Tag: Election 2019

City Council, Elections, Morning Crank

Council May Push to Regulate PACs, Which Spent As Much As $18 Per Vote in August Primary
Big spenders: Moms for Seattle’s pro-Murakami push cost $7 per vote.

1. The Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission expressed skepticism yesterday about a long-shot effort by council member and state attorney general candidate Lorena Gonzalez to stem the influence of political action committees on local elections by imposing new contribution limits and disclosure requirements on such groups. Commissioners said they supported the idea of limiting corporate campaign contributions as a policy, but questioned whether it was a good idea for the city to pass a law that would be subject to immediate legal challenge.

“I support the legislation, but I am also incredibly pragmatic [and] I’m not sure I support Seattle paying for this lawsuit,’” SEEC commissioner Eileen Norton said.

Gonzalez’ legislation would prohibit companies with foreign ownership (such as Uber) from contributing to independent expenditure campaigns; cap contributions to PACs at $5,000; and require PACs to maintain detailed, publicly available records about their contributors and how they spent their money. Currently, there are no caps on how much a person, company, or organization can contribute to a PAC, and no requirement that PACs detail where their money is going.

The proponents’ legal theory rests on the hope that the Supreme Court, or an en banc panel of the entire federal Ninth Circuit District Court, will overturn previous rulings (by a D.C. circuit court and a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit, respectively) concluding that local governments do not have the authority to regulate PAC contributions. In the Citizens United ruling, the Supreme Court struck down restrictions on corporate spending on the grounds that corporations have the same rights to free “speech” as individual citizens.

“I’m not a betting woman, but I think I would be willing to bet my mortgage on [a lawsuit].”—Seattle Ethics and Election commissioner Eileen Norton.

Predictably, corporate spending ballooned across the nation, including in local races like Seattle’s mayoral and council elections. PAC spending on this year’s seven city council races has already outpaced total independent spending in the 2015 election, when all nine council seats were up for grabs; in every case, the candidate supported by corporate or (in one case) labor spending made it through to the general election.

The contribution limit would be the most significant shift, and the one most open to legal challenge. This year, for example Amazon contributed $250,000 to the Seattle Metro Chamber’s PAC, while Bellevue charter-school proponent Katherine Binder poured $25,000 into Moms for Seattle, a group that targeted liberal incumbents with Photoshopped images of playgrounds taken over by homeless encampments, graffiti, and trash. And UNITE HERE Local 8, a New York City-based union, spent $150,000 on TV ads promoting Andrew Lewis in District 7.

Support The C Is for Crank
Sorry to interrupt your reading, but THIS IS IMPORTANT. The C Is for Crank is a one-person operation, supported entirely—and I mean entirely— by generous contributions from readers like you. If you enjoy the breaking news, commentary, and deep dives on issues that matter to you, please support this work by donating a few bucks a month to keep this reader-supported site going. I can’t do this work without support from readers like you. Your $5, $10, and $20 monthly donations allow me to do this work as my full-time job, so please become a sustaining supporter now. If you don’t wish to become a monthly contributor, you can always make a one-time donation via PayPal, Venmo (Erica-Barnett-7) or by mailing your contribution to P.O. Box 14328, Seattle, WA 98104. Thank you for keeping The C Is for Crank going and growing. I’m truly grateful for your support.

John Bonifaz, an attorney with the group Free Speech for People who helped draft the legislation, said yesterday that Long Beach, FL is the only other US city that has passed similar regulations. So far, that law has not been subject to legal challenge. In Seattle, there is little doubt that someone will sue to stop Gonzalez’ proposal from taking effect. “I’m not a betting woman, but I think I would be willing to bet my mortgage on that one,” Norton, the SEEC commissioner, said.

2. Speaking of unfettered campaign spending, here’s a quick-and-dirty look at how much this year’s three most active (and largest) campaign PACs—Moms for Seattle, People for Seattle, and the Chamber’s Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy—spent promoting their candidates (or tearing down their opponents) on a dollars-per-vote basis. These numbers are rough (and probably a little on the low side) because these PACs chose not to itemize many of their expenditures, and because more expenditures will show up on future reports as the campaigns pay off rolling debts. (In lieu of an exact breakdown, I’ve divided the total amount of non-itemized expenditures by these groups and added it to their itemized expenditures on specific candidates, except in the case of Moms, whose record-keeping is almost completely opaque.) Despite those caveats, the numbers are a way of measuring how much these groups are willing to spend to influence your vote. Continue reading “Council May Push to Regulate PACs, Which Spent As Much As $18 Per Vote in August Primary” →

City Council, Elections, Politics

PAC Spending Pays Off, Sawant’s In Trouble, and Other Lessons from Election Night
Yes, those are District 3 campaign mailers I received this year. No, that is not even all of them.

