The City Council Has Time to Put Social Housing Payroll Tax on the November Ballot

King County Elections (KCE) expects to wrap up the signature certification this week for Initiative 137, a ballot measure that will tax businesses with anyone making at least $1 million on their payroll. The revenue will permanently fund the social housing Public Development Authority (PDA), which voters approved in a February 2023 ballot measure. House Our Neighbors (HON), the organization heading the campaign, already claimed a victory on Twitter. 

Ultimately, the voters of Seattle will decide on the measure, but the Seattle City Council still has a chance to thwart the progressives bid to decommodify housing. In the coming weeks, the council will decide which ballot the initiative will go on, November’s ballot, which will have the highest possible turnout because of the presidential election, or the February special election in an odd year when the fewest voters hit ballot boxes.

In a press release Friday afternoon, HON encouraged the Seattle City Council to pass the initiative outright, seeing that voters approved the social housing developer by a 14-point margin last February. But if the council decides to put it to a vote of the people, HON said they should do so  “immediately” and without a competing measure. “There is no time to waste on the housing crisis,” the press release read.

To get the initiative on the ballot for November, the City Council would have to vote on it by August 6, according to KCE spokesperson Halei Watkins. KCE has to submit a Certificate of Sufficiency notification to the City Clerk, who will then transmit it to the council to go on the agenda. This process has been completed within a day for previous initiatives. 

The council does not boast a good track record of acting quickly, but they should have at least one opportunity to pass the legislation at a full council meeting before that deadline. They could also call a special meeting if their agenda fills up. Council President Sara Nelson did not respond to my request for comment about the timing of the vote. 

There’s reason to suspect this council would not support this measure—it would tax big business, the very interest group that bought their seats. The easiest, most face-saving way to delay the vote, pushing the initiative to the lower turnout February election, would be to propose a competing initiative that takes some time to draft up. Multiple sources, including some close to the City Council, told The Stranger that Council Member Tanya Woo may propose a competing ballot measure that would redirect I-137’s tax revenue, a projected $52 million a year, to the Office of Housing, where it would pay for affordable housing rather than social housing. 

If the council puts such a proposal on the ballot, they would, in effect, pit affordable housing and social housing against one another, a fight already waged in 2022 by scarcity-mindset idled advocates when House Our Neighbors! (HON) ran their first initiative to establish the PDA. The two measures may also confuse voters. The Tacoma City Council pulled a similar gambit when they proposed their own measure, which restated pre-existing laws, to compete against a grassroots suite of renter protections. A judge struck down the City’s initiative before it went to the ballot, and voters approved the new protections. 

Woo denied the rumors. In an email to The Stranger, she wrote, “I am not planning to introduce a competing ballot measure to I-137.”

That doesn’t mean other council members won’t try. Nelson did not respond to questions about a possible competing measure. But, if Nelson supported a competing measure, she would go against her previous stance on the council “interfering” in the initiative process. 

In 2022, the City Council put a competing measure on the ballot next to a measure to establish Approval Voting. Nelson raised a big stink, or as she put it, “[took] a stand for good governance.” She argued it is standard practice for council to just send measures to the ballot, not add their own, which the council had not vetted properly and voters did not signal support for via petition. 

“I think the council should just get out of the way, send [the Approval Voting initiative] to the ballot, and let the voters decide in November,” Nelson said before voting against the competing measure. 

But if Nelson, Woo, or anyone on the council slows the process, and Seattlites have to wait until February to vote on I-137, HON said that’s okay too. The campaign believes they can win either way.