Election result: Did Voters Make Seattle Progressive Again?

[00:00:09] Hello and welcome to another special emergency election edition of Seattle Nice. The big news, after the first ballot count in yesterday's election, nearly six in ten voters are saying yes to Proposition 1A to fund social housing. So this is looking like a big win for the more progressive side. I'm David Hyde, here as always with a somewhat self-satisfied looking Erica C. Barnett of Publicola. Hi, Erica. Hello.

[00:00:36] Also with us and also looking, you know, I would say like a little bit smug. Is this just kind of if you've worked as a stranger, you always look smug? Sandeep Kaushik. I'm just generally smug. Yes. Resting smug face. I'm congenitally smug. Speaking of smug, in our recent prediction episode, I said Prop 1A would pass and this is shaping up like it could be a big win for the progressives.

[00:01:02] We're taping, what time is it? Two o'clock, the day after the election. So just after the first count. But I also said that this would be tight and in retrospect, I'm not really sure what I was thinking since new progressive taxes are popular in blue cities, especially a city like Seattle.

[00:01:19] So one question I wanted to get to today is whether or not the business community in Seattle, the Chamber of Commerce, like has its head up its ass when it comes to this question of progressive taxes? Or maybe the question is like how far up its ass is its head on this question of progressive taxes. But Erica, that one is kind of maybe more for Sandeep or somewhat rhetorical. So my first question for you is, does this result restore your faith in Seattle's electorate?

[00:01:45] Well, I mean, I think that it certainly confirms what you were saying about progressive taxes. They are popular, even when, as in this case, you know, the city council really tried to suppress this vote by moving it from November ballot last year, which is when it would have been ordinarily to a low turnout February election. You know, the voters are still going with the progressive option.

[00:02:11] So, I mean, in a way, it more restores my faith in the fact that Seattle is a progressive city. And I think that and we can get into this more, but I think that this is, you know, not a great result for folks like Sarah Nelson on the council, to some extent, like Mayor Bruce Harrell, whose face was all over all of the anti-social housing mailers that arrived in my mailbox anyway.

[00:02:39] So, you know, I just I think it might be a sign of a little bit of a reset among the electorate. But I'm interested in hearing what Sandeep has to say about how much the chamber has its head up its ass. Sandeep, can I put these questions to you like two ways, both those questions? The first one, do you ever see that episode of The Simpsons where Lisa wires up a cupcake with an electric shock if you grab it and Bart just keeps grabbing it over and over again?

[00:03:06] Unlike the hamster that she's also experimenting with who learns not to grab it. So my question for you is, is the business community Seattle's Bart Simpson? You know, that's number one. But also, please answer Eric's question. I got something in my inbox today declaring Seattle's conservative cycle is over. History has ended. Yeah, right. Well, you're asking multiple questions now. I know. That's a no-no. Sorry about that. Yeah. So where to begin on this?

[00:03:34] You know, I don't think it's a big surprise that Prop 101, as we've said before, there is long been very strong support for taxation and progressive taxation in Seattle. When was the last time we had a, you know, a levy measure even come close to failing? And I think there's- Metro funding, I believe. Yeah. And I think there's really- That was a countywide measure that failed. We ran a city one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We ran a city one afterwards that passed. Yeah.

[00:04:04] I did that campaign for the city one. Plus, you know, it's about affordable housing. And I do think, or at least ostensibly about affordable housing, I do think there's a real hunger out there for greater action on affordability in Seattle, particularly around housing. So when you combine the two, the kind of strong support for progressive taxation, I think there was polling in 2019 that showed that 70% of Seattleites were just strongly in favor of greater taxes on business. I don't think that's changed, right?

[00:04:33] So when you combine those two things, I think, yeah, it set up a situation where 1A, you know, was in a good place, right? And I am surprised at the margin of the win. So to Erica's question, and the quote you read, I believe was from Ron Davis, David, that you read. I don't know. I just saw it in my inbox. It was something- Yeah, yeah.