Seattle voters sent mixed messages in Tuesday’s primary election, backing many of the candidates who were supported by hundreds of thousands of dollars in independent spending by two conservative-leaning PACs while sending three incumbent city council members to the general election at the top of their respective packs, although some of those incumbents will face a tougher road than others.

Lightning rod city council member Kshama Sawant got less than a third of the vote in her reelection bid in District 3, leading second runner-up Egan Orion by just nine points (33 to 24) in a six-person race. Orion benefited from an incendiary anti-Sawant campaign funded by People for Seattle, the PAC started by her former council colleague Tim Burgess, as well as independent spending by the conservative Moms for Seattle PAC and the Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy, the political arm of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

In District 5, incumbent Debora Juarez was doing a bit better than Sawant, with 42 points to challenger Ann Davison Sattler’s 28 percent in a six-way race. (Sattler, whose campaign has been promoted heavily by the online group Safe Seattle, did not get the support of any PAC.) And in District 1 (West Seattle), incumbent Lisa Herbold got 48 percent in a three-way race, besting challenger Phil Tavel, who was supported by People for Seattle, Moms, and CASE but barely topped 33 percent of the vote.

In District 2, Tammy Morales (45 percent) and Mark Solomon (25 percent) will advance to the general; in District 4, Alex Pedersen (45 percent) and Shaun Scott (19 percent) will move forward; in District 6, Dan Strauss (31 percent) and Heidi Wills (23 percent) will advance; and in District 7, the winners are Andrew Lewis (29 percent) and Jim Pugel (24 percent).

So what should we make of these results? A few early takeaways:

1) PAC money (maybe) matters; democracy vouchers (maybe) don’t.

A lot has been made of the fact that Seattle voters now have the ability to direct public funds to the candidate or candidates of their choice, through property-tax-funded system called democracy vouchers. (Yes, that’s a link to my own story). The idea was that by giving every Seattle voter $100 to spend as they want in the primary and general elections, democracy vouchers would help temper the influence of corporate money in local politics.

But in every race but two (more on those in a moment), upstart conservative PACs—with a heavy assist from legacy groups like CASE—managed to push relatively obscure candidates through to the general election by spending huge amounts of money on campaigns targeting incumbents or presumptive frontrunners like Tammy Morales. In nearly every election where People for Seattle and Moms for Seattle bombarded voters with negative ads and mailers, their candidate moved through to the general election.

Overall, PACs have reported spending more than $875,000 in the primary election alone, a number that is likely to rise as late reports come in. That number is larger than the total amount of independent expenditures on all nine primary and general city council elections in 2015.

Moms for Seattle spent about $33,000 in each of four target districts, bombarding voters with oversized mailers featuring heavily Photoshopped images on one side and the group’s endorsed candidates on the other. Given that two of their candidates (Michael George in the 7th and Pat Murakami in the 3rd) didn’t make it out of the primary, tonight was a mixed result that probably didn’t justify an outlay of more than $130,000.

People for Seattle, a PAC started by former city council member Tim Burgess, seems to have been more effective. In almost every case, the candidates People for Seattle supported were also backed by the Chamber’s Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy PAC, providing a double punch of conventional campaign materials bolstered by negative, and in many cases inaccurate or misleading, mail.

In District 1, Herbold challenger Tavel—who got 18 percent of the vote against Herbold in 2015 despite being endorsed by the Seattle Times—benefited from nearly $34,000 in spending from People for Seattle, more than half of that targeting Herbold. (CASE threw in another $102,000).

In District 2,  sleeper candidate Solomon—a civilian employee of the Seattle Police Department with no prior involvement in local elections—benefited from $23,000 from People for Seattle, including $2,700 in negative mailers targeting Morales (whose name the group’s reports consistently and inexplicably misspell “Moralas.”) CASE spent another $88,000 on Solomon.

