This week’s Seattle Nice, about the news that Seattle City Councilmember Tammy Morales is stepping down because of what she described as a toxic work environment that has made it impossible for her to pass even the most anodyne legislation, was a pretty wild one.
I’ll be honest: I felt pretty frustrated, because I had to spend so much time responding to a false equivalency, as my two esteemed (but in this case totally incorrect) colleagues insisted that the workplace situation Morales described was no different than what other council members have had to endure from members of the public (in the form of mean public comments and protests) and Kshama Sawant (in the form of lengthy denunciations.)
Sawant is no longer on the council, and her diatribes invariably proceeded votes she lost. Unlike her former colleague, Morales does not use invective or make personal attacks. More importantly, objections from the public to policies being enacted by their elected representatives are not remotely the same as actions by elected officials to bully, gaslight, and undermine a colleague’s ability to do her job, which is how Morales described her untenable situation on the council.
I can’t believe I have to say this again, but: A) the public is allowed to make negative comments and protest the actions of the people who represent them. And B) Morales did not accuse her colleagues of “being mean” or complain about losing 8-1 votes. Instead, she gave specific examples of times when her colleagues have publicly attacked her, questioned her motives, and worked both publicly and behind the scenes to undermine her and make it, according to Morales, impossible for her to do her job.
In short, Morales described a workplace in which she knew she would be on the losing end of controversial votes, like the vote to install CCTV police cameras across the city, but thought she would be able to work with colleagues on some issues, like encouraging small-scale community development with zoning bonuses. Instead, she said, her colleagues picked fights at every opportunity (even yanking many of her budget amendments out of the “consent package” of top council priorities in order to vote them down), and publicly accused her of trying to use her elected position to harm the city.
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When Morales wanted to pull just $500,000 out of the brand-new $10 million police surveillance program to restore some tenant services, for example, Bob Kettle said she had sent him “over the edge,” seething, “It is unconscionable that you created a situation”—crime in Seattle, basically—”and now you want to take out the fix for that situation!”
This is not a normal situation, and I’m not just saying that because, as Sandeep put it, I “like” Morales. I’ve covered the council for a long time (long enough to remember other council members who were often on the losing end of 8-1 votes, including, famously, Nick Licata) and I can’t recall any council with such a toxic dynamic. Certainly, I’ve never seen a council with this many brand-new members who act this convinced that they know more about how to run the city than anyone who came before them, and so publicly dismissive of city experts when they try to explain why things work the way they do. (Two recent cases in point: Rob Saka’s curt dismissal of a Seattle Department of Transportation expert on transportation equity and the council’s recent decision to move tenant assistance programs from the Department of Construction and Inspections, which oversees landlord-tenant enforcement, to the Human Services Department, which has no jurisdiction over rental housing.)
I’ve observed the new council closely over the past 11 months, watching hundreds of hours of meetings, and have seen in real time the public manifestations of what Morales told me about this week—council members losing their temper at her, attacking her in highly personal terms for holding fairly standard progressive positions, and putting Kshama Sawant’s incendiary words in her mouth.
I also listened to what Morales and her staff told me about internal dynamics on the second floor of City Hall and did not think she was “playing the world’s tiniest violin,” as Sandeep put it, but describing the kind of toxic workplace that many people are probably familiar with. Most of us have had jobs that became intolerable, and we’ve left those jobs. As an elected official, Morales is obligated to take this decision more seriously than someone walking out mid-shift at Urban Outfitters, but I believe her when she said she couldn’t do it anymore, and I find her reasons credible and relatable.
Morales is hardly the only city council member who has stepped down before the end of a term. Teresa Mosqueda left after she ran for, and won, a position on the King County Council. Rob Johnson left for a high-paying job with the NHL after public protests over a bike lane made him nervous for his family’s safety. Sally Clark left after she got a better job offer at the University of Washington. Jim Compton left to travel and give lectures in Egypt and Romania. Of those four, only Morales has faced criticism that she is leaving because she couldn’t take the heat.
On the podcast, David suggested that it would be fine for Morales to step down if she’s actually having “serious mental health concerns,” but otherwise she should have stuck it out. We didn’t have time, but I wanted to ask my co-hosts: Why do council members who leave for arguably selfish reasons, like a job with less stress and more pay, not face a similarly high bar for “abandoning” their constituents? Why is Morales, alone among council members who have left before their terms end, supposed to stay and be a martyr?
Morales has said the council is a toxic workplace in ways that have prevented her from doing her job. It’s understandable that the council and the people who supported them, like Sandeep, would be defensive. But I do think they should—as new progressive Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck put it—”take a breath” and consider what it means that they just drove one of their independently elected colleagues not just to quit, but to put out an unusually candid list of her reasons for leaving.