[00:04:57] I do think there's probably some reason to think that there is somewhat of a political vibe shift going on in Seattle right now, right? That voters may be moving back in a more progressive or left direction. But the extent of that shift or, you know, what it means on kind of issue-by-issue basis, I think is still really, really unclear to me. Yeah, I mean, if you're going to dissect it by issue, maybe it's unclear.

[00:05:26] But I do think that, you know, this council is quite a bit more conservative than the electorate, including the people that elected them. And, you know, I mean, to break it down to, you know, this year, you know, I think we'll see if there is a viable challenger to Sarah Nelson, in particular, the council president, you know, from the left. And, you know, as we've talked about before, you know, I think she's vulnerable. Sandeep, I think you agree that she's vulnerable. I think that could be a litmus case.

[00:05:56] Now, I don't think that anybody is running against Mayor Harrell yet. But my understanding of his polls is that they are not great. I think NPI, the Northwest Progressive Institute, did a poll that had him underwater recently. And so does that mean he's not going to get reelected? Well, I mean, if nobody runs against him, he's going to get reelected.

[00:06:17] But I just think that the current council and mayor had, you know, a lot of confidence in themselves that they had this overwhelming mandate. You know, even though a lot of the people on the council got elected by very slim margins. And, you know, they came in and they did things like passing the soap and soda laws and passing, you know, a lot of legislation. I mean, they just approved blast balls and gave the Seattle Police Department carte blanche to use less lethal weapons.

[00:06:44] So, you know, I don't know that they have the kind of mandate for those sorts of policies that they think they do beyond, you know, this singular issue of progressive tax. But, you know, they also all have been pretty much steadfastly against new progressive taxes as well. And I don't think they're in line with the electorate on that stuff. And I think the fact that this happened in an off year election where, you know, typically a more conservative electorate turns out a smaller electorate and we're still seeing these huge margins.

[00:07:12] You know, if I was them, I would be, you know, at least a little worried. So I think if the question is, is Seattle's conservative cycle over? It seems like if the only real question is, as it was here for most voters in terms of what they saw in the ballot, you know, do you support progressive taxes as opposed to how will progressive tax revenue get spent? Then, yeah, the conservative cycle is over. But there never really was a conservative cycle because Seattleites have always supported progressive taxes.

[00:07:40] If it's a question of is Seattle skeptical of progressive governance, they clearly were in 2021. And, you know, up until recently, there was a lot of skepticism of progressive governance. I think the conservative side, the moderates, tried to make this an issue about skepticism towards progressive governance and they failed. And part of that may be that progressives aren't really in charge right now. So that's that's the problem. If you're going to try to frame this as progressives don't have to govern, well, they're not in charge in Seattle right now.

[00:08:09] You know, there's differences between, say, Bruce Harrell and the council, but they're all seen as being more moderate. But I don't think Ron Davis is right when he says progressive ideas about criminal justice from his own campaign, for example, are suddenly popular again. I really doubt that. So if that's what he's talking about when he says the conservative cycle is over, there's some evidence for that from last election, from Alexis Mercedes Rink's victory last year.

[00:08:34] But that that I'm skeptical of, that that the kinds of ideas that he was espousing politically have suddenly become popular when it comes to, you know, take the most extreme example. Like like let's not prosecute shoplifting cases ever. Let's make a diction and affirmative defense for sure. So, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that kind of stuff, I doubt very much. So it depends on which progressives are we talking about, which so-called conservatives and so-called progressives are we talking about? You know, that's that will probably determine who wins these races.

[00:09:04] And I think, you know, I said, I think Ann Davison is the one who's really in trouble. But I didn't say it directly because she's the Republican. I don't know about the other two. I mean, I would just say, OK, so you're responding to Ron Davis, you know, newsletter or whatever. I think, you know, I would I would ask you, David, at what point, you know, leaving aside a candidate who didn't win, at what point would you say that, you know, there actually has been a turnaround?