In District 3, People for Seattle spent $12,500 against Sawant, $12,500 targeting a Sawant challenger, Zach DeWolf, and another $15,000 supporting Orion. (CASE spent another $122,000 on Orion, and $12,000 against Sawant)

In District 4, the PAC spent $19,000 backing Pedersen, who happens to be Burgess’ former council aide, and $11,000 targeting Emily Myers, a UW doctoral student who had labor backing and came in fourth. (Pedersen got a $13,000 boost from CASE).

Support The C Is for Crank
Sorry to interrupt your reading, but THIS IS IMPORTANT. The C Is for Crank is a one-person operation, supported entirely—and I mean entirely— by generous contributions from readers like you. If you enjoy the breaking news, commentary, and deep dives on issues that matter to you, please support this work by donating a few bucks a month to keep this reader-supported site going. I can’t do this work without support from readers like you. Your $5, $10, and $20 monthly donations allow me to do this work as my full-time job, so please become a sustaining supporter now. If you don’t wish to become a monthly contributor, you can always make a one-time donation via PayPal, Venmo (Erica-Barnett-7) or by mailing your contribution to P.O. Box 14328, Seattle, WA 98104. Thank you for keeping The C Is for Crank going and growing. I’m truly grateful for your support.

People for Seattle stayed out of Districts 5, where they endorsed Juarez, and 6 and 7, where three of their non-endorsed but recommended candidates, Heidi Wills in District 6 and Jim Pugel and Andrew Lewis in District 7, came through. CASE spent $6,900 on Juarez, $6,600 on Wills, $6,600 on Jay Fathi, $12,000 on Michael George (D7), and $6,000 on Pugel.

Other notable expenditures from legacy PACs include $148,000 from UNITE HERE 8, the New York City-based labor union, supporting Andrew Lewis.

Overall, PACs have reported spending more than $875,000 in the primary election alone, a number that is likely to rise as late reports come in. That number is larger than the total amount of independent expenditures on all nine primary and general city council elections in 2015. Continue reading “PAC Spending Pays Off, Sawant’s In Trouble, and Other Lessons from Election Night” →

City Council, Elections, Politics

Half the “Moms for Seattle” Don’t Vote in Local Elections. But You Should!
via King County Elections.

Moms for Seattle—a brand-new election PAC whose biggest contributors are a Bellevue charter-school advocate and the wives of local multi-millionaires such as Forbes-lister Tom Pigott, telecom mogul John McCaw, and former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz—continues to portray itself as just a small group of concerned local moms, telling KUOW last week that they decided to form a PAC after talking on the phone and realizing how frustrated they were with the current state of the city council. They “thought this was the best way for us to actually make a difference,” one of the Moms told KUOW.

So let’s take them, for a moment, at their word—Moms for Seattle, a PAC that raised more than $25,000 in a single day when it launched, is just a group of four politically inexperienced moms who wanted to make a difference in their city. (Since then, Moms for Seattle has raised more than $200,000, including about $10,000—almost 90 percent of it from men and people who live outside city limits—in the last few days.) How engaged have the four Moms been in local politics over the years, not counting their recent campaign contributions?

KUOW mentioned that most of the Moms haven’t given much money to local campaigns, which isn’t that unusual in itself—very few people, relatively speaking, do. What the radio station didn’t mention is whether they’ve shown their interest in local elections in the past by doing the bare minimum of voting in them, particularly in the council elections that would presumably be of greatest interest to people concerned about the state of the city council.

So here’s a look at the voting records of the four women who serve as the public face of the Moms for Seattle organization, obtained through the Washington Secretary of State’s voter database.

Celeste Garcia Ramburg and Betsy Losh have voted in most recent elections, including recent city council and mayoral primaries.

Before this year, Laura McMahon has voted just five times since 2004, a period that included seven primary and seven general city council elections as well as three special elections on local measures (and, of course, state and federal primary and general elections, as well as special elections, in even years). She skipped every Seattle election those except the general election in 2017. This year marks the first time she’s ever voted in a local primary election.

And finally, Jeannine Christofilis has also rarely voted, casting ballots in just six elections since 2008. Until now, she has only voted in a single local election—the general election in 2015.

