It’s been nearly six months since most members the new city council took office (the exception, Tanya Woo, was appointed on January 23), and so far, they haven’t proposed or adopted a single substantive piece of policy legislation—or even managed to overturn any of the laws they criticized the previous council for passing.
Despite coming in with what some of them described as a mandate to make swift, dramatic changes, the new council has spent huge amounts of its public meeting time getting briefed on what various city departments and offices do—homework they arguably could be doing on their own time, or have done in the two months between last year’s election and their inaugurations.
Even the legislation council members have proposed, or are in the process of developing, is focused on reversing previous policies, rather than constructively creating new ones. Reversing a brand-new minimum wage for “gig” delivery workers, rolling back renter protections, bringing back loitering laws and laws that prohibit people arrested for drug offenses from being in certain areas of the city, like downtown—these are all ways of saying “no” to laws and policies adopted in very recent times—a purely negative agenda. And in any case, most of these ideas are still in the discussion phases—the only one that’s made it in to legislation, Sara Nelson’s proposal to reduce delivery workers’ minimum wage, has stalled.
So what’s going on with this new council, and is it fair to expect first-time council members to propose original legislation by this point in their terms? In preparation for the podcast, I looked back at the most recent pre-COVID election in which all seven districted council seats were on the ballot, 2015. (The council elected in 2019 had just over two months on the job before COVID hit, making 2016 the last “normal” first year for a new set of district council members).
The council elected in 2015 had five rookie members. By around this time the following year, that council had proposed, considered, or passed legislation barring landlords from raising the rent on apartments with maintenance violations; requiring landlords to rent to the first qualified person who applies for a unit; limited deposits on commercial leases; limiting security deposits and move-in fees, expanded access to the city’s Utility Discount Program, and banned “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ youth, among other legislation.
Even the new 2020 council (with four rookie members) passed substantial legislation during and after the COVID pandemic hit the city in mid-March, including a ban on independent expenditure contributions from companies partly owned by foreign investors; legislation expanding the maximum number of tiny house village shelters in Seattle; the JumpStart payroll tax on big businesses (which has provided hundreds of millions of dollars for affordable housing and other priorities every year since); legislation repealing laws against “drug loitering” and “prostitution loitering”; and a law (which the police have failed to follow) barring cops from questioning children until they’ve spoken to an attorney. That’s on top of all the local COVID relief laws the 2020 council began passing in March of that year.
Sandeep and I are usually on opposite sides when it comes to the current council, but even he acknowledged that this council has not been particularly productive, although he suggests that the mayor, not the council, may be to blame. We discussed this theory, along with how well Council President Nelson has stuck to her vow to use her “supermajority” to bring “big changes” to city hall, on this week’s episode.