[00:09:28] How many elections is it going to take to be convinced that, you know, maybe Seattle is not fully on board with this backlash and these backlash policies? You know, maybe it's not defund the police, which, you know, I have to say every time never happened. But maybe it's also not, you know, let's you know, let's put people in jail for being addicted. Let's, you know, teach people a lesson by having them detox on a jail floor. You know, maybe that is not the way that Seattle wants to go either.

[00:09:57] And so I'm just wondering, like, if Sarah Nelson loses, will that be enough of a sign? If, you know, if Mayor Harrell squeaks through, will that be enough of a sign? Is there is there any point? I mean, again, leaving aside, you know, sort of far left assertions of belief in newsletters or whatever. Or is there a point where you would say, like, yeah, you know what, Erica, you're right. We're heading in a more progressive direction. I never thought that that there was a huge change in the Seattle electorate.

[00:10:25] I don't think the pendulum ever swung in a conservative direction. I think progressive taxes, always popular. Inept governance or the perception of inept governance, always unpopular. And I think the electorate is pretty consistent. And, you know, it's specific candidates and specific issues. But, you know, so which progressive issues? Again, like if the perception among the public is you guys aren't doing shit to solve these problems, that's going to hurt the incumbents currently more than it will the progressive side.

[00:10:55] So that's my thesis. Sandeep, what do you think? So a few thoughts here. One, going back to the earlier question. Look, I do think the Chamber of Commerce and the business community is out of alignment with your median progressive voter in Seattle on questions of taxation, right? I mean, I think that's been sort of demonstrated over and over in recent Seattle history on things like Jumpstart and other things. That was why I think all of us thought there was a pretty good chance here that 1A was going to be successful the way it was on this ballot.

[00:11:24] And their opposition to it, you know, on the basis that they don't want to, you know, pay more taxes puts them in a minority position in the city of Seattle. I think that's pretty clear. But, you know, I think to Erica's question about when do we say that there has been a kind of, you know, 180 or big turnaround, I do think these November elections coming up are going to be a very good test case of how far we've gone on those fronts, right?

[00:11:51] I mean, if, you know, Ann Davison is defeated by a more progressive challenger, if, you know, Bruce Harrell has a tough race, if Sarah Nelson loses, then absolutely. Because I think what's going to get adjudicated in this upcoming election in November are exactly the questions, Erica, you were just talking about things like about, you know, where are Seattle voters on questions of public safety, right?

[00:12:14] And some of these things like was 21 and 23 just a reaction to the left going to crazy town on some of this abolition defund stuff? And voters are actually not on board with a different approach to, you know, blast balls or to, you know, prosecuting drug offenses or what have you. That's what I think is going to get tested in this election. I think the jury's out on that. We're going to have to wait and see.

[00:12:41] One other point I wanted to make, David, I think you're touching on something pretty interesting because I think there's a national vibe right now that is manifesting in a different way in Seattle that is really just kind of fundamentally anti-establishment.

[00:12:57] Somebody texted me last night when the results came out and they said, you know, my take is that this is a kind of vote against the Seattle establishment that hasn't done anything or done enough in the last three years on big issues like housing affordability. And there's a vacuum there and voters are hungry for anything. And so they're filling it by voting for stuff like 1A, right? I think there's something to that.

[00:13:21] I think that, you know, we have a city council and I'm going to focus on them because I think that they are, you know, very vulnerable in a way that the mayor isn't. We have a city council that came in saying we're the adults in the room. We're competent. We know what we're doing. I mean, even though none of them had basically any experience, but they were extremely confident in their ability to go in and audit the budget, find all this waste, you know, stop the waste, stop the fraud, stop the steal, essentially.

