Seattle doesn’t deserve Nikkita Oliver, but boy do we need them.
We need them to help lead the progressive majority on the city council, anchor the conversation on transferring money from our bloated police budget to less harmful and more effective alternatives, and actually make people give a shit about what happens at the city council.
That last point is worth taking a moment to explain. City council often gets the policy right but the messaging wrong. Just look at the PR failure of the head tax, the Defund whiplash, and the untimely demise of the discussion around letting poor people accused of misdemeanors claim poverty as an affirmative defense in court.
When Oliver speaks about these issues, they don’t sound like they’re reading off a script fresh from a lobbyist’s printer. They sound like they’re speaking from experience—experience as an attorney, experience as the director of Creative Justice (an arts-based diversion program for youth), and experience as an organizer who has led thousands of people to City Hall to drive many conversations around the injustices of the criminal system. They sound like the most inspiring politician in town, and they haven’t even been elected to anything yet. The council needs a champion for its own policies, and Oliver, who is, incidentally, a trained MMA fighter, will be that champion.
