20 minutes. She said that they should take up their concerns with the County or the State. She also took the opportunity to take a jab at her political enemies. She accused left-wing activists of “craven political opportunism” after seeing a post on social media calling for people to sign up for public comment to amplify the needs of the asylum-seekers while also speaking against new surveillance technology for the Seattle Police Department. 

After vindictively limiting the public comment period, Nelson tried to move on, but then attendees started chanting over her. She called three recesses in an attempt to control the crowd before finally calling in security. Eventually, the cops arrested six people who refused to leave council chambers. 

Moore became Chair of the Pearl-Clutcher Committee when she demanded that the cops arrest the people who pounded on the window after leaving when Nelson told them to. Moore has yet to live that one down with public comment regulars.  

V. Those Greedy, Greedy Gig Workers

Nelson used her new clout as president to rehash an old fight she lost on the previous council over the gig delivery drivers’ minimum wage. 

Gig delivery companies, who are known far and wide for their generosity, kicked things off by spinning up a propaganda campaign asserting that the minimum wage was “backfiring.” Opponents argued that retaliatory fees some app-based delivery services stuck on customers could explain any drop in activity on the apps. Still, without demanding any data from the complaining companies, Nelson wanted to rush through with a total repeal or significant rollback crafted by an Uber-backed lobby group.

She was met with crickets. No one else on council felt as passionately about cutting wages for gig workers by about 24%, and her loyal subject, Woo, would end up having to recuse herself from a vote on the matter due to personal conflict of interest. So, despite her rise to power, Nelson loses her first big political battle. 

VI. Actually, That Red Tape Looks Fine Over There

The council did not simply try to roll back policies passed by the last council, they also started just killing shit. After two years of behind-the-scenes work, Morales proposed an incentives package that allowed developers to avoid some fees, build taller or wider buildings, and skip the dreaded design review process if they partnered with community organizations to build apartments with at least 30% affordable units. 

The legislation seemed like the exact kind of policy the newbies ran on—gentle, affordable density aimed at combating displacement at no cost to the City. But, like, Morales proposed it, so, ew! Only she and Council Member Dan Strauss supported the bill.

The council was obviously pretty sensitive about their shitty vote. In an unhinged moment that her future political opponents should clip into an ad, Moore scolded Morales for allegedly calling her and the other critics “evil” and “corporate shills.” No reporter could ever find proof that Morales said those things, and Moore never substantiated those claims. Talk about projection.

Morales defended herself at the final vote. “I am not impugning anyone's motives for how you vote,” she said. “I'm pointing out that we can't just say that these things are important. As policymakers, our actions speak louder than words.” 

VII. Accountability, Schmountability

The looming Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) contract should have been a defining issue of the 2023 election, but the crop of candidates were either too scared or too pro-police to say anything negative about cops. None of them appeared to have any real strategy to increase accountability measures in the contract. 

And so (surprise, surprise), in May the council voted 8-1 to approve the new cop contract with 24% raises and little in the way of new accountability measures. Morales (surprise, surprise) voted against it.

“I believe this contract as bargained does not protect the city and the lack of accountability measures puts us in continued violation of the federal consent decree,” Morales said.

To be fair, not every council member gets to see or participate in the SPOG negotiations, but they can reject the contract and send it back to the bargaining table if they find it unacceptable.

VIII. Cop Quantity Over Cop Quality 

Due to its long list of misadventures, the new council has earned a reputation as the “Do-Nothing Council.” Many of their own legislative endeavors failed, and most of the bills they got across the finish line came directly from the mayor’s office, such as the vacant building abatement policy, the transportation levy, the housing levy, and the SPOG contract. 

And one of its first legislative successes independent of the Mayor got neutered anyway. In May, the council approved a bill that aimed to speed up the hiring process for cops. The conservative majority ran on a promise to beef up SPD rolls to 1,400 officers despite a national hiring shortage. 

Within that package, Council Members Bob Kettle and Nelson tried to require the Public Safety Civil Service Commission (PSCSC) to switch to a police hiring test with a 90% pass rate. As Publicola reported, Kettle said Seattle did not have the “luxury” to be picky with police test scores. It's ultimately up to PSCSC if the City switches tests.

However, state law requires PSCSC to make its own rules without councilmanic influence. Nelson heeded a warning from the commission and eventually whittled the bill down to a vague recommendation that PSCSC “should seek to use” a test that, in general, “conforms to the extent possible to all City of Seattle policies that address recruiting, hiring, and retention.”  

PSCSC has yet to change their test. 

IX. “Racist,” “Discriminatory,” “Ridiculous,” “Preposterous,” “Outrageous,” “Appalling,” “Tone-Deaf,” “Short-Sighted,” “Misguided,” and “Ugly” to Say the Least

I wouldn’t be surprised if Council Member Maritza Rivera had to unpack the shame of this moment in therapy for several, several weeks. On a Friday afternoon in May ahead of a holiday weekend, Rivera proposed a last-minute, rug-pull amendment to freeze funding for the Equitable Development Initiative that empowers BIPOC-led community groups to build affordable housing, community centers, and other capital projects.

Rivera’s amendment would have given the Office of Community Planning and Development (OCPD) three months to spend more than $50 million or else return it to the general fund, where it would presumably help fill the looming $260 million budget deficit. 

For more than three-and-a-half hours, BIPOC-led community organizations absolutely humiliated Rivera and her supportive colleagues. The council voted to delay a vote on Rivera’s surprise amendment.

Rivera partially learned her lesson. She scrapped the proviso but passed an amendment calling for OCPD to produce a report on the EDI program and its projects, so communities remain on edge. 

X. Cop City

In June, the city council voted 6-0 to expand SPD’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology to its entire fleet. Council Members Morales, Strauss, and Rivera were absent. 

