Centrists flip Seattle city council. Now what?

[00:00:00] Alright, hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde here with our two special guests who are here every week, Erica C Barnett, Sandeep Kaushik, and we're here to discuss the fact that Seattle voters sent a message. What was it? That's the

[00:00:27] question that's part of what we're going to be talking about. It wasn't that a bunch of Neanderthals with about as much compassion as Clint Eastwood and the dirty Harry movies are about to take over the city council and cast the city into eternal darkness, or is

[00:00:41] it a bunch of earnest progressives who just happen to be back by corporate interest one, albeit pragmatic progressives? Joining us again to talk about it, Erica C Barnett and Sandeep Kaushik and Erica let's start with you. I ran into you on election night.

[00:00:55] Yeah, we were running between the parties. We talked for like 30 seconds. I thought you weren't going out Erica, you told me. She went out. Yeah, David shamed her into going out. I shamed her into going out and I ran into her. I had just left the ebullant

[00:01:09] mood at Bob Kettle's celebration party heading over to Andrew Lewis' party where you had started out. But let's just talk about that race to start because Andrew Lewis is dropping out. What was that experience like for you or what can you tell us

[00:01:23] about that race? Let's start there. Yeah, that party was interesting because as we were discussing before we started taping the results didn't come in on King County's website like they usually do. So the results coming in was a little low key and I went

[00:01:37] over to Andrew and I was like, what's going on at 8.20 or something. And he said, you know, you can see the results on King five and just sounded very down. And I asked him, did you underestimate Bob Kettle early on because I think he

[00:01:52] was actually quite dismissive of Kettle, a retired Navy veteran who lives on Queen Anne and who will be the next council member in District Seven. And he said he didn't think he did. He had really taken it seriously. I'm not sure

[00:02:04] that I completely buy that but yeah, it was a pretty glum mood. And as you said, I was racing over to Bob Kettle's when I ran into you and it was crowded, lots of food, lots of happy people. I didn't recognize a

[00:02:17] whole lot of people in the room. I got to say Anne Davidson was there, Sarah Nelson. But that was it. Who were the rest of those folks? Mark Sidren's wife I think was there. It was a whole cast of characters. Was it

[00:02:29] Republicans? I want to say that there were some Republicans but there were, you know, there were Kettle supporters from District Seven. So yeah. And they were in a really good mood. Not just about that race but they saw

[00:02:42] those results and they were thrilled about what happened. Let's just set the scene with you too, Sandeep. Where were you on election night and what was your mood like? I was for the drop. I was at Alex Hudson's party at Olmsted on

[00:02:54] Broadway on Capitol Hill. Obviously tough results that came back in that race with joy with a big, big sort of 17 point lead. So I was there but then I did drop by Maritza Rivera's party on my way home and obviously kind of

[00:03:11] I will say like Alex's party was not somber, depressed. Alex gave up a really positive speech. There was a full room. A lot of people were cheering and happy and you know, even though the results weren't great. And obviously at this

[00:03:26] point Alex has as of this morning conceded the race to Joy Hollingsworth. They talked this morning but I went over to Maritza's party and there was obviously a crew of people there. Anne Davidson was over at Maritza's party.

[00:03:37] I ran into her and we chatted for a bit. Amazing. Yeah, Anne made the rounds. You know, the mayor dropped by Maritza's party so to offer his congratulations. So you know, I was there for a bit. Maritza was obviously very, very excited

[00:03:49] and happy about the initial results where she was up 11 points. And so yeah, that's what I did. And I went home. And the Maritza race is not over yet. I think it's well, I guess that's right. Technically,

[00:04:02] I think it's all but over. I will be very surprised if we see Ron Davis catch up at this point. I think it's perfectly fine to wait and let's see another drop. And you know, but at least as I understand the numbers,

[00:04:19] I think that it looks pretty favorable for Maritza right now. So we may have more concessions because we're taping just before the Friday drop unfortunately. And there will be a drop today apparently even though it's a holiday. But Erica, back to that original question,

[00:04:34] Neanderthals, Ernest Progressives, which of those is more accurate? Would you say? Well, look, I mean, none of these candidates are what I would call the ones that are that are moving through or what I would call progressives. I sort of struggle with the word conservative because

[00:04:48] mostly Cassandeep always objects to it. But I think, you know, overall where we're seeing a shift to the center, as I said in my piece about this, and it, you know, remains to be seen sort of what

[00:05:02] the agenda of a lot of these candidates is because, you know, during the campaign itself, I think things got simplified down to a couple of very black and white seeming issues. People who prevailed said that, you know, the vote to on the drug law needed to come

