Kim Wyman is a good, shrewd choice to oversee election security. Well done, Joe. You have the integrity to actually want honest election results, unlike your predecessor and ninety percent of those in his party. The polls notwithstanding, I've got to believe--and hope--your fundamental decency will be rewarded with increasing popularity. And if not: your choice of Wyman still stands as ethical and savvy.

Is that what it takes to pry Wyman out of that job?

Of course it's always incumbent upon Democrats to show bipartisanship. Its never expected or demanded of Republicans.

While I'm glad CM Gonzalez has apologized for her attack ad, her continued insistence that then-CM Harrell was defending then-Mayor Murray continues to be a false attack upon her opponent.

Back then, the Stranger was pushing, hard and angrily, for Seattle's City Council to impeach Murray for his alleged crimes. (https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/07/24/25306763/city-council-unlikely-to-impeach-murray-but-drafting-a-succession-plan, https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/07/31/25318351/guest-editorial-murray-should-resign-and-the-council-must-show-leadership) The Stranger was also enraged the Council was not submitting to these demands (https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/08/01/25318254/city-council-does-jack-shit-as-more-people-call-for-murrays-resignation).

In response, then-CM Harrell noted the Council's impeachment power was limited to mayoral acts committed while in office, which none of the accusations against Murray claimed. In an impeachment, the Council would have had to decide if the alleged acts had indeed happened, which (if they ever did happen) all took place decades earlier, some in another state. This is simply beyond the purview of the City Council in mayoral impeachment, and Harrell was correct to note this.

Putting it another way, when a prosecutor says, "that crime is outside of my jurisdiction," do we then claim the prosecutor has said the suspect is innocent? Of course not, but that's what CM Gonzalez continues to say. It's still false, and it's still an intentional smear of her opponent.

Thank you for another spot on article, Jas!

Here's hoping Washington State Secretary Kim Wyman can help keep elections--particularly the midterms in 2022 as well as the next presidential election in 2024---fair and impartial, with zero problems involving mail-in ballots. I'm amazed she hasn't declared herself an Independent after all the MAGA shitshows in 2020 and Act of High Treason on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Good call, President Smokin' Joe Biden!

Rock ON, Brandi Carlisle!!

Ron DeSantis, Governor of Flor-i-dumb IS a disaster. Methinks The Sunshine State is hurtling towards a bad Police Academy sequel, "Mission to Mar-a-Lago".
Attention all keystone coppers who quit or got fired for stubbornly remaining unvaccinated, and who are now fleeing in droves to accept DeSantis's idiotic offer:
Just breathe on each other and it will all be over soon. Act now while defending your Free Dumbs before the Orange Turd State of Confusion sinks deeper into the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean! Who needs real estate? If you hurry you can still play with Wally Gator and his friends!
If science doesn't end MAGA stupidity COVID and its variants certainly will.

Yaay for the return of the humpback whales!! Here's hoping for the equally healthy return of salmon and resident orcas as well.

@2, sorry, Ann Davison is no Kim Wyman. Of course, the best thing Davison has going for her is that she's no Nicole Thomas-Kennedy.

BTW, speaking of NTK, I get a bit uncomfortable with these attack ads and mailers that show a photo of her wearing a bandanna as a face mask. Makes her look like some kind of robber or revolutionary. Yeah, I realize that's the point. Ah, politics is an ugly business.

Speaking of politics being an ugly business, dear tensor @6, you're someone that I agree with more often than not regarding Seattle politics, but this whole thing about whether Gonzalez ran a racist ad is such a sideshow and such a distraction from the real issues being debated. Give it a rest.

MarvelUS @3, well said about Wyman and Biden.

Did Gonzalez just apologize for not finding a BIPOC woman to carry out her attack ad? Um…

@8: My comment @6 did not describe Gonzalez' attack ad as racist, nor did it address the question of whether or not it was racist. I merely noted it was an attack ad. I also noted she continued to attack her opponent on the same false basis. Again, my objection to her attack ad was not that her attack ad was racist, but that her attack ad was false, and that she continued to make that same false attack even after she'd withdrawn the ad:

'...she stands by her position "that my opponent has a troubling history both past and recent of defending those credibly accused of child sex assault and in other instances proposing to discredit those who have alleged sexual harassment."'

No, he didn't defend Murray, as I have already explained @6. She should stop saying he did. (Also, if by "child sex assault," she was referring to Murray, then that is false as well. None of his alleged victims would have been children at the time he supposedly assaulted them.)

I would completely agree, that all of her needless attacks have been "... a sideshow and such a distraction from the real issues being debated." I do wonder why you seem to have more trouble with me describing her needless attacks, than you have in her insistence on continuing to make such unhelpful "distractions." She should indeed just "[g]ive it a rest."

@3 MarvelUS for the WIN! Agreed with @8 cressona--well said regarding Secretary of Washington State Kim Wyman and President (how I LOVE to be able to say that again!) Joe Biden.

@8 &12 Thank you.

@6 Exactly! Why is it so hard for people to understand that the voters have not given the city council powers to take action on things that happen before an elected person is in office? "Voters did not ask..." is correct. If voters want to ask, then change the city charter! Pointing out that the city council had no jurisdiction and calling for due process was the absolute right thing to do. Lorena's grandstanding didn't help anything. And that "apology" was fake as h**l. She didn't apologize to the black community or the sexual abuse survivors. Only said she was sorry for not using a different person.

it appears from her petty apology that Lorena maintains her position and is also super-butthurt that her poll numbers likely took a hit from such an ad. oof.

@5: Actually, it's the dems turn. There's a bipartisan infrastructure bill passed in the Senate that obstructionist Nancy won't bring to a vote in the House because dems want to be pouty and get everything on their wish list or nobody gets anything at all. America suffers because of Democrats, not Republicans.

@18: ...said the MAGA rube whose brain is nuked from sniffing too much rubber cement. Go upstairs for YooHoo and Cocoa Puffs before you land facedown on your keyboard again. Who has the top bunk tonight---you or Swifty? I see you acquired yet another roomie in molewacka for your twisted tree fort of lackeys.
America suffers because of RepubliKKKans and their fellow RepubliKKKan bootlickers in Democrats' clothing. Get rid of McConnell, Manchin, and Sinema among all other Orange Turd Death Cult toxic waste and a shitload more can get done on the federal level for ALL Americans, not just the KKKorporate few.