This election news isnt about impeachment but its still important.
This election news isn't about impeachment but it's still important. Lester Black

Developers for Seattle: Tim Burgess calls his Super PAC "People for Seattle" but it may be more accurate to call it "Developers and Venture Capitalists Who Don’t Want To Pay Taxes." Property developers and venture capitalists donated over $34,000 to Burgess’s Super PAC in one September week alone. John Stanton and Terry Gillespie, two founders of an Eastside venture capital firm, have collectively now given $45,000 to it. Burgess has raised over $388,000 this year, which he has spent most notably on deceptive mailers attacking progressive candidates.

Morales pledges to tax the rich: I took a minute this week to write about how D2 candidate Tammy Morales wants to tax the rich by floating six new progressive taxes on either big businesses or the ultra-rich. Morales was upfront: She does not know if all of the proposed taxes would survive challenges in court. “We haven’t done a legal analysis yet," she said, "we don’t have money to hire lawyers.”

Washington’s Constitution is notoriously anti-tax: This means reasonable and necessary things, like a progressive income tax, are sometimes against the Constitution. Will Morales’s dream of a city inheritance tax—or a tax on corporations that pay their CEOs 100 times more than they pay their workers— face a legal challenge? Almost certainly. Rich people will spend a lot of money on lawsuits trying to avoid paying taxes. That’s a function of being rich (just look at how much rich people are dumping into this election), but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to create an equitable society.

Seattle needs a “Redmond Tax”: Morales’s tax proposal and her willingness to bring back the now-infamous head tax got me thinking about something: a Redmond tax. Redmond, taxes their local large businesses $135 per employee per year, bringing in millions of dollars annually for transportation and other uses. This also helps mitigate the impact of Microsoft employing nearly 40,000 people in the small city. Now, if you were to institute this type of business fee in Seattle, it would be called a “head tax” and people would scream that the sky is falling and this new tax will drive out jobs (clearly forgetting that Seattle had just such a tax until 2009). But if we introduce exactly the same type of tax and call it a “Redmond tax” instead of a “head tax," the name won't have a negative connotation with the simpletons (they’ll probably assume the tax is literally on Redmond) and we can finally get our largest corporations to pay their fair share.

Seize the rents: Council Member Kshama Sawant finally introduced her rent control legislation six weeks before she’s up for election and just as the council essentially shuts down for the rest of the year (the council goes mostly on recess after they finish dealing with this year’s budget) but, woah, this law is a doozy. My colleague Rich Smith reports that the law limits all rent increases to the inflation rate, does not give any exemptions to new construction or to vacancies, and requires developers to replace any demolished units with exactly the same number of apartments rented at exactly the same rate.

Orion isn’t sure what rent control is: Sawant’s election challenger, Amazon-approved candidate Egan Orion, told Rich that he didn’t support Sawant’s rent control law because he thinks rent control is “not very good policy. He then went on to say that he supports “something similar to Oregon’s law.” For those not keeping close tabs on Salem—Oregon’s state legislature just passed… rent control. So Orion categorically doesn’t like rent control unless we’re considering… rent control? Confusing.

I mean, what is policy, anyways?: Speaking of Orion, he gave Erica C. Barnett a doozy of a quote when the independent journalist asked him if he has any policy disagreements with the Chamber of Commerce’s Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy (CASE). CASE has spent over $155,000 trying to get Orion elected but Orion told Barnett that: “I didn’t realize CASE had political positions.” Right. Because CASE, which has spent more on local elections than any other entity in the city, doesn’t care about political positions. That adds up as well as Orion’s claim that his campaign hasn’t gotten any help from PACs.

Speaking of things that don't add up: D5 candidate Ann Davison Sattler has a plan to forcibly round up anyone camping in Seattle and put them in converted warehouses. Her numbers don't add up, but even if they did, it would still be a terrible idea.

Tip here, please: Have you STILL not given anyone your Democracy Vouchers? Those are the four $25 vouchers mailed to every Seattle voter that you can give to any qualified candidate’s campaign. Read this post from the SECB to find out where you should send your money.

Farrell likes Scott: Former state representative, failed mayoral candidate, and current Nick Haneur employee Jessyn Farrell announced this week that she is all in on D4 candidate Shaun Scott. Read her post to medium here.

Nguyen wants Sawant to win: State Sen. Joe Nguyen endorsed Kshama Sawant this week, joining a very limited list of elected officials who have dared to endorse the socialist. By my count, the only other electeds publicly supporting Sawant are Council Member Mike O’Brien, former Council Member Nick Lacata, and County Councilmember Larry Gossett. That’s a short list for a politician like Sawant, who has been in office for five years, but then again, Sawant isn’t a conventional politician. Nguyen said in a press release, “The choice in Seattle City Council District 3 is clear. Councilmember Kshama Sawant will continue the fight so everyone gets a chance at opportunity and not just the wealthy few."

Welcome to the debate phase: City council elections are now entering the final “debate phase” of the general election, where, after spending hundreds of hours at community forums and out doorbelling, the candidates are now asked to stand next to each other on stages around town and repeat the same talking points we’ve been hearing for months. The debates are put on by the Seattle City Club.

First, we start north of the wall: Debates kicked off in D5 (North Seattle) and D6 (Ballard and environs), which are north of the wall if we call the Montlake Cut “the wall” and you allow me one more Game of Thrones reference. That cool? Great.

At last Saturday’s: D5 debate between Council Member Debora Juarez and Facebook user Ann Davison Sattler, Sattler “relentlessly attack” Juarez for not doing enough for homelessness while Juarez tried to stay above the fray and point out her work getting new investments to the North End.

At the D6 debate: Heidi Wills and Dan Strauss clashed over homeless sweeps and what words they use to describe themselves. Dan “Ballard’s paper boy” Strauss objectified himself by repeatedly calling himself a “turnkey candidate” as if he were trying to sell himself to a software engineer looking for a Ballard townhouse. Wills described herself as a “convener,” a slightly more apropos political metaphor.

The debates moved south: Last night saw debates for D3 (Captiol Hill and environs) and D7 (Downtown, Queen Anne, Magnolia) at Town Hall. Rich Smith caught the D3 debate and found that Town Hall’s new bathrooms were more interesting than seeing Socialist Kshama Sawant face off with Amazon-approved candidate Egan Orion. The D7 debate was even less interesting with Andrew Lewis and Jim Pugel agreeing on nearly every single issue, from hating the head tax to wanting to hire more police officers and build an unnecessary bridge to Magnolia.

The last two debates: Are between D4 candidates Alex Pedersen and Shaun Scott on Oct. 5 and D1 candidates Council Member Lisa Herbold and Phil Tavel on Oct. 10. While you eagerly await those debates I will leave you with an astute thought from Rich:

The most illuminating aspect of last night's debate between two-term Seattle City Council Member Kshama Sawant and Egan Orion was my learning Town Hall now features a truly impressive corridor of single-stall bathrooms in the lobby. The new trend of swapping gendered pisshauses for luxurious, four-walled commodes is yet another debt owed to the trans community, and I thank them for it.