The final tally: Half of the four women who say they formed Moms for Seattle because they’re concerned about local politics vote regularly, but the other two have never voted in a Seattle primary election, and have each voted in exactly one local election before this year. According to KUOW, the group believes that “the most effective way to reach [their electoral] goal would be to form a PAC and endorse the candidates they liked across the city.” The rest of us will have to reach our own electoral goals the old-fashioned way: By actually showing up and voting.

Other big-money PACs that are trying to influence this year’s council elections through independent expenditures—digital and print ad campaigns, mailers, and phone calls—include the Seattle Chamber of Commerce’s PAC, Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy (over $800,000 as of July 31); People for Seattle, the PAC formed by former council member Tim Burgess, which sent out mailers attacking two of his former council colleagues (more than $300,000 as of yesterday); and the labor PAC Unite Here Local 8 (about $158,000 as of July 31).

Ballots must be postmarked by today, August 6, or dropped in a ballot drop box by 8pm tonight. 

City Council, Elections

Election Crank: Facebook Rules Catch Up With Moms For Seattle; Burgess’ Left-Baiting Rhetoric as Subtle as a Hammer and Sickle

1. It’s the final week before ballots are due for the August 6 primary election,  so here’s a quick roundup of election money news, starting with the latest on the new PAC Moms for Seattle, which is funded largely by self-identified “homemakers” and retired women who happen to be married to rich and powerful men like telecom mogul John McCaw, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, and tech entrepreneur Tom Pigott, a member of one of the richest families in the country. (Robert Getch did a bunch of digging on Moms’ backers over the weekend and posted his findings on Twitter.)

For weeks, the group had been posting political ads on Facebook promoting their preferred candidates, including Phil Tavel in District 1, Pat Murakami in District 3, Alex Pedersen in District 4, and Heidi Wills in District 6. As of Monday, however, their ads appeared to have vanished. Facebook officially bans political advertising in Washington State, but this ban is still fairly theoretical—the ads, which are transparently political, ran for weeks despite efforts by advocates to have them taken down. According to one person who reported the ads, Facebook removed the ad because it violated their ad policies. (Screen shot here). I reached out to Moms for Seattle to find out whether all of their ads have been removed for violating Facebook’s ban on political advertising and will update this post if I hear back.

2. NEW: Moms for Seattle’s first primary-election mailer landed in mailboxes across Seattle Monday. Featuring a photo of an empty swing set against a graffiti-covered wall in a playground occupied only by a large pile of trash, bikes, and shopping parts and a tent, the mailer reads, “This isn’t how people should be living or where children should be playing… All of Seattle’s residents deserve better.” The only problem: The image isn’t real. Moms for Seattle apparently couldn’t find an actual playground overrun by tents, so they had to manufacture one. Here’s the mailer, along with the stock photos Moms for Seattle used to make Seattle look like a place where kids can no longer play in parks because of all the homeless people squatting there:

Hey, if you have to fabricate a scene to illustrate your point that Seattle Is Dying™, maybe it isn’t?

Support The C Is for Crank
Sorry to interrupt your reading, but THIS IS IMPORTANT. The C Is for Crank is a one-person operation, supported entirely—and I mean entirely— by generous contributions from readers like you. If you enjoy the breaking news, commentary, and deep dives on issues that matter to you, please support this work by donating a few bucks a month to keep this reader-supported site going. I can’t do this work without support from readers like you. Your $5, $10, and $20 monthly donations allow me to do this work as my full-time job, so please become a sustaining supporter now. If you don’t wish to become a monthly contributor, you can always make a one-time donation via PayPal, Venmo (Erica-Barnett-7) or by mailing your contribution to P.O. Box 14328, Seattle, WA 98104. Thank you for keeping The C Is for Crank going and growing. I’m truly grateful for your support.

3. People for Seattle, the “pragmatic, progressive” PAC created by former city council member Tim Burgess, is attempting to prop up Burgess’ former aide, Alex Pedersen, with a misleading mailer saying that Pedersen’s labor-backed opponent, Emily Myers, is the same as socialist city council member Kshama Sawant. (The messaging is as subtle as a hammer and sickle: A photo of Myers, and one of Sawant, connected by an “equals” sign. An earlier mailer, describing Sawant challenger Zachary DeWolf in similar terms, had a different equation: {Dewolf + Sawant = More of the Same City Council Dysfunction.”)

