"Why Did Bruce Harrell Weaken a Bill Designed to Clean Up City Elections?"

Uh... because it benefits him to have a weaker bill, that's why.

Harrell's amendment is very important and the full Council should pass it. We can quibble whether it should be 22 months or15 months or whatever. But only having a 7-month window to fundraise (start Jan 1 and raise until July 31because whatever you have in the bank on July 31 is what governs your early August primary advertising spend) is a HUGE disadvantage to challengers.

O'Brien's version was the Council Incumbent Perpetual Employment Act all dressed up as reform. I'm glad Council, the SEEC, and others saw through it.

David Miller

David, again, the data proves you wrong: The overwhelming majority of challengers don't even file before January 1, while incumbents use that previous year to fundraise. So you've got it backwards, because lengthening the window would help incumbents stay in office. But, like I said, moving the date up to one year before general election seems like a fine compromise.

I'm aware the overwhelming majority of challengers don't start until January 1. One thing I learned when I ran in 2009 is I should have started earlier. One reason challengers fail so often is they don't get out their early enough to start building name familiarity. At the very least, challengers should start July the year prior to their primary year, that way they catch a full year of events side-by-side with their targeted office holder.

The data shown in the article are accurate, but are merely a reflection of flawed conventional wisdom.

Limiting challengers to 7 months of campaign and fundraising before the primary is a terrible, terrible idea.

@4) With all due respect, David, I don't think you lost because you started late. You were beat by someone with sharp ideological contrasts with you about development and transportation. And the guy who beat you is also the guy sponsoring this bill that you dislike so much.

@1 for the Insightful Win.

I didn't say I lost because I started too late. If I had it to do over again, or if I ever decide to run for office again, I would absolutely start earlier.

The fact CM O'Brien sponsored this is irrelevant. I'd have the same disagreement with this legislation regardless of which of the nine CMs sponsored it. This is bad legislation that provides a meaningful advantage to incumbents while sounding like reform.

FWIW, splitting the different between Harrell's amendment and O'Briens original concept -- so a fundraising start date July 1 of the prior year -- is an alternative I would support. January 1 of the same year is unreasonable. July 1 of the prior year works fine for me. I doubt you and I are that far apart on this issue.

Dominic, I have to agree with David... Incumbents will get the big $$$ no matter when they start fundraising. The reality is that challengers need to start running earlier.

@7 & 8) Incumbents will always have an upper hand, but data and politics show it's unrealistic to think that challengers will file--and begin fundraising--22 months before the election. It's just not gonna happen... no matter how much you wish it would. Given that, a 22-month lead simply lets incumbents raise more cash and scare away viable candidates. I'd agree that opening the fundraising gates in November makes sense, as I said in the post, or perhaps the August of the year before, as the Seattle Ethics and Elections commission recommended.

I'd move the date to the day after election day of the previous year, so for instance the first legal day to fundraise for an election in November of 2013 would be November 7th of 2012. A full year of fundraising is plenty. That's 2 extra months more than Mike O'Brien's original plan and much less than the Harrell amendment.

It seems we perhaps need to revisit term limits down at City Hall and elsewhere. These folks seem galvanized in their positions and I don't see that as a good thing.

I also agree with David on this, challengers are behind the game if they start the campaign January 1st of the year they are running. Challengers would benefit from having more momentum. The fact that they don't do it is just bad practice. Endorsements start getting doled out around March, and one of the ways they determine "viability" is looking at money raised. A two or two and a half month window to raise is just not enough for a challenger to gain momentum for "viability". I really wish serious challengers would realize that they need more than a year to really put together a winning campaign. I hope this wakes some people up to planning out their campaigns a little further in advance.

Incumbency is particularly potent if your city council is composed exclusively of at-large positions. It increases the buy-in costs - neighborhood/district/ward-based positions reward networking and alliances, and increase the chance that issues can drive individual campaigns.

http://www.seattlemag.com/article/lifest…

@11 makes a good point. If you can only start fundraising on January 1, it really screws up the endorsement process for a challenger. Since the state and county insist on moving the primary earlier and earlier, the Jan 1 deadline is worse and worse for challengers.

