The Seattlish Guide to Your Ballot

We at Seattlish spend a lot of time ass-deep in politics, initiatives, and campaigns. But looking at our ballots this election cycle, even we found ourselves a little in the dark. The wording is confusing AF, and it’s not as if any of the bills or measures are listed clearly, like “THIS IS AN EYMAN INITIATIVE, STAY THE FUCK AWAY.”

So we consulted a few experts, checked in with the various other voters guides and cheat sheets (h/t to the Progressive Voters’ Guide, the Stranger Election Control Board, the League of Women Voters, the Muni League, all of the Dems LDs, and a bunch of people we asked), and did a TON of reading.

The result is this: the first-ever Seattlish Guide to Your Ballot.

Previously, we haven’t endorsed candidates, in part because we always wear our emotions right on our sleeves and any regular reader can most likely discern how we feel. But this election year is too damn important for us to just hope people have good reading comprehension and an amazing memory for every brilliant word we’ve ever penned (hell, even we don’t remember what we’ve written).

Ok, here we go!

Originally posted by nofuzz

STATE

• I-1366: FUCK NO. Tim Eyman initiative. Hard pass. Which, in this case, means hard do-not-pass. VOTE NO. 
  
  
• I-1401: YES. This initiative would make it illegal to buy or sell endangered animals in this state, and we’re not about giving anyone a place to profit off that. Paul Allen does deserve a lil slap on the wrist for going pretty bonkers with signature gathering expenditures, but we’re not gonna let that fuck up a good cause.
  
  
• HB 1449, SB 5052, SB 5987, SB 6138: MAINTAIN ALL THOSE FUCKERS. It’s thanks to Tim Eyman that we have to do these non-binding advisory votes every time the tax code shifts, and Tim Eyman is THE WORST. SB 5052 gave us pause (if you’re worried about sketchy MMJ scrips let’s maybe work on doctor stigma, not solutions that treat MMJ less like, you know, medicine), but it is done, and hey – nothing gives us more pause than having to participate in these useless semiannual reminders that Eyman exists.
  

COUNTY

• Charter Amendment 1: YES. SPD has been a huge point of debate in this year’s City Council elections, but meanwhile, we have a King County Sheriff’s office with a rap sheet of its own. Remember KC Saulet, who despite having a laundry list of complaints against him, was only fired after he fucked with a journalist? That innocent man shot 16 times while lying in bed? The 15-year-old girl who was beaten after she kicked off her shoe? King County Sheriff’s office.
  
  Current Sheriff John Urquhart has called for reform, but we can’t keep people like him as Sheriff forever. King County Charter Amendment 1 would strengthen citizen oversight and shield it from political interests — so police accountability in King County wouldn’t depend on who’s in the Sheriff’s office. Vote yes.
  
  
• Prop 1: YES.  We hear a lot of THINK OF THE CHILDREN rhetoric when talking about policy — homeless encampments! Drug programs! Marijuana legalization! — but if you are actually someone who gives a shit about this county’s kids you absolutely  need to vote “yes” on this. Best Start for Kids is ~*~Dow Constantine~*~’s baby, and is an attempt to curb youth homelessness, incarceration, and mental illness issues by providing a whole suite of social programs to pregnant folks and small children, including expanding existing programs at public health centers. It’s a necessary and long-overdue investment in social programs.
  
  Our over-reliance on property tax on the city, county, and state level is fucking atrocious. But until we have comprehensive tax reform — and more responsible revenue — we should be spending the dollars we can levy on vital social programs like these. Vote yes, and fill in the bubble EXTRA THOROUGHLY because you are SO EXCITED that we can spend money on Good Things.
  
  
• Director of Elections: Zack Hudgins. If the theme of this year’s election is shaking up the Seattle process, current State Rep Zack Hudgins chose the right time to run. He’s running a campaign based on expanding voter access and better technology utilization.
  