[00:05:19] sooner. And now that drugs are criminalized, the city is going to be able to solve the problem. And the other issue was crime, sort of writ large and candidates who won all promise to hire lots

[00:05:32] more police and fix the problem of crime. You know, I and I think what will be very interesting is now that this group of candidates has a mandate and now that the council is going to be largely

[00:05:42] a bunch of newcomers who are all allies of the mayor. I mean, I think that the mayor and his counsel will not really have anywhere to hide or people to blame because the progressive left wing lunatic council that Saadiq likes to complain about is

[00:05:57] gone. So if crime does not get solved, if drugs do not get solved or you know, if there is not a visible difference on the streets to you know, the perception of maybe people who work downtown or people who watch TV news, that there's

[00:06:11] going to be nowhere no one to blame and nowhere to run. So that sounds somewhat apocalyptic, but I just don't think that these simplistic solutions are actually going to work out very well in practice. So that's what I'm mostly interested in now that we have this new council.

[00:06:26] So Andy, it's the pottery barn rule. You break it, you bought it used to describe the war in Iraq, but but there's something to that here now right they own it, they own the city of Seattle, they own all the cities of Seattle's problems as of January,

[00:06:40] whatever it is. That's right. That's right. They've invaded Iraq and won. Yeah. Mission accomplished. Yeah. Yeah. Now we've got a now we've got a subdued Fallujah and you know, Ramadi, but look, before I dive into that, I think

[00:06:55] there's a lot of truth to what Erica just said, but I think we should clarify like as of Friday afternoon, I think there's still one race in play, right? The the district two race between Tammy Morales and Tanya Wu, I really think

[00:07:08] is a straight up jump ball right now. Sports are clear. Well, I mean, look, before yesterday's drop the Thursday drop, the numbers I was seeing was that that Tammy Morales needed 55.3% of the remaining ballots to catch up. She got

[00:07:27] 55.2% in yesterday's drop. So that puts it right on the razor's edge. I mean, this could end up between you know, 100 votes either way. I know the Wu campaign has started chasing ballots as as of yesterday to cure ballots that have been rejected for signature issues or other

[00:07:44] stuff. So going to be super interesting to see how that race plays out, but nonetheless, whatever the outcome of the D2 race, I do think what happened in this election is that in a shift from the from the primary, this general

[00:08:00] election turned into a straight up referendum on the direction of the city on public safety and a majority of voters picked aside on that. And what they I think what they said was we've lost trust in the left lane

[00:08:14] candidates and the council on public safety, and we're going to take the baton away from them. And we're as Erica says they're giving it to the mayor and very much a kind of brand new council. I mean, if Tammy doesn't survive this race, I

[00:08:29] would argue there isn't a single left progressive left on the council. You could argue that Dan Strauss won by running in the left lane, but he only won by pivoting very hard to the center on public safety. And so I don't

[00:08:40] count that as a big win for the left that Dan is gonna, you know, narrowly win that race against Pete Hanning. So again, I think to Erica's point, I think the ball is in now the court of the mayor and the moderates and the public has

[00:08:54] clearly said they may not have an answer on public safety, but they don't trust the left on it. They want to try something new. And it is now incumbent on the mayor and others to do it. I don't know that something new. I

[00:09:06] mean, I would say that, you know, taking the long perspective, we're kind of going back to the era of Mark Sidron and, you know, much more conservative council that, you know, existed when I think both you and I got here

[00:09:17] Sunday, if I got here in 2001, you know, and I think we're kind of returning to that era. But, you know, I don't I don't think hire lots of cops and lock people up is a new idea. I think it's one that's, you know,

[00:09:29] been pretty unsuccessful in the past, but it's certainly the one that these candidates have said they want. I mean, I would say to, you know, just to speak to the sort of massive voter swing or whatever between August

[00:09:40] and now, I think the voters are somewhat fickle. And I think that when you pour hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know, particularly like if you look at District one, if you look at District four, Maritza's race, Rob Saka and District one received massive

[00:09:55] hundreds of thousands of dollars. Saka so far has gotten almost half a million dollars from these outside business backed groups. And I think that that that matters because it puts ads on the air. It allows, you know, in this case, a lot of campaigns to

[00:10:11] claim that their opponent is for defunding the police, which is apparently still a very potent slogan, even though I think it's completely, you know, false and misleading in pretty much every case. But, you know, I mean, there is a there's a cynical campaign that happened in every

