When City Council Member Richard McIver was arrested on suspicion of
domestic assault, local media responded by focusing on the details of
the alleged crime. According to the account his wife, Marlaina
Kiner-McIver, gave to arresting officers that night and to radio
stations the following morning, McIver came home just before midnight
on Tuesday, October 9, after a night of drinking. The two got in an
argument, McIver flew into a rage, and, according to Kiner-McIver’s
account to police, grabbed her by the throat. “She said that she had to
physically push him off of her, and that this happened at least three
times,” the police report says.
But one aspect of that night that hasn’t gotten much attention is
the fact that McIver, by his own admission, had been drinking. He even
acknowledged to officers that he was “probably drunk.” One day later,
self-appointed family spokeswoman Dawn Mason announced unequivocally
that McIver “will go into rehab” if alcohol was involved. Neither
McIver nor his wife returned calls requesting comment;
McIver was
expected to provide media interviews later this week.
Does Richard McIver have a drinking problem? In doing research for
this article, I interviewed nearly 20 current and former council
members and legislative aides. The vast majority either volunteered or
agreed that McIver has issues with drinking. However, almost everyone I
talked to also expressed shock at the domestic-violence charges against
the good-humored if occasionally grouchy council budget chair. Some
said they wouldn’t have been surprised by a DUI charge, but no one
would have expected DV, they added. (McIver has never had a DUI or been
charged with any other alcohol-related crimes, and no one I talked to
for this story said they had seen him get into a car drunk.) One former
council staffer who sometimes drank with McIver at the Four Seas, the
Chinatown dive bar that has long been his favorite haunt, described him
as “totally harmless… kind of a goofball” after a few Johnnie Walker
Reds—his drink of choice. “I know some people get more angry and
aggressive when they’re drunk, but he just got more smiley and goofy.
The more he drinks, the more social he gets.” Another called him “the
perfect gentleman.”
City Hall, like the newspaper business, is a welcoming environment
for drinkers. More than any other profession besides journalism,
politics seems to breed an affinity for alcohol. As one council member
puts it, “The image is that the pressures of political life drive
people to drink, but maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe it’s a
certain kind of personality.”
Over the years, some of my best drinking buddies have come from City
Hall. County staffers have their own house bar—the Collins Pub on
Second Avenue—and city staffers have theirs. Currently, that role
is mostly filled by the O’Asian just down the street from City Hall,
but Fado on First Avenue, McCormick’s Fish House on Fourth, and Bush
Garden (where council staffers used to belt out karaoke versions of
songs by Stevie Wonder) have also, at various times and for various
council offices, served as watering holes for City Hall. Although booze
is banned in City Hall itself, after-work drinks remain common, and
more than a few council members have been seen over the years whooping
it up after hours with work friends, constituents, and reporters.
The frequency of drinking, however, seems to have leveled off in
recent years—according to many council staffers, as the council
and its staff have gotten older and moved farther and farther away from
downtown, more people simply go home after work, leaving the
socializing (and boozing) to the young and unattached. Several council
members, including Sally Clark and Tom Rasmussen, hardly drink; at
least one, David Della, doesn’t drink at all. Compared to the old days,
City Hall circa 2007 is downright puritanical.
One council staffer says she would “rather die than have a glass of
wine with lunch,” because someone would inevitably witness it. And
drinking around City Hall has never compared to the frequency and
intensity of alcohol consumption in Olympia, where, according to some
former state staffers, it was not uncommon to see legislators obviously
impaired on the house or senate floor—often after a few drinks at
Waterstreet, the Mark, or the Elks Club. McIver, as a frequent social
drinker, is a holdover from an earlier, boozier era.
The Four Seas, McIver’s favorite watering hole, is a dingy,
black-painted cavern of a bar in the back of a massive Chinese
restaurant. Men sit alone drinking shots and manhattans under a
soundtrack of R&B and soul; a sign on the wall reads, “Herradura
Blast Off! 20 Dollars.” A young waitress named Rachel (who politely
declined to comment for this story) flirts good-naturedly with the
mostly middle-aged, exclusively male, clientele; a plate of chicken,
cooked to a rubbery texture, is hard to distinguish in the gloom.