  His opponent, Julie Wise, is running on her past experience with King County Elections — an entity that can’t even be bothered to put a ballot box anywhere in our newly-created District 2. Wise, the current Deputy Director, agrees with Zack on paper, but that’s not enough for us. She’d do an OK job, but Hudgins is our pick.
  
  
• King County Assessor: John Wilson. Look, Lloyd Hara has done an OK job so far. But as we look to elect candidates in other offices promising to keep Seattle from turning into a glossy utopia for the super-rich, maybe we should actually start paying more attention to what the King County Assessor’s Office actually does — most simply, they determine the value of properties in King County. We’re in the middle of a housing affordability crisis, and our only semi-progressive form taxation is property tax, with rates based on that assessed value. When assessed property values in neighborhoods like the Central District jump upward, they’re the ones that make that assessment.
  
  Sure, on some level they’re just fact-finding bureaucrats. But we can do better.
  
  To be honest, it was hard to give a shit about this election until we read up on Wilson, a former aide of Hara’s that has since parted ways — and has a lot of ideas on how to make the Assessor’s office better. He’s running on a housing affordability platform for an office where having a platform at all besides just “I will do the job” is basically unheard of. He wants to push for changes in tax code (WE HAVE SO MANY FUCKING PROPERTY TAXES, Y’ALL) to help keep people in their homes as property values skyrocket. He even has his own (appropriately wonky and zzzzz) affordable housing plan, which is more than we can say about some Seattle City Council candidates. Hara’s fine, but Wilson is better.
  
  
• Port of Seattle Commissioner #2: Courtney Gregoire. We know y’all think Goodspaceguy is HILARIOUS and that Courtney Gregoire was with the Port during the Shell deal and maybe you didn’t like her mom that much and blah blah but uh, have you actually listened to Goodspaceguy talk about not-space? It is a fucking nightmare. He thinks having a minimum wage — literally any minimum wage — is a bad thing, and voting for him even as a joke is voting a guy who wants literally no minimum wage at all to an office at the center of the legal arguments in the case against $15 in SeaTac.
  
  Jesus Christ.
  
  We know he is hilarious and batty AF, but do not do that thing. Just vote for Gregoire or write in “school sucks” but don’t get your ink anywhere near Goodspaceguy.
  
  
• Port of Seattle Commissioner #5: Fred Felleman. If you just can’t bring yourself to vote for Gregoire, you can at least feel decent voting for Fred Felleman. He’s running on a cleanup and transparency platform at a time when both are sorely needed at the Port. He’s also the non-preferred candidate of Alaska Airlines — have we mentioned they tried to use the Port in their shitty legal battle against paying their workers SeaTac’s $15 minimum wage? Vote for Felleman.
  
  
• County Council No. 2: Larry Gossett. He’s running unopposed. He’s ok. Just go with him.
  
  
• County Council No. 4: Jeanne Kohl-Wells. JKW is old school. She’s been Democrating around since dinosaurs roamed the earth. That’s not ageist. That’s just a fact (we think). Anyway. Kay-Dub has been around a long time and is generally a solid politician. She’s vying for Good Guy Larry Phillips’s Council seat (we knew this was coming) and we support her in doing so. KC Council is often pretty right-leaning (thanks to the ‘burbs) so we need someone like her to take her Democratic-ness to eleven and really advocate for important shit like transit in the county.
  
  
• County Council No. 6: Claudia Balducci. In the past, Republican Jane Hague has been a real thorn. She was a holdout on one of the old-timey pro-transit bills like six years ago, and we can’t forget it. She’s also just kind of Bellevue AF. Her opponent, Balducci, is a Democrat though and…we just kind of tend to bend that way. If you’re (weirdly) a Bellevue-based Seattlish reader, we think this is your direction.
  
  
• County Council No. 8: Joe McDermott. Unopposed. Whatever.
  

Originally posted by nationaljournal

**WATER BREAK**

CITY

• I-122: YES. Honest Elections isn’t a perfect piece of legislature, and the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission isn’t a perfect government body. There are some issues with the way this legislation is drafted. However, it’s a great start, and passing it now can help us address some of the major issues in campaign finance. Which, you know, it’s become abundantly clear that we need to do.
  
