Lynn Thompson at the Seattle Times:
Exhausted from a tough election fight, Seattle City Councilmember Richard Conlin said today that he won’t seek office again. Although he just won re-election against Kshama Sawant, a socialist and economics professor at Seattle Central Community College, the passage Tuesday of a city charter amendment to elect council members by district means Conlin would have to to run again in two years to keep his seat.
“I don’t want to put myself or my family through that again,” said Conlin, 65.
Conlin claims he’s quitting in two years because he doesn’t feel like running again. But realistically, he would be gone in two years even if he did run again.
Sawant more or less predicted this last night: “Even if Conlin keeps a seat on the council, the victory is ours,” she said. “Richard Conlin is finished. He may collect his salary for another two years, but he has no political future.”
Way to call it.
Running to represent the city council’s newly drawn District 3, Conlin would face Sawant again. Or another liberal. And District 3—which includes Capitol Hill and the Central District—is a liberal district. But Conlin sure as fuck isn’t a liberal council member. Conlin voted for a bill to punish panhandlers that the city’s Human Rights Commission unanimously declared would violate human rights standards. He’s voted against making homeless encampments safer. He’s voted against a homeless shelter (by contradicting the same rhetoric he used to support building new transit-free freeway). Conlin is positively conservative on key city issues, and he sees the writing on the wall. Other city council members will undoubtedly crowd the for the two at-large seats. And Sawant got more than 46 percent of the vote citywide; she’d cream him in the 3rd. Conlin is too conservative to be reelected in his own neighborhood.