Katie Wilson Is Our Next Mayor: After more than a week of edging, we can finally call the mayor’s race, and it’s good news people. In the ballot drop yesterday, Wilson was up by 1,976 votes. It’s tight, but it’s mathematically impossible for Harrell to catch up. Katie Wilson will be Seattle’s next mayor. Shortly after the ballots dropped, Bruce Harrell announced that he planned to address the city at noon today. He’ll probably concede.

So What’s Next? Contrary to the narrative Harrell wanted us to believe, Katie Wilson does have a job right now, and someone now has to replace her as the head of the Transit Riders Union. Then it’s transition time. Come January, we’re going to have a whole new government: two new City Council members, a new Council President, a new City Attorney, and a new mayor. We’ll still have some conservatives in the City Council—Bob Kettle, Rob Saka, Maritza Rivera, and Debora Juarez are still comfy in their seats, for now—but our new elected officials represent a real progressive caucus. Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, who has been a progressive caucus of one for the last year, told The Stranger that she’s excited to help get the newbies up to speed. She has so many spreadsheets to show them, she says.

Speaking of Governance: After the longest shutdown in the history of this country, our federal government is open again. Six Democratic representatives seem to have forgotten why the government was shut down in the first place (attention spans these days, am I right?) and broke the blockade in the House, passing a spending bill that screws over the millions of Americans that depend on ACA subsidies for their healthcare. Unsurprisingly, one of those representatives was Washington’s own Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who called the government shutdown a “car crash” and said that the fight for healthcare benefits was nothing more than a “messaging victory.” I hope our friends in southern Washington remember this when she runs for reelection. 

The Upside of Caving: The government says that SNAP benefits should be fully online today. And those federal workers who’ve been going without pay? Historically it’s taken about a week to get everyone caught up, but since the Trump Administration DOGE’d some federal agencies’ payroll offices, they could see some unpredictable delays.

Aaaand Another Consequence: The 20 Head Start early-childhood programs that had to shut down could take weeks to get back up and running.

More Dems Piss Off More Dems: On Wednesday, DNC head Ken Martin announced a mandatory return to office starting in February, in the leadup to the midterm elections. According to the New York Times, the move was meant to ensure that information wasn’t siloed and to make sure that people were clued into time-sensitive decisions. This happened on a Zoom call, and Martin was met with a flurry of thumbs down emojis, like a scene from The Circle. Martin suggested that people who were unhappy with the decision were welcome to find other jobs, which went over as well as you’d expect: their union called his reaction “callous” and “shocking.” 

Going by the Book, This Time: On Wednesday, America’s Roman Catholic bishops made a rare, almost unanimous statement against Trump’s anti-immigration campaign. The statement, which was passed at the bishops’ annual conference in Baltimore, said they “oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and “pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.” The letter goes on to say that they “feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity.” (The last time they did this, they were coming out in opposition to the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandates.) This statement is awesome. Next, let’s find that yen for human dignity when it comes to women, trans people, and victims of sexual abuse.

Don’t Cross the Picket Line: Do you really want that Starbucks Red Cup today? No you don’t. After being stonewalled in their fight for a fair contract corporate for literal years, the Starbucks union is going on strike. Lynne Fox, president of Workers United, said in a press conference this morning that she’s negotiated hundreds of contracts, but has never seen “an employer act with such reckless disregard” of labor laws. More than 1,000 union baristas across 40 cities are going on strike today. In Seattle, workers plan to picket this morning outside stores in the U-District (4147 University Way NE) and on Queen Anne (1144 Elliott Ave. W). Then, at 4 p.m., workers will rally outside the closed Starbucks Reserve Roastery on Capitol Hill. Go get a coffee at Cafe Vita and then show up in support. 

Another Bad Day for Sara Nelson: Remember earlier this year, when Council President Nelson pushed through a bill to allow new housing in SODO? It moved quickly, had a huge amount of opposition, and got through council despite concerns from the surrounding industries? It all felt a little sketchy, and it turns out it was.

Oops! According to the city’s Growth Management Hearing Board, the city didn’t follow proper procedure to greenlight the housing in the area, relied on an outdated 2022 environmental review, didn’t notify the state’s commerce department, violated the State Environmental Policy Act, and failed to meet the city’s requirements for public participation. So for now, the city won’t be allowed to build housing in the area, but Council is welcome to draw up new legislation, and put it through the proper process like they should’ve.

Relevant to Our Interests: San Francisco, a city famously mired in bureaucracy, may have found a very straightforward solution to a very complex problem. The city opened a new facility in an old Goodwill building that serves as a round-the-clock clinic for people having public mental health breakdowns. According to the New York Times, “It is always open. It is always staffed with a nurse and several mental health specialists. A doctor is always on call. Police officers, paramedics and street crisis counselors can drop off people who need help at any time. People in crisis can walk in themselves, or be brought in by family members or friends. As of Oct. 1, the state has certified it as an alternative to emergency rooms, which means that ambulances can drop people there.” It’s showing early success, and it’s something Seattle should watch. 