“If you like extremist Kshama Sawant, then you’ll love Emily Myers,” the flyer blares, over the same image of tents that has been used in mailers smearing District 1 incumbent Lisa Herbold (like Sawant, a former Burgess colleague) and DeWolf. The mailer’s flip side calls Myers “too extreme for Seattle” and (in case you didn’t get the message) calls a vote against Myers a vote against “city council extremism.”

Myers, a grad student at the University of Washington who is backed by big labor contributions, is hardly an “extremist” (she advocates for liberalizing the city’s exclusionary zoning laws, rent stabilization, and “dignified shelter”), but it’s clear that Burgess and his financial backers (who include many of the same wealthy families backing Moms) see her as more of a threat than the actual Sawant-affiliated socialist, Shaun Scott, who is running for the same seat.

4. Myers supporters may be preparing to fight back, though—on Monday, the Service Employees International Union Political Education and Action Fund—the national political arm of the powerful health care workers’ union—transferred $350,000 into the account of the local SEIU campaign fund. A spokesman for SEIU wouldn’t say how the group plans to spend the money, but getting Myers through the primary is one of their 2019 priorities—so far this year, they’ve made modest spends on Myers, Tammy Morales (D2) Herbold, DeWolf, Jay Fathi (D6), and have contributed $10,000 each to two new progressive PACs, Civic Alliance for a Progressive Economy (whose biggest financial backer is billionaire think tank founder Nick Hanauer) and Working People for an Affordable Seattle, whose funding comes, so far, from SEIU and UFCW 21, the grocery workers’ union.

“If you like extremist Kshama Sawant, then you’ll love Emily Myers,” the flyer blares, over the same image of tents that has been used in mailers smearing District 1 incumbent Lisa Herbold (like Sawant, a former Burgess colleague) and DeWolf.

5. Back to Burgess for a moment. His PAC didn’t stop at targeting his former colleague Herbold just once. They sent out a second mailing—complete with an ominous black-and-white photo with Herbold’s nose ring front and center—claiming that not only did Herbold “drea[m] up the job-killing head tax” (which would—though the mailer doesn’t mention this—have only targeted very large businesses), she “blamed the public” for failing to understand what it would do. “Vote “No” On Lisa Herbold” the mailer urges. In reality, the head tax passed unanimously, with full buy-in from Mayor Jenny Durkan, before a massive campaign funded by large businesses like Amazon, Starbucks and Vulcan turned public opinion against the council. Ultimately, Herbold voted for the repeal, making this latest mailing from Burgess’ group an especially dishonest distortion of council history.

The heightened rhetoric is being echoed inside Herbold’s district. Yesterday, this graffiti showed up on Delridge Way SW, just south of the West Seattle Bridge. It’s ironic  that an ex-council member who frequently bemoans the lack of “civility” in Seattle politics may be largely responsible for one of the nastiest local campaign seasons in memory.

City Council, Elections, homelessness, human services, Mayor Durkan, Morning Crank, Politics

Morning Crank Part 2: Homelessness Division Loses Another Key Player; Burgess Can’t Quit the Council

1. As I mentioned on Twitter last week, Navigation Team outreach leader Jackie St. Louis announced his resignation last month and his last day was last Friday. St. Louis did not return my calls asking about his decision to leave the city back in June, but he had recently been reassigned to a new position as “manager of unsheltered crisis response” in the Homelessness Strategy and Outreach division—a reassignment that could be interpreted as a demotion. Tiffany Washington, the erstwhile director of the homelessness division, also quit recently to become deputy director of the city’s Department of Education and Early Learning.

“So, this is where this part of my story ends. Not how I would have intended it to. Not how I would have envisioned it, but I accept that this is the way that it is supposed to be. Because a good name is worth more than any earthly reward, and integrity should never be entrusted to those who it is a stranger to.” – Former Navigation Team leader Jackie St. Louis, whose last day was last Friday

St. Louis told homeless service providers about his departure in a brief email. It read: “I wanted to take the time to thank you for your partnership over the years under what have been trying circumstances. I also want to wish you well and offer well wishes as you forge ahead with your respective missions. Though differing, they all help to try and create a better community for all those who call it home. Today will be my last day at the city.”

His departure letter to colleagues was significantly more dramatic. “To live is to wage war: war with the external forces that threaten our existence but even more so the war we wage with our own selves,” it began. “They tell us that history is told from the perspective of those who survive to recount that which has transpired. I challenge that assertion, because amongst us live and toil those who bear the scars of battles long since waged.