SPD started lobbying the City for such an expansion last year. Privacy advocates worried about scaling up both SPD’s and the public’s ability to surveil drivers, as the information would be available through public record requests.  

XI. The “Consensus” Transportation Levy

The council voted 6-2 to reject Morales’s proposal to add $150 million to the $1.55 billion transportation proposal from the mayor, which, she argued, would have created a safer, more connected City for those who do not drive. 

The Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Seattle Association argued against Morales’s bolder levy because they worried the voters would reject the increased tax burden. However, polling by the Seattle Department of Transportation showed that 56% of surveyed voters would support a $1.7 billion levy. Northwest Progressive Institute polling found that about 54% of voters would actually prefer a $1.9 billion levy.

Instead, the council approved Council Member Rob Saka’s $1.55 billion package, which he called a “consensus” levy. If the polling is any indication, the consensus appears to be between the council and their corporate donors. 

XII. Bad Bosses Unite

In what former SEIU 775 President David Rolf called “political suicide,” Council Member Joy Hollingsworth attempted to permanently enshrine a subminimum wage for tipped workers at “small” businesses–those who employ fewer than 500 workers. 

The restaurant industry spent months lobbying behind the scenes to break a 10-year compromise between labor and business to allow “small” businesses to work up to the standard minimum wage over time. Restaurant owners said they couldn’t afford the real minimum wage because of the pandemic, but they failed to recognize that their workers couldn’t afford for them not to pay them the real minimum wage. 

After making an enemy of every tipped worker in town, Hollingsworth retracted her bill and decided to work on a potential compromise behind the scenes.

XIII. How Vintage

Moore wants to try something new on Aurora—and by new, I mean old, prudish, anti-worker, racist, classist, sexist, and transphobic. In August, she proposed a bill to make prostitution loitering a misdemeanor crime again, a reverse of the council’s historic repeal in 2020. But there’s a twist! Moore also wanted to banish anyone arrested for engaging in sex work from a seven-mile “Stay Out of Area Prostitution zone (SOAP)” along Aurora Avenue, stretching from 85th Street North to 145th Street North.

After lots of pushback from sex workers, who argued that Moore’s law would make their jobs less safe, she softened up and decided to amend her bill to only banish pimps and johns from the SOAP zone. As Republican City Attorney Ann Davison readily admit, the bill will likely push sex work to other areas of town, and do nothing to expand services for those who want to leave the sex trade. Moreover, sex workers say the legislation will still only foster distrust between sex workers and the City and its criminal justice system.  

But Moore doesn’t want people to think about the consequences of her bill. She let us know that by ordering central staff to remove a list of concerns from their independent bill analysis. 

XIV. One Simple Trick to Suppress Dissent

Speaking of suppressing dissent, the council ran a kooky little gambit to both suppress the public vote on a tax on big business that would fund social housing and stifle public comment over a contract with SCORE, a jail run by some south King County cities. 

In a meeting earlier this month, Nelson shortened the public comment period—which always goes so well for her—so that the council could vote on Initiative 137–the social housing funding initiative–by the deadline to get it on the November ballot rather than on a lower-turnout February ballot. But then the council ended up deciding to delay the vote on the social housing initiative anyway, needlessly stifling public comment on the jail contract. Outrage ensued. 

But those the council pissed off that meeting got the last laugh. Later that night, King County Elections released the initial results of the 2024 primary. Woo faced a “brutal” defeat at the hands of her progressive challenger, Alexis Mercedes Rinck, who would eventually secure more than 50% of the vote.

XV. Be Grateful, Youngsters! 

To wrap up the unofficial legislative session, the city council sacrificed $7.75 million previously promised to fund mental health counselors in Seattle Public Schools following a shooting at Ingraham High School. The clawback worked in accordance with the Mayor’s apparent plot to fill the City’s looming budget shortfall without taxing big business. 

In 2023, the city council hiked the JumpStart Payroll Expense Tax to raise an additional $20 million for counselors in schools. The City started raising the money but couldn’t spend it until the council changed the rules for JumpStart spending, which is legally earmarked only for affordable housing, Green New Deal initiatives, and economic development. 

While the City sat on the money, another child was shot and killed at a Seattle school. Students began advocating for the City to release the $20 million, but instead Harrell proposed a plan to release just $10 million, which amounted to a cut in funding in the wake of tragedy. 

Morales introduced an amendment to restore the funding in the City’s mid-year supplemental budget, but the council didn’t play ball. Most egregiously, Rivera, who said the shooting at Ingraham inspired her run for office, did not want to restore the money.

Then Strauss proposed an amendment to add $2.25 million to the mayor’s $10 million proposal. Now $7.75 million in JumpStart funds that were originally promised to students will likely go to filling the deficit.

The Worst Is Yet to Come

After their recess, the Seattle City Council will have a few more weeks to pass policies that are already in the works–a “September Squeeze,” as I’ve called this period before. At the end of September, the Mayor will transmit his draft budget, where he will attempt to balance a $260 million budget shortfall. The City must then approve a balanced budget. To do that, the City can make cuts to staff or to programs within the general fund, raid the JumpStart fund, or raise taxes. 

So far, the council has not shown any interest in levying new, progressive taxes on big business. That means programs that benefit workers, renters, the poor–basically anyone who isn’t a cop–could be in big trouble during budget negotiations. 

But this doesn’t end after the budget. After this year, the council will still have three more years on the dais to rollback gig worker protections, permanently enshrine a subminimum wage, attack renters’ rights, subsidize housing for cops, sicc the national guard on Downtown, and  ignore the crisis at the library, to name a few items the Council left lingering. 

But the city council may also get a new member in Rinck, who could join Morales in defending the progressive agenda in November. And Nelson could lose her crown in 2025. So don’t despair. Organize.