A Headline That Shouldn’t Surprise You: “Google Had Chosen a Side in Trump’s Mass Deportation Effort,” and it’s the side of Mass Deportation. The company is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to ID immigrants, and has actively removed apps that help citizens report ICE. Remember when they removed “Don’t be evil” from their code of conduct?

A Song for Your Thursday: Robyn saw what 2025 was doing to us, and she gave us new music, as a treat.

More in NEWS

Local (and not-so-local) news from your favorite writers.

Hannah is The Stranger's former Editor-in-Chief. 

68 replies on “Slog AM: Katie Wilson Is Our Next Mayor, the Government Shutdown Is Over, and Google Chooses Evil”

  3. I haven’t set foot in a Starbucks since 2015 when they wanted to have an idiotic “progressive” [a.k.a. “stupid and naive”] “conversation about race” with me, when they had their disastrous and roundly-mocked “Race Together Campaign”.

  4. @2: “every time The Stranger writes ‘progressive’ just swap that out with ‘stupid and naive’”

    That’s not as good a slam as you think it is, certainly not worth repeating every day like you do 😛

  5. Regarding the banner photo for today’s Slog AM, wow it’s amazing how Slog AM always chooses photos that highlight the beauty of Seattle. Slog is so progressive.

  10. Well, let me grab my copy of Ben Lewis’s “Hammer & Tickle,” and get this party started!

    A Communist, Socialist and Capitalist all agree to meet at a cafe. The Communist and the Capitalist arrive on time but the Socialist is late. An hour later, the Socialist rushes in. Sorry I’m late guys’ he said, ‘I had to wait in line for a sausage’. ‘What’s a line?’ asked the Capitalist. ‘What’s a sausage?’ asked the Communist.

    A Socialist, a Marxist, and a Postmodernist walk into a strip club. The bouncer checks their ID’s and says “sorry guys, come back when you’re 21.”

    A young, ruthless executive died and went to hell. When he got there, he saw one sign that said Capitalist Hell, and another that said Socialist Hell. In front of the Socialist Hell was an incredibly long line, while there was no-one in front of the Capitalist Hell. So the executive asked the guard, “What do they do to you in Socialist Hell?” “They boil you in oil, whip you, and then put you on the rack,” the guard replied. “And what do they do to you in Capitalist Hell?” “The same exact thing,” the guard answered. “Then why is everybody in line for Socialist Hell?” “Because in Socialist Hell, they’re always out of oil, whips, and racks!”

  11. @8 Is this some Lets Go Brandon thing where you think you’re cooking up something special but it actually makes zero sense and you’re still just a child-molester-worshipping racist at the end of the day. Might as well call us all “woke” like it’s somehow a negative thing. You have become the snowflakes.

  12. @9 this hits hard with all those people waiting in line to be fed via snap benefits because of arguments over whether or not poor people getting help accessing healthcare is worth cutting into privatized insurance profit margins. Also faint memories of how well capitalism handled emergency situations like pandemics. Good read.

  13. “[“Democratic”] National

    Committee head Ken Martin

    suggested that people who were un-

    happy with the decision were welcome to find other jobs…

    and

    that Yes,

    the “d”nc IS

    gonna “Go Wit JOE!”or maybe

    Kamala, he hadn’t Quite Decided, as of Yet.”

    where Else

    they gonna

    fucking GO?!

    he added wit a

    Very Wry, shit-eatin’ Grin

    oh

    And

    pay no

    Nevermind to

    bipps “Buggers” bippie*

    starve him for Attention

    watch him go

    MADD.

    *paid Troll?

    pro-fucking Bono?

    it Don’t make no fucking Dif

  15. @9 – I know, Denmark is so terrible with its huge White majority and extremely strict immigration laws.

    Denmark has some of the strictest immigration laws in Europe, which have become a consensus across the political spectrum. Denmark has a deterrence-centered approach, with a focus on making it less attractive to immigrate compared to its neighbors.

  19. tbass1981, since you are such a progressive expert on sarcasm, was any part of my post @#14 sarcastic?

    I’ll give you a gigantic hint. Are you ready? Here comes the hint:

    “I know, Denmark is so terrible with its huge White majority and extremely strict immigration laws.”

  20. @18 No shit. You were saying that Denmark isn’t terrible because everyone is white. That’s the blatantly racist part I was talking about, ya fuckin idiot.

  22. @11: Minor nit:

    “arguments over whether or not poor people getting help accessing healthcare is worth cutting into privatized insurance profit margins.”

    Better as:

    “arguments over whether or not poor people getting help accessing healthcare is worth renewing the ACA subsidies.”