[00:13:48] And they, you know, they came in and they haven't delivered. I mean, what did they do? They raided Jumpstart. They found a bunch of free money lying around and they said, cool, free money. And they spent it. And I don't think that anybody paying attention is particularly impressed by that. I think that, you know, they came in with these big promises and, you know, in a year and some change later, we have Bob Kettle sitting there still talking about the permissive environment in Seattle that he's going to change and fix. And, you know, they're a quarter of the way through their terms.

[00:14:18] And what have they done? I mean, I just I don't think that voters are I mean, could be wrong. You know, I've been wrong before, but I don't think voters are impressed with the output of this council, especially given, you know, these big promises they made. And I actually think it resonates poorly against what's going on at the national level right now with Elon coming in and, you know, and tearing things up and making some of the same promises about, you know, we're going to audit. We're going to cut waste and all this stuff now at the national level.

[00:14:46] Obviously, it's a different story and it is crazy town. But, you know, at the local level, I think that they came in. They realized they can't actually audit the budget. They realize that we can't actually just, you know, cut jobs willy nilly. And and so they haven't been able to do a lot of the stuff they promised. I do think they've taken significant legislative actions in the arena of public safety, whether you like it or not. They passed a bunch of fucking legislation like some of that, as we talked about in the recent episode, has not really been deployed yet.

[00:15:14] And, you know, there are a bunch of questions that we could talk about about that or have talked about. But I think they have a good case to make that they've taken, at least in the broad parameters of public safety, including policing, the police contract, turning the corner on on police recruitment, things like that. The soda and soap laws, whether you like them or not, that, you know, those are. I think whether you like them or not is actually a really big question for voters. If you don't like them, then you don't like this council. Yeah. I mean, you can't just brush that aside.

[00:15:43] I think these are going to be like I said, these are the questions we're going to adjudicate in November. And so. But but, you know, yeah, we're going to see November. But, you know, back to my thesis, the question isn't as the business community keeps pretending, do you want new progressive revenue? The question is, how is that revenue going to get spent to fix stuff that people want fixed? And this this this council came in with part of it saying we're going to fix stuff.

[00:16:12] But the other part was, you know, we're ambivalent about or we're not going to raise new progressive revenue to actually fix things. And I think that they could get punished for that if they keep, you know, like Bart does grabbing that cupcake and acting like the city of Seattle doesn't want new progressive taxes to get stuff done. Yeah. That seems to be the sweet spot here. And and and, you know, that's who's going to win. Whoever whoever says that's what they're going to do is going to win. But that's what I think, Erica, I just want to bring up.

[00:16:37] You had an amazing breaking Election Day story about social housing headlined emails reveal last minute lobbying efforts to keep social housing off the November ballot. Was this the February surprise that that turned the election? Probably not. But still. Cool story. And as a side, as a side, you can support Erica's work at Publicola dot com sort of through Patreon. Right. At Publicola for this kind of real journalism that she's doing. But anyway, what did you find out?

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[00:17:41] Download the Ike's app today. Or head on over to Ike's dot com. That's Ike's dot com. Well, I mean, basically, you know, there were emails that went back and forth that, you know, and I would say this this really just kind of confirmed what we already knew, which is that the Chamber of Commerce president, Rachel Smith, was lobbying Sarah Nelson and Maritza Rivera pretty hard.

[00:18:10] Leading right up to their decision to not put this social housing measure on the November ballot. And, you know, even sending them sample language for what an alternative measure could look like. Now, they didn't end up going with either of the potential alternatives that the Chamber suggested. But they did decide and apparently switching their previous decision to put it on the ballot in November.

[00:18:31] They did decide to put it off and and to put on, you know, an alternative in order to, you know, I would argue, confuse the issue and confuse voters who, you know, now, as we all know, if you voted, had to vote for proposition. One, essentially, you know, do you want social housing or no and then vote for one B or one A, one B being the Chamber of Commerce backed version. So there's just there's a lot of lobbying that was going on right up until the last minute.