“It is not those who survive who tell those stories as much as it is those who still retain the desire of sharing the morbid details of things which they have most likely experienced as an observer. …

“The jury is still out on whether my ‘work’ here resulted in any significant impact for those whom it was intended. Yet, I am certain of the fact that I have been deeply impacted by your word and deeds. They have moved me toward being a better, more humble, more courageous, and resilient version of myself. …

“So, this is where this part of my story ends. Not how I would have intended it to. Not how I would have envisioned it, but I accept that this is the way that it is supposed to be. Because a good name is worth more than any earthly reward, and integrity should never be entrusted to those who it is a stranger to.”

St. Louis concluded by thanking a long list of colleagues. They did not, notably, include either Washington or Johnson.

Support The C Is for Crank
Sorry to interrupt your reading, but THIS IS IMPORTANT. The C Is for Crank is a one-person operation, supported entirely—and I mean entirely— by generous contributions from readers like you. If you enjoy the breaking news, commentary, and deep dives on issues that matter to you, please support this work by donating a few bucks a month to keep this reader-supported site going. I can’t do this work without support from readers like you. Your $5, $10, and $20 monthly donations allow me to do this work as my full-time job, so please become a sustaining supporter now. If you don’t wish to become a monthly contributor, you can always make a one-time donation via PayPal, Venmo (Erica-Barnett-7) or by mailing your contribution to P.O. Box 14328, Seattle, WA 98104. Thank you for keeping The C Is for Crank going and growing. I’m truly grateful for your support.

2. The Navigation Team also came up in a recent mailer from former mayor Tim Burgess’ PAC targeting city council incumbent (and Burgess’ former colleague) Lisa Herbold, who is running for reelection. In the mailer, Burgess’ group, People for Seattle, accuses Herbold of “vot[ing] to cut funding for the Navigation Teams tasked with reducing homeless camps.” This is inaccurate—as I reported at the time, although Herbold joined other council members in seeking a smaller permanent increase in the size of the team than Durkan initially requested, they ultimately gave the mayor everything she wanted, finding funds to marginally increase human service provider pay while preserve the increase in funding Durkan requested.

Burgess, who retired in 2017, has remained unusually active for a former elected official. Burgess’ PAC, which has raised more than a quarter-million dollars, has also sent out mailers accusing Kshama Sawant challenger Zach DeWolf of offering “more of the same” in an effort to boost Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce-endorsed candidate Egan Orion through the primary. This week, Burgess also sent an email to council members admonishing them directly for defying Durkan with their vote to create a dedicated fund for the soda tax, providing the language of the original bill establishing the soda tax, and suggesting four things the council “could have” done instead of creating the dedicated fund.

Burgess’ attempts to influence not only council votes, but the makeup of the council itself, have prompted some on the council to joke that he should probably just run for council again.

City Council, Development, Elections, Historic Preservation, Morning Crank

Afternoon Crank: Showbox Landmarked, “Freelance Bill of Rights” Booster Uses Freelance Labor

1. The Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board voted unanimously last night to designate the downtown Showbox building a historical landmark, after dozens of speakers spoke in favor of the move using the usual combination of hyperbole (one speaker compared the two-story building on First Avenue to “the manger where Jesus was born), cheeseball sincerity (the crowd sang backup while singer Mark Taylor-Canfield went way over time with his “Save the Showbox” song), and insistence that the building, which has been heavily altered throughout its history, is an “irreplaceable” cathedral of music along the lines of the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville or Carnegie Hall.

Jack McCullough, the attorney for the Showbox building owners, argued during his presentation opposing the landmark nomination that the “history” that “Save the Showbox” proponents want to preserve took place in very recent history, during the late ’90s, rather than in the preceding 60 years, when the building was heavily altered and frequently shuttered. “If we were sitting here 20 years ago would we be having this conversation?” McCullough asked rhetorically. “The building had been a pastiche of other things for the past 60 years. … Really, what we’re talking about here is what has occurred in this reconstructed building in the last 20 years.”

The vote was a foregone conclusion—one board member, Russell Comey, showed up with a poem he’d written that began “Showbox forever” and bowed to the applauding audience after the vote—but the future of the Showbox building is not.