    Without the subsides, the insurance companies have to make up the difference that the subsides were paying for.

  23. @19 – I was responding to your insinuation that I didn’t understand DOUG’s sarcasm in his post @#13.

    If you have a problem with Denmark being a mostly socialist country, with a huge White majority and some of the strictest immigration laws in Europe, I suggest you take that up with Denmark, and quit crying at me about it.

  27. @Biped (too many rants to number)

    Calm down. I know you’re upset that things aren’t going the way you would like what with the dreaded Dems and progressives gaining ground and the anti immigrant shit show becoming more and more unpopular and people in red states stating to feel the ill effects of their votes but just take a breath.

  28. @23 They are all over the Eastside. Redmond, Bellevue, Kirkland. I am currently in Bellevue, but if I cross the street I am in Redmond. If I ride my bike 2 miles, I am in Kirkland.

  29. Hannah, didn’t something else get voted on at the catholic bishop summit? Oh yes, no more transgender affirming care at any catholic hospital. So your weird religious flex about immigration, is asinine at best.

  30. The insurance companies will make up the difference by passing the cost onto consumers and restricting coverage. For-profit companies aren’t going to eat billions of dollars for the benefit of the public good. They are going to figure out how to remain profitable.

    The reason we have this system in the first place is because this country has an aversion to public programs. If the republicans have an idea of how to lower costs with a purely market-based approach they should put it into action asap but we have yet to see the concepts of a plan we’ve been promised for over a decade now.

  31. @29 The Republicans’ problem is that they did have a plan. It was taken up and rebranded as Obamacare. Now that their only plan has been cruelly taken away from them, they’ve got nothing. Lord knows they can’t support the thing that they previously supported because it has the wrong name on it.

  33. @30, Right. From what I’ve seen online their plan is to give the subsidies to consumers to purchase the plan instead of going directly to the insurance companies, so… obamacare with extra steps that will be rife with fraud and inefficiencies. But they get to play populist by demonizing insurance companies, even though their plan does nothing to fix the problems with the health care system.

  34. Look, I get all the knee-jerky hand-wringing over the alleged “defection” of the Democrats who voted to re-open the government, but from a strategic perspective it may in fact be more more effective in the long-term than many people seem willing to acknowledge.

    The ACA extension is scheduled to expire at the end of next month; nothing, not continuing the shutdown OR re-opening the federal government changes that deadline, and the GQP on-the-whole seems to have no inclination to save it, regardless of whether or not the Democrats voted to continue keeping things closed. BUT, with the government now open again and the House back in-session AND Speaker Johnson having publicly committed to putting it to a floor vote, the GQP will now have to go on-record as opposing it; something they would have avoided had the shutdown lasted until the end of the year. It’s also entirely possible some Republicans will have been pressured by their own constituents to vote for an extension; a Petition of Discharge is now being drawn up, just as was done with regard to opening the Epstein Files (more on that in a moment) and requires the same simple majority of 218 members signing it to force a floor vote, which Johnson will not be able to avoid in that circumstance. So, the Republicans are in the hot-seat either way: if Johnson renegs on his “promise” (and I don’t think anyone is under the false impression that’s not entirely likely), they own this; if the PoD gets enough signatures to force a vote and the GOP rejects it en-masse, they still own it, thus throwing literally tens of millions of their own supporters under the proverbial bus. That’s not going to put them in a very good position come the 2026 mid-terms.

    Now, the other thing I mentioned above is that, re-opening the government puts the Epstein Files back in-play: Johnson had to reconvene the House and by doing so had no choice but to swear in AZ Rep Adelita Grijalva, who, literally as soon as the last words of the oath of office left her mouth, signed the PoD, becoming the 218th and final signature needed to force a floor vote on making the files held by the DOJ public. We all already know this issue has split the GQP base with many MAGA’s demanding their publication. So, again, if it gets voted down in either the House or Senate, the Repubs own that as well, and even if it passes both and is inevitably vetoed by Lord Dampnuts, they still shoulder that. It’s not going away no matter what happens, as yesterday’s publication of some 20,000 documents provided to the House Oversight Committee by the Epstein Estate made abundantly clear.

    Finally, re-opening the government means: 1. SNAP payments start flowing back to some 42,000,000 U.S. citizens who were on the verge of losing these desperately-needed benefits; 2. the roughly 1,500,000 government employees, who have either been fired, furloughed or forced to work without pay, will once again have their jobs and income restored – and right before the Holidays. National Parks will once again be staffed; Social Security offices will be able to see clients; our military and air traffic controllers and all the other “essential workers” who have been effectively reduced to the level of indentured servitude during the shutdown will receive back-pay and benefits.