If they really want to help, they should move the declaration date into March. It would help with endorsements and fundraising for challengers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Cit…

If you can trust Wikipedia, Seattle City Council members are the 2nd highest paid municipal representatives in the country. I would argue that this can be fairly spread among a larger body of representatives that conform to formal or informal neighborhood boundaries. I doubt that if would change the ideological spectrum too much (with the exception of Magnolia and Downtown). Still, the nauseating pall of yuppie pragmatism (and the exceedingly low bar that folks like Keith Harrell set) might be challenged by a better form of representation

@10) I think Kate is spot on here.

O'Brien opens with a low number, Harrell counters with a high one. Oh my heavens, what is this, politics? TIp o' the hat to Harrell's proposed legislation limiting how employment applications can seek criminal histories, which did well in committee the other day.

David Miller and other are right, this legislation only helps incumbents.

If the Council really wanted to clean up election and create an opportunity for the actual people who live in Seattle to be heard they would need to support district elections. That's why they supported this so quickly, they get press saying they are addressing the problem when they haven't.

@17) District elections are a great idea, Dorsol, I agree there.

But yet again, the data shows you--and David--are wrong. Can you back up the claim that this would help incumbents? The city's research shows it benefits them.

I would be happy to see this data, and if the data correlates the position I would be happy to change mine.

However, the reality in this city is that most donations come from the same people. These people already tend to lean towards incumbents as demonstrated by the past several city council elections. This is sadly true of even progressive organizations that clearly state in endorsement interviews that they will always side with an incumbent unless they have actively worked against their issue, even if the incumbent has merely just done nothing.

All of that is done because they want their money to go to "legitimate candidates" and the only way to demonstrate you are one is to either A) be in that office or B) have already raised lots of money. So, following these facts, if every candidate has to start in January incumbents start with at least two months of the active campaign season ahead in as "legitimate"

In 2009, I started campaigning in November, that was when I filed for office and began my attempts to raise money. Since then I have watched candidates starting earlier and earlier and still struggle to raise money to become legitimate and then still run themselves into debt. How does shorting the campaign time really put a stop to that? (Technically, there is already one candidate who theoretically is campaigning for 2013 and has been since 2011)

Just using CM O'brien as an example. If he hadn't been able to start fundraising until January he wouldn't have been able to pull off his $10 fundraising plan which took months to pull off. Something you can't wait to do if you have a contested primary.

@18 - The data don't show we're wrong. It only shows what everyone has done in the past. I think both Dorsal and I wish we had started our campaigns earlier. I also think we're both against rolling over funds from the prior campaigns. The issue is when to allow people to start fundraising.

I think a year is about right, which places the start date July 1 of the prior year. If you're not thinking about your run at that point, you are already too late.

Starting Jan 1 leaves you not enough time to raise money ahead of the first endorsement interviews. The 6-7 months is not enough time to raise any serious money ahead of the primary.

If you're a challenger, you almost never get a donation on the first call. It takes meetings and multiple calls. If I can't make my first call until January, then I'm not going to see that check until February or March. An incumbent has an entire network of people that will write a check on the first call.

@20) Here's where we seem to agree: January 1 of the year before the election is too soon, and Harrell is wrong. Moving it forward to July or August--or even November--seems like a fair compromise.

It also means that during the 2013 election cycle when a challenger tries to talk about reforming city elections and government all an incumbent has to say is "we did it, and now we should wait to see if this corrects it before we make more changes"

@17) Dorsol, you said that this legislation, which prohibits rollovers, "only helps incumbents." That seems crazy. How does removing an incumbent's war chest help him or her?

Does it really remove the war chest, since as David pointed out, it just means they have to wait to call?

If that specific part of the legislation bad? No, its a necessary step I fully support, but does it actually address the problem...honestly, I'm not sure, but from where I'm viewing it, no. It gives the incumbents a great talking point and doesn't in the long or short term create better representation for the people of Seattle.

Of course only districting and/or public financing does that; something we all agree should be in place (I'm assuming a little on the financing). Does this legislation create a barrier to actual reform by giving them a shield to say we are already doing that, and if so was removing the war chest advantage worth it?