Seattle Has a New Way to Elect City Council Members

[Alkene]

by Heidi Groover
MAR 18, 2015

Thanks to a city charter amendment voters approved in 2013, we now have a partially districted city council. This means that instead of all nine city council members being elected by people all over the city, just two of them will be elected this way. The other seven will be elected by voters in the area of town where they live. What that means is that you'll get to have a say in picking three of the nine city council members the one who represents the district where you live and the two who represent the whole city.

Districts won support from people fed up with how expensive it was to get elected in this town and how easy it was for candidates and council members to ignore far-flung parts of the city that aren't full of people ready to write big checks to their campaigns. That old mess, district supporters argued, created a city council beholden to wealthy downtown interests. Now every part of the city will have a tribute in city hall—and they might get there with less cash and more old-fashioned door knocking.

Some political types say the new system will offer an easier, cheaper path for grassroots candidates, giving us a more progressive and diverse council. Others say it'll stoke hyperlocal support for neighborhood types, allowing a slate of NIMBY candidates to push the council to the right. And the real cynics say it'll do nothing more than give those same rich power brokers more sway, since they can spend less on each district race and therefore influence more of them.

http://www.thestranger.com/news/feature/2015/03/18/21921708/seattle-has-a-new-way-to-elect-city-council-members

[liberal_at_heart]

1. Seattle has some awesome local politics! It's the right place and time for great

left of center liberal politics in Seattle right now.

[Scootaloo]

2. So why are "Liberals" going after the most liberal member of the council?

http://socialistworker.org/2015/03/17/why-are-they-targeting-sawant

[Alkene]

3. According to the article you linked,

Why are they targeting Sawant?

THE URBAN League is going after the only leftist and the only woman of color on the Seattle City Council. Rather than challenging the pro-corporate advocates of neoliberalism, whether Democrat or Republican, who increasingly dominate U.S. politics, this well-known liberal organization is expending its energy on defeating the left.

...what is likely the Urban League's real problem with Sawant--this is about partisanship. Sawant publicly criticized the Obama administration's broken promises and concessions to the right, so she must be challenged for her defiance--even if that means weakening one of the only examples of progressive political independence in U.S. politics today.

[LittleBlue]

4. My city

Seattle may be a rainy shithole right now but I love our politics

[Alkene]

5. Today was actually quite lovely,

with several minutes of broken clouds.


And I imagine Californians wouldn't mind a bit of ours.

[LittleBlue]

7. It was

A nice break from the clouds. This winter has been hard for us

[ND-Dem]

8. what winter? it was very mild.

[Sherman A1]

6. Interesting

I do believe I like this approach.

[eridani]

9. Yours truly has been "volunteered" to do the online research for all TEN Position 1 candidates

I'll post the results in the WA State forum

[Alkene]

10. I will directly benefit from that research,

Last edited Thu Mar 19, 2015, 01:28 PM - Edit history (1)

in as much as that is my district- Southwest.
Thanks in advance.

Here's the present list of candidates:
http://www2.seattle.gov/ethics/eldata/filings/campaigns.asp?ElCycle=el15a

And a district map with the amount each candidate has raised so far:


I notice that the Southwest district is up to eleven candidates, and the deadline for candidates to declare is not until May 15.
It seems like West Seattleites are looking forward to having some say in the matter.