[00:10:26] single race as well. And I think we can't just discount that and say, Oh, the voters in their wisdom decided that homelessness was less important in November than it was in August. Because homelessness is still an important problem in the city. It's just what's put in

[00:10:39] front of people's eyes is what's on their minds to some extent. Ah, I'm sure you'll be shocked that I have a somewhat different I know you trust the voters in their independent wisdom. Not in 2019, only in 2021 and 2023. Look, I was kind of casting around trying to

[00:10:55] figure out what is my metaphor or my analogy for what just happened here. And I think what it is, is you both are probably familiar with the with the Hindi word Sati, right? And Sati is the term that applies to what used to be part of

[00:11:13] Hindu culture, right? Pre-colonialism, where the widow of a man who had died was expected to throw herself on the funeral pyre of her husband and self-emolate. And I kind of think that's really the metaphor here is that Seattle's you know, movement left or progressive

[00:11:33] left has self-emulated on the funeral pyre of abolition defund, right? And and that this race in 2023 is in some sense a continuation of what we saw in the 2021. And that just came out of nowhere, right, Sandeep, that people are still paying attention to that for no reason.

[00:11:52] And it's not being constantly put in front of their eyes by someone. It came out of the left going way too far. I mean, come on, Sandeep. I know they're going to the crazy train to crazy town and they lost touch with their own progressive voters.

[00:12:06] That's what I know that you're smarter than this. And I also know that you're more cynical than this, Sandeep. So to suggest that to suggest that the voters in their infinite wisdom have focused, you know, maniacally on something that happened in 2020 and have noticed nothing else

[00:12:20] in the next three years is a ridiculous thing to say. What do you think these results were about, Erica? Like, what do you think? Well, I've already answered that question, but I think I think the results were about people. I mean, we have we've actually agreed on this.

[00:12:33] And then you kind of went off and you're saying that the voters are going to do direction. The voters were duped by outside. No, you're saying the voters were duped by a flood of like cynical outside. I'm saying no. So to go back to what I said before,

[00:12:46] I think that one of the main issues in these campaigns obviously was public safety and police hiring. The idea that if we hire more police, I mean, I feel like this is going to get a little repetitive because I already said it. But if we hire more police,

[00:12:59] we will have public safety. And if we arrest more drug users, we will not have drug addiction. And I think that those are not factually accurate claims. They haven't been proven by, you know, our history of trying those tactics.

[00:13:11] But I think we're going to see that on the ground. You know, at the same time, yes, I do think that all the money that people pour into supporting the careers of people like you, Sandeep and other consultants, they wouldn't be spending it if it didn't work.

[00:13:26] And for you to suggest that they are tabula rasa deciding on their own with no information from outside is both absurd and also like you wouldn't be doing the job that you do for a living if you thought that. All right, so Erica is saying

[00:13:39] that the center lane candidates want to hire a lot of cops and lock people up. It's not a new idea. It takes us back to the Mark Sidran era and that there's a lot of money that amplified those messages so that in part that explains these results.

[00:13:56] Sandeep Koushik, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. Like, I mean, Erica is setting up a kind of absolutist binary, right? And either you are fully on board with the left sort of positions on public safety or the only alternative is war on drugs 2.0.

[00:14:15] It's Sidran time again in Seattle. This was, you know, now we're gonna have some kind of fascistic, jackbooted law and order response and it's going to fall on its face and fail. Yeah, you're certainly not oversimplifying anything there, Sandeep. Well, that's basically what you're saying.

[00:14:32] And I will say this, I don't think the voters, what they did on Tuesday was a call for a full-on law and order lockup drug users by the boatload or whatever, right? I don't think that's what this vote was. I think it was, they certainly think

[00:14:53] the current approaches aren't working. I don't think they know what the answer is, but they're saying we wanna give the moderates a chance to try something else. And what the moderates have been saying, I will agree with you at this point. I think it's now incumbent upon them,

[00:15:08] what is your plan? How are you gonna go on this? But I think what they've been saying is we need more balance in our approach to public safety. Yes, we need alternative responses. Yes, we need a 911 alternative. Yes, we need diversion. Yes, we need more drug treatment.

[00:15:26] We need all of that stuff. But we also believe that police response that the criminal justice system plays a indispensable role within that. And that it is a balancing act between the two things. It is wild that you would call that a need for balance

[00:15:45] when we have just started standing up a very small six-person new unit that is the entirety of all those things you're talking about. That is the new investment. That's it, six people. And you're saying, oh my God, six people, we need a balance between that

[00:16:01] and the police department of 1,000 people. And I just think that if that is something, if you think it is overbalanced to hire six people, then I do think maybe you are for a very law and order centric approach.