  
• Prop 1: YES. Transportation options on demand without apology! Proposition 1, also known as Let’s Move Seattle, is a nine-year property tax levy (surprise!)  that will fund dozens of SDOT projects in our city. It replaces Bridging the Gap, a widely recognized successful funding transportation program that expires this year and is estimated to cost the average homeowner in Seattle $275 a year.
  
  Which like, yes, that seems steep—but it’s also important.
  
  Don’t want to die in a horrible collapsing bridge accident when The Big One hits? LMS is gonna fix 16 bridges in Seattle. Would you like to take a bus trip across town that doesn’t take a vajillion years? There’s funding here to get working on seven new Rapid Ride and Bus Rapid Transit projects, including some that go ~*~east to west~*~. Want the Precious Angels to be able to walk to school safely? There’s money for improvements to the streets around schools, starting with the ones that serve low-income students. Into sidewalks? LMS has improvements or installation of 375 blocks of sidewalk. You like Neighborhood Greenways? You can get 60 more miles worth, brah. Bicycle pathways? Hella. This is a grab bag of improvements making getting around Seattle safer, faster, and less likely to occur of shitty old infrastructure.
  
  Yeah, it’s basically a billion dollars. And no, it’s not a perfect levy by any means. It doesn’t include the much desired and Sawant/Licata sponsored parking and business tax input. And sure, it can feel like you’re being strong-armed to pay for basic SDOT services because…well, you are. Because our tax system sucks. If you hate that, maybe write a letter to your lawmaker demanding an income tax and/or a capital gains or literally any other way to drum up revenue other than another goddamn levy.
  
  But IN THE MEANTIME, we need a viable, safe, and efficient multi-modal transportation system and that shit doesn’t just happen. Sorry Virginia, there is no Crosswalk Santa Claus. If we want it —and we do!!! —we have to pay for it, regardless of what batcrackers haters like Faye Fucking Garneau (she’s funded 93% of the “no” campaign!) say. And frankly, we can’t afford not to. We need to stop letting perfect be the enemy of good when it come to transportation in this region. Vote yes.

SCHOOL BOARD

In the interest of transparency, we want to say this: We have very limited knowledge of the labyrinthine clusterfuck that is the Seattle School Board — none of us have children and there are only three of us and this is just a goddamn maze.But but we heard that children are ~*~the future~*~ or whatever so we asked asked a couple of our favorite local parents and/or lefty activist-type people who the fuck we should elect to this thankless position.

“Potentially, an engaged, savvy board member could get a lot done,” said one parent we interviewed. “But It’s the type of position that doesn’t tend to attract engaged, savvy people because it’s a lot of (unpaid) work where, inevitably, lots of people are going to hate you.”

The takeaway: This shit is a mess, it’s been a mess for a long time, there’s very little hope that anyone can actually make it better, especially lately.

A couple of folks told us that The Stranger pretty much got it right,  and after talking to some folks, we’re inclined to agree. Here’s a summary:

• District 1, Director 1: Scott S. Pinkham. Scott S. Pinkham wants to lessen standardized testing and plans to advocate for dismantling colonialist history from our textbooks. His opponent Michael Christopherson, is also progressive, but he has a reputation as a verbally-abusive loose cannon (one of our sources called him “unhinged”). This is no contest.
  
  
• District 1, Director 2: Rick Burke. Rick Burke also wants to make sure our curriculums include an accurate tribal history. He wants to give the school board an auditor to ensure compliance policy (which seems like kind of a student body election promise — FREE DORITOS — but we like his can-do attitude. His opponent, Laura Gramer, is OK but has less specific recommendations.
  