This is where McIver holds his after-hours office hours. Colleagues
and staffers say he would “hold court” here several days a week, taking
visitors and shooting the shit with friends until it was time to go
home to bed. (McIver is an early riser, frequently arriving at City
Hall by 8:00 a.m., long before other council members.) The Four Seas
served as both social club and after-hours office. At the Four Seas,
the drinks are strong, the food is fried, and the smell of smoke still
lingers on every surface—epitomizing McIver’s old-school,
fuck-what-the-doctors-say persona. McIver, famously around City Hall,
leads a lifestyle that even by 1950s standards could not be described
as healthy: He eats red meat, smokes like a chimney, and doesn’t
exercise (even to walk down the single flight of stairs to the smoking
area). Attempts by staff to get him to join a gym have been futile.
Whether hard living, particularly drinking, has affected McIver’s
performance on the job is unclear. Dwight Pelz, who challenged McIver
in 2005, tried to make McIver’s on-the-job performance an issue in his
campaign, noting in a campaign mailer that McIver had missed 13
meetings of the Sound Transit light-rail oversight committee over two
years. During his decade on the council, colleagues say, McIver has
become notorious for falling asleep at meetings; at one public hearing
at which he sat at my table, I recall him snoring audibly. That could
be a sign of getting older (McIver is 66), but it could also be an
indication that McIver’s nighttime drinking has had an impact on his
daytime performance; after all, nearly everyone—including
me—has had the experience of trying to work after a night of
boozing. (There’s no indication McIver has ever drunk or been drunk on
the job.) Although Pelz made a big deal of the fact of McIver’s
absences, he has missed only two full council meetings so far this
year; in 2006, he missed just four.
McIver’s presence has certainly been missed in recent days. Earlier
this month, the mayor sent down a proposed $921 million city budget
that has just been taken up by the council’s budget committee. In
McIver’s absence, that committee has been chaired by first-termer Jean
Godden—a capable but sometimes unfocused committee leader who
lacks McIver’s iron hand and ability to instantly sniff out bullshit.
These days, McIver’s office is populated mostly by pink message slips
and anxious staff, who rush between office lines and cell phones,
fielding calls from reporters about their boss’s future. When I visited
on October 12, just one day after McIver was released from King County
jail, his office looked like it had just been abandoned. A Diet Coke
sat half empty on one desk; a hastily written list of items he had
requested upon his release—cell phone, reading glasses, wallet,
cufflinks, ties—sat on another.
No one but the McIvers will ever know what really went down that
Tuesday night. It’s up to the courts to decide whether it constituted
abuse or just an argument gone horribly wrong. However, one thing is
undeniable: When drinking and anger mix, sometimes bad things happen.
I’m not trying to excuse what McIver allegedly did or say that being
drunk exonerates him—far from it. But situations where drinking
and violence intersect are inevitably more complicated than initial
media reports suggest, and the weeks to come will almost certainly
prove this true. Studies have shown that drinking increases the
likelihood of abuse; according to one 2003 survey, the odds of
male-to-female violence among those with a predisposition to abuse were
11 times higher on days when the men had been drinking than when they
had not.
As for McIver’s future political career: It’s hard to say. (The city
attorney’s office isn’t commenting on the possibility of censure by the
council.) McIver had no plans to run for reelection when his term ends
in 2009, although he had hoped to be council president—an
ambition that is now almost certainly dashed. What happens next will be
largely determined by whether the county presses charges; at press
time, a court hearing was scheduled for Wednesday, October 17. Council
members say that if charges move forward, McIver’s ability to function
as a council member will be diminished—especially if he does not
issue a strong statement taking responsibility for what happened,
including his drinking. It’s hard to imagine life going back to normal
for Richard McIver after this.
And maybe that’s a good thing. 