[00:19:01] I think it affected the outcome of that decision last year. And I think that we could have forgotten this whole election and the council could have put this on the ballot in November without this sort of fake social housing alternative Prop 1B and probably should have done so. But obviously, they they decided on the delay and the confusing to ballot title tactic.

[00:19:25] I will say this. While I was not involved in this stuff, I did hear at the time in the run up to the the, you know, the alternative being put on the ballot that there was a lot of conversations going on between folks in the business community and the affordable housing community, the affordable housing developers, many of whom were quite skeptical of one A.

[00:19:52] And there were conversations going on around an alternative that maybe the more traditional affordable housing developers might have been willing to support. And those conversations sort of petered out and the version of one B that that that was put on the ballot was put on. And you saw the affordable housing developers go and support one A, you know, and actually actively campaign for it for the most part.

[00:20:15] So I would say one of the lessons here from that is not only is the chamber out of alignment with progressive Seattle voters on just questions of taxation, but it's a real mistake for the chamber and the business community to make itself the face of a campaign going up against, you know, kind of progressive activists on stuff unless they have really strong progressive allies on their side.

[00:20:43] And I think because they weren't willing to talk about even a temporary tax increase or some of these other things that might have won the affordable housing developers on their side, you ended up with an alternative going on the ballot that, you know, was basically the business community alone backing it. And, you know, we got a fairly predictable result on the other end.

[00:21:07] Well, I think that there's also something and I don't know how much this resonates with ordinary voters, but it resonates a lot with me. There's something fundamentally anti-democratic about this aspect of our initiative process that people can go and collect signatures and win support for an initiative and, you know, get ready to put it on the ballot.

[00:21:26] And then the city council can, by fiat, decide that they're going to put an alternative on the ballot that they like without doing any of that work, without collecting the signatures and a proposal that they would not have put forward on their own were it not for this proposal that had support that they wanted to defeat. And so that's what happened this time, you know, and it has in the past, too. And then on top of that, they pushed the goddamn thing to February, which was another anti-democratic action.

[00:21:56] And, you know, I mean, stuff like that really pisses me off no matter what is on the ballot. In this case, it happened to be a progressive thing, which is often the case with citizen initiatives in Seattle. But, yeah, it just it just the whole thing just kind of stinks to me. And I know it's a it's a function of our city charter and that's how it works. But the city council also could have made another decision and just put it on the ballot up or down. Let the voters decide.

[00:22:24] Yeah, this is I kind of agree with you that that this seems like a kind of unfair short circuiting of the of a process. But look, this happened again recently with the previous council, right, when there was a group of folks that went out and collected a whole bunch of signatures because they wanted to change the voting system in Seattle to do something called a approval voting, right, where you get to pick all the candidates on the ballot who you support rather than just having to pick one candidate.

[00:22:49] And a bunch of progressive activists, right, who didn't like approval voting went to the, you know, their lefty allies on the council and got them to short circuit approval voting by putting rank choice voting on the ballot as an alternative. Right. That that just happened a couple of years ago. So I think the people that the approval voting people felt pretty, you know, unhappy and kind of dissed by that. Not surprisingly. So it's piggybacking on somebody else's effort. Yeah, I agree with that.

[00:23:18] I agree with that, that that seems that seems kind of, you know, poor form or whatever. But it is written into the city charter. It's part of state law, how these ballot, you know, how these these campaigns are adjudicated, you know. So so it's it's perfectly allowable and legal for them to do this. In fact, it's it was anticipated by the framers, you know, of our state constitution and our city charter. So it's in there. But yes, I think the optics of that are not so great. Whoever does it. All right.

[00:23:48] Before we call it a day, another local story. Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison, a Republican standing up to the Republican Trump administration, joining other sanctuary cities in a lawsuit. Sandeep, you flagged this one. What are your thoughts? Well, I think it's a good move on Ann Davison's part. Right. I genuinely contrary to the hyperventilation of folks on the left. I don't think she's a Trump Republican. I don't think she ever has been a Trump Republican.