Although many of the (unanimously pro-landmarking) public commenters made a point to mention Duke Ellington’s stint there during the segregated 1940s (according to the Seattle Daily Times archives, Ellington played at several other clubs in town during that decade, including the Civic Ice Arena and the Palomar), many of the speakers also inadvertently proved McCullough’s point, by name-dropping bands that played there during the grunge era, like Soundgarden and Nirvana. “That thing you’re feeling is a combination of hopes and dreams, milestones and history,” one commenter told the landmark board. “It’s impossible to replicate these kinds of spaces.”

The vote was a foregone conclusion—one board member, Russell Comey, showed up with a poem he’d written that began “Showbox forever” and bowed to the applauding audience after the vote—but the future of the Showbox building is not. As I reported  last month, the owners of the building (who originally planned to build apartments on the property, which the city recently rezoned for that explicit purpose) have terminated Showbox operator AEG Presents’  lease when it ends at the beginning of 2024,  and recently won a major victory in their lawsuit challenging legislation that put the Showbox building inside the Pike Place Market Historical District, severely restricting its future use. Landmarking places controls on the building, but not on its use; a landmarked building can still be torn down or used for a different purpose. To “Save the Showbox,” at this point, will likely require a group to raise tens of millions of dollars to purchase the land from its owner, who has valued the property at around $40 million. Historic Seattle, which has expressed an interest in buying the property, has not yet indicated how or whether it plans to raise that kind of money.

Support The C Is for Crank
Sorry to interrupt your reading, but THIS IS IMPORTANT. The C Is for Crank is a one-person operation, supported entirely—and I mean entirely— by generous contributions from readers like you. If you enjoy the breaking news, commentary, and deep dives on issues that matter to you, please support this work by donating a few bucks a month to keep this reader-supported site going. I can’t do this work without support from readers like you. Your $5, $10, and $20 monthly donations allow me to do this work as my full-time job, so please become a sustaining supporter now. If you don’t wish to become a monthly contributor, you can always make a one-time donation via PayPal, Venmo (Erica-Barnett-7) or by mailing your contribution to P.O. Box 14328, Seattle, WA 98104. Thank you for keeping The C Is for Crank going and growing. I’m truly grateful for your support.

2. Shaun Scott, a Democratic Socialists of America member running for city council in District 4 (Northeast Seattle), has proposed a “freelancers’ bill of rights” that would guarantee  new rights to independent contractors and gig workers, including a written employment contract, pay within 30 days, portable benefits, and a ban on non-compete clauses guaranteeing that they won’t work for a competitor within the same market. “Gig economy workers deserve the same rights as unionized employees and laborers in traditional fields,” Scott said in the announcement.  In addition to the issues that would be addressed by the “bill of rights,” freelancers also pay both employer and employee taxes, usually pay for health care out-of-pocket, and don’t have access to unemployment benefits or L&I compensation. (Full disclosure: As a freelancer, I know all of this from experience.)

It was somewhat surprising, then, to learn that instead of hiring his campaign staffers on a permanent basis and offering them all those benefits, Scott himself is using independent contractors for much of his campaign work. Scott says his staff are all paid “at least $16 an hour” and are currently “in the middle of unionizing, having just submitted their letter of recognition asking me to recognize their bargaining unit in affiliation with the Campaign Workers Guild.”

It was somewhat surprising, then, to learn that instead of hiring his campaign staffers on a permanent basis , Scott himself is using independent contractors for much of his campaign work. Scott says his staff are all paid “at least $16 an hour” and are currently “in the middle of unionizing, having just submitted their letter of recognition asking me to recognize their bargaining unit in affiliation with the Campaign Workers Guild.” (The election is on August 6.)

Scott says that all his campaign staffers are paid “at least $16 an hour,” that the two full-time campaign workers have vacation benefits, and that “everyone is eligible for transit and data reimbursements that will hopefully become even more robust after demands are presented and we agree on a contract.” Scott’s campaign finance reports only show one expenditure on transit (a $10 Sound Transit light-rail ticket), and none for data reimbursement or cell phone costs. They do include more than $2,200 spent on Lyft.

“Campaign work can be just as grueling and uncertain as freelance work in the arts, tech, and journalism,” Scott says. “If progressive campaigns can’t support their own workers, they will be in no position to truly advocate for the broader labor community.”