It was pretty clear from the beginning that city council candidate Morgan Beach wasn't going to win her race in District 3. As a young newcomer to the city, Beach represents plenty of voters in the district (which covers Capitol Hill and the Central District), but she was up against two powerhouses: socialist incumbent Kshama Sawant and chosen anti-Sawant candidate, Pamela Banks. It wasn't even close.

But that didn't stop Beach from developing an impressively substantial platform on her key issue: gender pay equity. Now, some candidates who are still in the running are picking up her ideas and adding them to their platforms.

Back in May, I wrote this in a story about council incumbent Jean Godden:

Meanwhile, Morgan Beach, a member of the Seattle Women's Commission and first-time candidate for a different city council district than Godden, is lapping the veteran council member with specifics. Beach is campaigning on expanding the new parental leave policy to 12 weeks and pitching three other ideas: a city fund to help small businesses offer parental leave, allowing child-care centers in residential areas, and creating a program similar to one in Boston, where some private companies anonymously provide data about how much their employees are paid broken down by gender and other factors.

"You'll never hear me say she's not doing anything," Beach says of Godden, "because she's bringing it up and focusing on these things and that keeps it top of mind for people. That said, I want to be more bold and go further."

Indeed, throughout the campaign, Godden was bringing up her passion for gender pay equity at every opportunity, but doing little in terms of introducing new ideas. As political consultant John Wyble told me the day after last month's primary election, "It wouldn't have taken much—just a couple little new ideas—and she might have gotten there. There was no new idea in that campaign."

Unfortunately for those of us who care about this issue, Beach wasn't running against Godden. Fortunately, one of the candidates who was running against Godden has now picked up Beach's ideas and added them to his platform.

Michael Maddux is one of two candidates who knocked Godden out of the running in the primary election. (Transportation advocate Rob Johnson is the other.) Now, with Beach's help, Maddux has added a slate of pay equity ideas to his campaign website:

• Expand paid parental leave for city employees from four weeks to 12: Beach called for this during her campaign. (Eventually, Sawant brought it up too.) Parental leave helps women—who are still more likely than men to work less in order to care for children—return to work after having a baby, which makes them more likely to end up in the high-paying top jobs traditionally dominated by men. It's common knowledge that four weeks isn't really enough, but we were basically told when the policy was introduced in February that it was the best the city could do for now.

• Give private sector employees paid parental leave, too, through a "parental leave insurance program": Beach pitched a program to offer financial assistance to small businesses that want to offer paid leave. Maddux's idea is to use either an employee hours tax or an opt-in fee to fund paid leave in the private sector. This would operate similarly to other taxes, like unemployment insurance, in which employers and/or employees pay into a program employees can access later. Three states already have similar programs. Washington lawmakers passed one back in 2007, but never created a way to fund it.

According to Maddux's "back of napkin math" using estimates of birth and adoption rates in Seattle, he estimates a city program could be created at a cost of between $4 and $13 a month per employee, depending on how many people used it.

One other thing: If you check out this New York Times rundown of the economic benefits of paid leave, you'll see data showing that California's paid leave program increased access to leave most dramatically for high school graduates and black mothers. In a nation where the wage gap is particularly bad for women of color, finding a way to offer paid leave to people who don't work in city government is a big fucking deal.

• Offer on-site childcare at City Hall: This would likely be paid for by employees, but Maddux doesn't have an estimate for the cost. He says it would be cheaper than private childcare because overhead costs, like rent, are already being paid.

Maddux says he's heard Godden may already be working on this idea as one final hurrah before her replacement takes office in January. But Godden's office hasn't returned my request for more information.

• Recruit more women to traditionally male-dominated city jobs: Three of the city's largest departments—police, fire, and City Light—are also the three in which men are more likely to fill higher paying positions. Maddux says the city should more actively recruit women, people of color, and LGBTQ people.

Calling on the city to do more active recruiting is a bit of a snooze, but one of the ways to do that could actually be huge. When the city is hiring police officers, applicants with military experience are currently given so-called "preference points." Maddux supports giving those points to people with Peace Corps experience too.

Anne Levinson, the auditor who oversees the Seattle Police Department's Office of Professional Accountability, has been calling for this for a while. In a 2013 report, she wrote that the city "should adopt preference points in hiring for candidates who are multilingual or have work experience reflective of the types of skills needed in policing today, such as social workers, mental health or domestic violence counselors, Peace Corps, AmeriCorps or other verified equivalent work experience or community service." That, Levinson wrote, was a chance at "potentially addressing any gender impact related to Veterans Preference Points."

• Review pay equity on city projects asking for street vacations and tax breaks: Maddux says the city already has some ways of checking for pay equity on city contracts through its priority hire laws and other requirements. He wants to get pay equity information from any company asking for a street vacation or applying for the city's multifamily tax exemption program (MFTE).

Street vacations happen when the city council determines that handing over public right-of-way for private use is "in the public interest." The MFTE is a type of tax break for developers who make improvements to multifamily projects, like apartment buildings, and set aside some units as affordable.

So, what Maddux is saying here is that the city should take every chance it has to check on gender pay equity at the private companies it's helping out. If they don't want to hand over the information, Maddux says "I don't see any reason the city would want to grant an alley or street vacation."

Beach says she has also met with citywide candidate Jon Grant, who is challenging Council President Tim Burgess, to help him develop a pay equity plan. (On election night, Grant told me he was planning to work with Beach to add pay equity ideas to his campaign platform. No sign of them online yet, but he says they're coming "very soon.") Beach says citywide candidate Bill Bradburd has also asked for help developing a plan and she's meeting with District 1 candidate Shannon Braddock next week.

"Frankly, I haven't endorsed anybody who is still running in any race," Beach says in an e-mail, "and so I will happily sit down with anyone who asks me!"

Regardless of how small Beach's share of the primary vote was, this is great news. Even though this election could give us the first woman-majority council in a long time, Godden has shown us that just having a feminist on the council doesn't mean we'll see new ideas on this front. In other words, every campaign could benefit from sitting down with Beach. (Or, for that matter, with Halei Watkins or Mercedes Elizalde, both of whom ran in North Seattle's District 5 and talked about gender equity during the campaign.)

One more thing: Speaking of women's issues issues that affect every single one of us, want to hear more about where all 18 candidates left in the running for city council stand on these questions? Go to City Hall tonight at 6:30. The Seattle Women's Commission, NARAL Pro-Choice Washington, Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest and Hawaii, and other groups are hosting a candidate forum focused specifically on issues affecting women and people of color.

Tonight. 6:30.

I'll be tweeting about it here, in case you can't make it.