[00:24:17] She's not a progressive, but she's not some, you know, kind of knuckle dragging maggot sort of person. But I think she she's up for reelection. She has to really be clear about demonstrating that because she has a scarlet are basically tattooed on her forehead. So I think joining in and showing her anti-Trump bona fides is a smart play on her. I mean, look, if I was advising her, I'd tell her to have a press conference and announce tomorrow that she's, you know, leaving the Republican Party and becoming an independent.

[00:24:44] But anyway, she's not going to take my advice on that. But yes, doing some stuff like this is probably the right thing to do for them to stand up for city for, you know, our city laws. That's her job. She should be doing it the way our AG, Nick Brown, is standing up for Washington state law and to the Trump administration on stuff. So good for her. It's good politics and it's and it's the right policy play.

[00:25:09] And I mean, the more cynical read of that, I mean, beyond, you know, the fact that she's up for reelection is that we need federal funds as a city for the city to operate. If we lose, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds every year, that's going to be a huge new hole in the in the city's budget that it's going to be really hard to fill with jumpstart funds. Not that the council wouldn't try, but but I think and the mayor.

[00:25:33] But I think that the fundamental here is that we would lose hundreds of millions of dollars and we stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds. So any official with the city of Seattle whose budget depends on those funds would be correct to try to challenge that. You know, I don't know if this is in some deeper way a principled stand on Ann Davidson's part or if she said anything to that effect.

[00:25:55] But, you know, I didn't see anything in the Seattle Times story that indicated, you know, strong support for undocumented immigrants. But, you know, but maybe it's there. But I think the more fundamental reason for the city to oppose this is that we stand to lose so much money. NPI poll says I know Sandeep doesn't like this poll 46 percent, nearly half of Seattle voters already favor a Democratic challenger to city attorney Ann Davidson. Maybe she should just step aside like people encouraged Joe Biden to do.

[00:26:25] And let somebody else run because this is not a Republican town. It's it's just an uphill battle for Republicans. And she's she's not going to win. That's what I say. She won before. She was a Republican then, too. Yeah. I think that we're I think that we're in uncharted territory with the Republican Party compared to four years ago. And I think that, you know, if I was betting on this stuff, I would go with David's prediction over Sandeep's, I don't know, non prediction. I'm not predicting anything here.

[00:26:55] I think it's I think it's a real battle for her because she does. Look, we've only if they run Nicole Thomas Kennedy, if the stranger endorses Nicole Thomas Kennedy again, then I then I give Ann Davidson some pretty good chances. But if they don't, she's in trouble. I would say this, the two at least two serious candidates that have announced against her so far have both staked out pretty strong positions on the left on a whole series of public safety and criminal justice issues.

[00:27:24] And so I think if while they're not as far, I mean, nobody is as far out there as Nicole Thomas Kennedy was in recent Seattle memory. David, I can't believe you invoked her name. You know Sandeep's going to go crazy. Is this a person that Ann Davidson beat? It's the obsession. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Erica Barnett endorsed Nicole Thomas Kennedy, right? All right.

[00:27:51] It's going to be an interesting race, right? Is what you're saying. There you go. We go back to what we were talking about before. I think in that race, too, some of these public safety issues are going to get directly adjudicated. That's well, that's well. This will be maybe it'll be the most interesting race. I guess we'll find out. That's it for another edition of Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde. She's Erica C. Barnett. He's Sandeep Kashuk. Our editor is Quinn Waller. And you, the listeners, thank you. We thank you for listening.

[00:28:20] We thank you for supporting us on Patreon. We thank you for giving us reviews wherever you get your podcasts, especially if those reviews are five star positive reviews. But, you know, negative feedback is always welcome. Just contact us. What's your Gmail? Speak for yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yell at David. All right, everybody. Thanks again. Bye bye.