    Some may call what happend “capitulation”, even “betrayal”, but looking at this from a higher perspective it appears to be a political analog to a strategic military retreat (search for “Dunkirk” to see how this has played out historically), which, while requiring one side to suffer a defeat, nevertheless sets the stage for a larger victory. “Lose the battle, win the war” seems to be the operative expression here, and all of this puts the Democrats in a much more favorable position in the long-run than they would have been had they allowed the shutdown to continue to adversely affect tens of millions of people.

  35. There isn’t anything dishonorable about working as a barista, but it isn’t rocket science. I can make my own for a lot less and don’t have to deal with the attitude of a person who has made it clear that they don’t want to be there.

  36. “I hope our friends in southern Washington remember this when she runs for reelection.”

    I hope so as well – I would much prefer her over any Republican!

  37. @28

    I wonder how that will shake out at Swedish (under the heel of Providence) for their adult gender-affirming care. It will probably go the way of the abortion services they used to have, which are now only for emergencies.

  38. @33 “the GQP will now have to go on-record as opposing it; something they would have avoided had the shutdown lasted until the end of the year”

    How would they have avoided being on record opposing extension of the subsidies when the exclusion of an extension of the subsidies in the budget was the reason for the shutdown? As I see it they were already actively opposing the extension of the subsidies, but maybe I’m missing something.

  42. Humans that believe themselves to be capitalists, when they are actually just labor capital in an actual capitalist’s portfolio, are the easiest to manipulate.

  43. @40. Wait a minute! I don’t know about the capitalist thing, because I always considered myself a Sergio Tacchini man. Sergio Tacchini men have no need for socialism because the confidence and swagger these tracksuits imbue make us veritable wolves on the prowl!

    Don’t believe me? Let Fabrizio Brienza explain;

    https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQhX6_KkqoW/?l=1

    Fabrizio also reminds us that there are only two kinds of men – those who wear Tacchini and those who don’t, and the consequences of that choice are dire!

    https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQ-XYypklxe/

  44. @36:

    It may be somewhat a matter of semantics, but if the ACA extension had simply been allowed to lapse without a vote, Republican members of Congress would have had been able to use the shutdown as a fallback in order to claim THEY didn’t kill it, it was those evil Democrats keeping the government closed that caused it. With the government re-opened that particular bit of rhetorical obfuscation has effectively been taken off the board and they will now be forced to actively vote against the extension and risk the wrath of the millions of their own constituents who depend on it for health coverage.

  45. @42 ok I get what you’re saying but still disagree with your main point (largely because, as you conceded was possible, I don’t think Senate Republicans will actually hold a vote). The discharge petition was a good move by House Dems though.

  46. I just want to say, excellent comment by COMTE @33 making the case that this shutdown played out in the best–or at least the least bad way–it could have. I say this as someone who:

    A. Thought that shutdown was a stupid idea when they were considering it. My thinking was, by forcing the shutdown, the Democrats were trying to play King Solomon and order the baby to be cut in half when all along they were the baby’s actual mother.

    B. Was bitterly disappointed when I heard that the eight Senate Dems had worked out the deal to end the shutdown. It took me until the next day to make my peace with the deal.

    Apparently, David Horsey has a similar perspective to COMTE. File this under a political cartoon is worth a thousand words:

    https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/democrats-made-their-point-and-the-shutdown-needed-to-end/

    P.S. Oh wow. Katie Wilson just did her first post-victory national TV interview on CNN. And gotta say, I was not embarrassed.

  48. @40

    ready to die

    on the dull sword

    of Capitalism believing

    themselves just a couple good

    breaks from the Top o’ the food Chain

    when

    in Reality

    a couple Bad

    Breaks from the Pin-

    nacle o’ the Food pyramid

    and No one

    Defends their

    Oppressors Better

    Noses of brown

    shirts Soon

    enough

    Too

  49. King County has multiple mental health options. Of course they could always be better but there are a lot of things in the works. There is already the Crisis Solutions Center. People can be referred by 1st responders and Mobile Crisis Team. Connections Kirkland is available for walk in treatment. They have 23 hour observation and different levels of mental health care in the same building. Other sites are in different parts of the county. “The Crisis Care Centers Initiative, approved by King County voters in April 2023, began implementation in 2024 to create a countywide network of five crisis care centers, restore and expand mental health residential treatment beds, and strengthen the community behavioral health workforce.

    The first Crisis Care Center, Connections Kirkland, is now open. A Crisis Care Center is a place anyone can walk in 24/7 to get urgent care for a wide range of mental health or substance use challenges, regardless of insurance. In the coming years, the county plans to open four more centers in Central (Seattle/Vashon), South and East King County, plus one for youth.

    The nine-year levy is helping make crisis care easier than ever to get by linking the 988 crisis line, mobile crisis teams, and other behavioral health resources to support people’s recovery. ”

    https://connectionshs.com/kirkland

    Multiple jurisdictions have Co-responders that go out with fire/police to assist with mental health needs.

Comments are closed.