[00:16:17] And maybe that is what you're saying the public is for, because I think it is just absurd to say that we have gone wildly in the direction of trying alternatives. And we have barely even started. And that is three years after 2020 when the city council and the mayor

[00:16:32] started talking about doing some of these things. I think you're entirely missing my point, right? What I'm saying is every one of these fascist, fascistic, jack-mooted, like Mark Sidron clones who are just getting elected. I don't know why you keep saying that Mark Sidron is fascistic.

[00:16:48] Let me finish my point, Erica. Every single one of those people totally supports building up the care team and making it bigger than six people. And we need to move faster on that. None of them are saying, oh my God,

[00:17:02] how dare they put Texas FTEs on the care team. We'll see what happens when they write the budget in a year and we'll see if they expand it. We will, we will. Look, I think you're right. That's the issue is the budget. Let's talk about that because these,

[00:17:16] I think it's true. I think it's accurate to say that all of these candidates both said more police, more police, more police, but they also said more public health solutions, all the stuff that you're both talking about. How are they gonna do that, Sandeep Kashik,

[00:17:29] when they're also saying we're not gonna raise taxes? And the city has a spending problem, I will say too. That's what they keep saying. Right, the city has a spending. So are there enough cuts to hire hundreds of more police officers and pay for those salaries,

[00:17:42] which if you can hire them, it's gonna cost a lot. Plus drug treatment, plus homelessness services. I mean, that's gonna be expensive. How the hell are they gonna do all those things? Sandeep Kashik, you explain it. Yeah, I think that's a really fair and good question.

[00:17:58] And I will say this, I don't think that the moderate contingent that is gonna be taking office in January of 2024 on the city council is a monolith on questions of revenue and taxation. I think somebody like Kathy Moore in D5

[00:18:13] is I think pretty open to new revenue and taxes. I think some of the other ones are too, but I do think you're putting your finger on something that's right. I don't think the moderates can deliver real progress on public safety unless they also look at additional revenue.

[00:18:33] So you can answer your question. When I look at the budget, I don't think you can cut your way to a successful new regime that actually addresses the fentanyl crisis on the streets. And so something's gotta give there. If we're not gonna look at new revenue,

[00:18:48] then you end up with a plan like the mayor put forward to pass in September that led to the passage of the new version of the drug law that passed. And by the way, which I think does show some interesting initial signs of promise

[00:19:03] that it's going to make a difference, but I don't think you can really do the full on diversion, get people help without significant new investments in things like drug treatment. So I do think that is gonna be a fundamental question going forward with this new council.

[00:19:17] Are they there on that? What's more important, progress on public safety or holding lines on taxes? I'd like to think that they really care about public safety and that we will see something real come out of this, but I think it remains to be seen.

[00:19:31] Right? We will see. That hits on a couple of important points. I mean, number one, you did have people on the campaign trail, multiple people, particularly Maritza Rivera, but also others saying the city does not have any kind of budget problems. It has a spending problem.

[00:19:46] And so what we need to do is cut spending. So we have people who are going to be on the city council who have been elected on presumably a mandate to cut spending. I think that Sandy, if you're right,

[00:19:57] they're not gonna be able to do that as easily as they sort of seem to think that they will be able to. But at the same time, it's gonna, there's gonna be some hard choices. And I think that it is not likely

[00:20:10] that this particular group of council members is gonna come in and say, let's expand the care team by 60 people because that's not the mandate they were elected on. They were elected on a mandate of, you know, cracking down on drug dealers,

[00:20:22] hiring more police and all the things we've discussed. But like you're leaving out the part where they did say, I mean, even from the most conservative, arguably candidate Bob Kettle on election night, you know, that he had campaigned on both the, whatever you wanna call it,

[00:20:36] law and order crackdown stuff, but also on the spending side saying, I'm gonna be committed to the public health solutions piece of it. And my question is how the hell are you gonna do that if you're gonna cut spending? But you're sort of implying,

[00:20:49] well they have no intention of doing any of that. And maybe you're right. No, that's not what I said. I'm saying, David, that they all said that they want public health solutions. Okay, I didn't, that was not the prominent part of these campaigns,

[00:21:02] but sure, I mean, I'm sure that everybody, I mean from Sarah Nelson, who's probably the council's most conservative current member says she wants drug treatment, I think the details of those proposals are gonna be important and whether they're just lip service. But I think also another important issue

