Since the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) has taken every opportunity to blame progressive policymakers for our city’s ills (see their “This is Seattle” posts retweeting conservative “journalist” Jonathan Choe), but surprisingly, they’ve entirely kept their money out of city politics. This week, though, they got back in the game. Their candidate? City Attorney Ann “Became a Republican After Trump Was Elected” Davison.
It was only a $350 donation, which doesn’t buy much in a campaign, but that’s the maximum individual donation democracy voucher candidates are allowed to take.
SPOG is the largest police union in the state. They negotiate the police contract with the City (and, as a result, are largely to blame for our inflated police budget and lack of independent, effective police alternatives). In the lead-up to the primary, the only candidate SPOG endorsed was Rachael Savage, the Republican running against Alexis Mercedes Rinck for City Council Position 9. But they kept their dollars out of city politics. That is, until the results of this month’s primary election rolled in, and their girl was way down.
At final count, Davison came in a far-distant second place, 22 points behind former DOJ prosecutor Erika Evans, who dominated the race with 55.8 percent of the vote. She’s also trouncing Davison in fundraising: $311,670.00 to $254,253.88.
It’s no surprise that Davison is the cops’ darling. In her first campaign, the Seattle Times endorsed her as the candidate who will crack down on post-pandemic crime. And in her four year term, she’s adopted a tough-on-crime approach to the City Attorney’s Office, pushing for ineffective exclusion zones for people who’ve been convicted of sex or drug crimes, championing a “high-utilizer” initiative that increased recidivism, dismantled community court, and opposed a state bill that would allow her office to dismiss misdemeanors, all while backing Harrell’s graffiti obsession and waging a bizarre war against one municipal judge (inspiring a lawsuit from the ACLU).
SPOG jumped into the race after Evans became the apparent frontrunner. Her campaign has made a case to undo a lot of Davison’s (SPOG-friendly) work: She’s argued for rebuilding our community courts, focusing on restorative justice where possible, and deprioritizing the enforcement of SOAP/SODA zones.
This isn’t the only hand they’re playing this year. Outside of their direct donations, SPOG has recently become a funder for the police PAC called the Washington State Council of Police Political Support. In the last two years, SPOG has contributed $16,525 of their $115,796.62 budget, but the PAC hasn’t backed anyone yet in this election cycle.
Who gives a fuck – AD was never going to win this race (the only reason she made top two is most voters coalescing around Evans leaving little room for candidates like Rory).
I recommend SPOG burn the equivalent amount of cash in a pit as that would have more benefit than sending it to AD.
“see their “This is Seattle” posts retweeting conservative “journalist” Jonathan Choe”
Johathan Choe is far more of a real “journalist” than you could ever hope to be, Hannah.
It must have been astonishingly difficult for Davison to remain neutral and unbiased, no matter how unpopular that is in this climate. No hope for that in her successor.
@2 KOMO disagreed.
At The Stranger, there seems to be a problem with the word ‘reporter’ and the name ‘Hannah’. This is the second instance where incongruity is at work at TS, although to use the term ‘at work’ is yet another error.
Also, don’t use a Face Shot in front of books that you’ve not read. Show some humility and question your own wisdom less you appear as inflexible as those you reproach.
Is SPOG a union? They call themselves a guild and were voted off the King County Labor council. Seems like an extortion racket — “nice city ya got here, be a shame is anything happened to it” — than a public safety organization. Waiting to see if any US city is willing to tear out the police model with its roots in slave catching and build a new one on the Peelian Principles:
To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.
To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
Our cosplay occupying armies are a far cry from that model.
6
Surely this is an attempt at humor….. and if so, please recall that brevity is the soul of wit: in which case you are soulless or witless.
Give it another shot.
@6 Police having their “roots in slave catching” is a silly myth, long since debunked.
@6 – The history of policing in the U.S. has its root in the London Metropolitan Police
Moron
Most of the cops don’t live in Seattle, and most of Seattle doesn’t trust the cops, so I don’t really see the point. But they are a union, and can do what they want with their money. Although I don’t get why they’re so upset. A “liberal” City Attorney gives them someone to whine about, and they love to whine.
“To use physical force
only when the exercise
of persuasion, advice and
warning is found to be insufficient
to obtain public co-operation to an
extent necessary to secure observance
of law or to restore order, and to use only
the minimum degree of physical force which
is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving
a police objective.” –@6
you trigger
their Ire, you get
a beat-down irregardless
of the appropriateness of so doing.
tS’s far right
commentariat
and John Q. Public’s
mean-spirited nature and the
socio- and psychopathic* Demand it:
a fucking eye
for a fucking eye
tho soon enough the one-
eyed man now becomes your King
*fuck Off, God:
Vengeance
is OURS.
There’s only one real issue in this race: What will you do when, inevitably, Trump sics his goon army on Seattle? It’s very hard to imagine Davison putting up a fight.
@12: It’s not inevitable. Seattle’s a small city on the far edge of the lower 48. Seattle should not draw attention to itself, but let Trump’s fickle gaze fall elsewhere. Having a Republican City Attorney might provide some cover, to deflect Trump’s attention.
@13 That thought occurred to me, but I think it’s much more likely that a re-elected and emboldened Davison would actively lobby Trump to come help her “rescue” Seattle.
@14: And your reason for believing this is what, exactly? What has she done in office which might ground your speculation in something?
@15 It’s not what she’s done, so much as what she hasn’t done. Adults past their college years don’t radically shift their basic ideological worldviews very often. It happens, but when public figures make this claim they face a heavy burden of proof to fully repudiate their past actions and associates and to behave differently going forward, not just pretty up their rhetoric. I see zero tangible, real-world evidence that Davison has done any of that work (and it IS work). So the logical default assumption is that she’s still MAGA at heart, and if re-elected would be not only OK with a DC-style takeover but eager to play a major role in it. Just my opinion, of course, until it happens.
@16: Thank you for answering my question. Your answer follows most of the Stranger’s criticism of her, which is based on their speculation of what she might do, rather than anything she’s actually done in the City Attorney’s Office over the years.