[00:21:17] is that none of these folks that are coming on the council have had any sort of, not gonna say relevant job experience, but directly relevant job experience. They're coming in completely green. And I think that when the mayor presents a budget document

[00:21:34] in a little less than a year that contains some amount of cuts, we don't know how much, because they're probably gonna pass revenue this year before the current council leaves, but some amount of cuts, I think it's gonna be a challenge for people who are only just getting

[00:21:50] their feet under them to come back and say, no, we don't agree with this or we want more public health spending here. And I don't know that they're gonna be motivated to do it, just based on what I've heard from,

[00:22:02] out of their actual mouths on the campaign trail. I mean, there was no candidate in the city of Seattle, including Mark Sidrin if he was running who would not say yes, we also need public health solutions. But the question is, when you're actually looking at legislation,

[00:22:15] you're actually sitting on the council looking at the budget, what do you propose? For Sarah Nelson, it's $30,000 bonuses for lateral police transfers and also funding for private residential absinist based treatment centers. So Sandiv, I love your optimism that they're gonna come in with great ideas

[00:22:33] for actually dealing with the fentanyl epidemic, but I am a little bit skeptical that they're gonna be doing that in their first year. But we'll see. Right, and I'm not saying that I believe there's some perfect plan already sitting on the shelf

[00:22:49] or these candidates have articulated a real vision for how we're gonna address fentanyl or some of the other problems on our streets. I do think it is a big open question about what's gonna happen now and what direction we're gonna go in.

[00:23:01] I would say this election has turned into a huge win for Mayor Harrell, also a win for Sarah Nelson, right? Who directly intervened in a number of races, including some of the races with her colleagues. We don't know what the outcome

[00:23:15] of the Tammy Morales race is gonna be, but Andrew Lewis just conceded today that was a race where Sarah cut an ad for Bob Cuddle. Yeah, saying that people died because of Andrew Lewis not voting on the drug laws. We can talk about why Andrew lost,

[00:23:29] but the point being, I think that the mayor and Sarah come out of this as winners, as big winners. And now, I think Sarah said going into this council race, like she would love a council where she can count to five where there are people that actually,

[00:23:45] kind of share her approach and worldview. And so I do think now the public is not saying we wanna throw everybody in jail. This is still progressive Seattle, though the housing level is still passing by like a 70, it'll pass by like a 70, 30 kind of margin.

[00:24:01] We're not any less progressive than we used to be, but people are pretty frustrated and fed up with the kind of kind of pablum they've got from certain elements of the left about how any kind of, any approach that involves any kind of prodding or coercion

[00:24:17] is the war on drugs 2.0 and they're just kind of like, eh, I don't really think that's right. Yeah, and I don't think that's what the left-wing candidates said during this election. I mean, I think you're once again kind of flailing away

[00:24:29] at the so-called Twitter left without looking at what, you know, the more progressive candidates in each of these races said. I mean, it wasn't, you know, we don't believe in any prodding or coercion. But actually can I offer a counterpoint

[00:24:41] on the Herald, this is good news for Herald front. And Sunday by night, I don't know if you'll disagree with this, but it also could be a bad thing for Herald in this sense that now, you know,

[00:24:52] his agenda as I said at the top, he's got a mandate and his promises to do something and his claims that, you know, the council and not, you know, his supporters claims anyway, I don't know that he said this explicitly, but that the council, you know,

[00:25:06] is getting in the way of being able to do all the great things he wants to do. Well, that's gone. So go forth and do great things, Herald and council. And if they don't, you know, Herald's up in two years

[00:25:19] and look, we don't know if he's gonna run again. We don't know who else is gonna be in that race if he does. But I think that could, you know, that could be a challenge or a campaign issue if in those two years with the mandate

[00:25:31] he doesn't accomplish some of the things he's said he wants to get done. That's all the time we have here on Seattle Nights. Thanks so much for listening. If you wanna donate to our Patreon account, please do head on over to Patreon slash Seattle Nights.

[00:25:46] And if you were expecting these candidates to get a honeymoon, just listen up back to this episode and you'll see they haven't even been elected yet and there's no honeymoon. Eric is already like throwing them onto the dust pile of history, right?

[00:26:00] There are, and there shouldn't be a honeymoon. Come on, what's the honeymoon thing anyway? All right, thanks everybody so much for listening and please give us a decent rating on wherever you get your podcast. If you like this podcast, I don't wanna say we're struggling

[00:26:14] but without your support, you know, it could die. You don't give us a five star review. Eric is gonna die unless you give us a little. No. David will die then. I will die. I might, I might. All right, thanks everybody so much for listening.