  
• District 1, Director 3: Jill Geary. Endorsements on this one are split — Jill Geary’s opponent Lauren McGuire is also highly qualified, and they both have excellent credentials on special education. We dig that Jill Geary calls out discipline disparities and other social justice issues specifically (one of our sources he gets “chills when I think about her grilling district staff, pushing them to take parents and teachers seriously, and generally not letting the Superintendent and his top staff get away with shenanigans”) — and think that she’ll do the best job of working toward a district where all kids can get the most out of their schools.
  
  
• District 1, Director 6: Leslie Harris. Marty McClaren was all red t-shirt-wearing and social justice-messaging and great on paper — until this past September, when she voted in favor of the district taking legal action against the striking teachers. Fuck that — one of our sources said “it’s very telling that so few people endorsed her the second time around.” Leslie Harris was on the picket line (and has been described as “a bulldog who knows the district inside and out”). Vote for her instead.
  

Originally posted by winterlightscosynights

CITY COUNCIL!!!!! THIS IS THE FUN PART!! CAT GIF BREAK!!!!

• D1: Lisa Herbold. Both Shannon Braddock and Lisa Herbold have great resumes; they’ve both worked as legislative aides for candidates we like (Joe McDermott and Nick Licata, respectively), and they both support things we like (like transit). However, Herbold gets our nomination because of who doesn’t support her; Braddock’s donors include the restaurant PAC that fought $15, the Chamber of Commerce, and a bunch of developers. Herbold, meanwhile, has championed developer fees to help fund the things we need in the city. Vote Herbold.
  
  
• D2: Tammy Morales. We were sad to see that D2 had such low voter turnout in the primaries, but who could blame them? Their incumbent is Bruce Harrell, who has generally shown himself to be unpredictable at best and untrustworthy at worst — on paper he’s all about curbing police violence and improving racial equity, but in his eight years on City Council, all we seem to have gotten is a new youth jail that he voted for. Harrell’s decision to swing-vote John Okamoto into his role as interim City Council member was also pretty uncool.
  
  Tammy Morales barely campaigned in the lead-up, so she wasn’t exactly turning out voters, either. But since then, though, Morales has been out and about, debating like a champ against her long-time opponent, calling out his inconsistencies and shortcomings and pointing out specific solutions. Morales has expressed an interest in supporting small businesses by helping with commercial leases, which is a hugely important (and very specific) plan, but she also supports a living wage for workers. We think Harrell has had his shot, and we’re ready to see what someone else can do in the South End.
  
  
• D3: Kshama Sawant. Ok, here’s the straight shit: Pamela Banks had some promise at the jump but that’s all dissolved now. Under her leadership, the Urban League of Seattle became a powerful force for change, so maybe she could do the same for City Council? But over the tenure of this race, it’s become clear that she isn’t so much running because she has a lot of great ideas to help the city—she’s running because a lot of monied interests don’t want to see Kshama Sawant get re-elected. And here’s the thing: Though people say Sawant is “an obstructionist,” or that she “doesn’t play well with others,” the fact is that that is not true. In the under two years that she’s been on the council, she’s moved the entire place at least two steps to the left. Do your really think Tim Burgess would have drafted his own legislation in favor of lifting the statewide ban on rent control if she hadn’t done it first? Do you really think $15 would have happened without her? Hell no. She’s a firebrand and that’s an important role. Pamela Banks—backed by actual Republicans (and conservative liberals who love to say “ABS: Anyone But Sawant,” which is legitimately dumb as fuck when you think about it)—is just more of the same and would be ten steps backward.
  
  
• D4: Michael Maddux. Full disclosure: We have shared more than a few adult beverages with Michael Maddux. This is in part because he got at us, and in part because he is a just a really great dude. But in a race where the two candidates may SEEM similar, that’s not enough for an endorsement. We like where Michael Maddux is coming from, and we like what he’d do on council. With his legal background, he has the acumen to actually dig into all of that complex shit that slides across a council member’s desk, and with his life experience—LGBTQ, single dad, renter—he’s going to prioritize the things that matter to us. He wants improved transit because it’s good for the city AND because his kid needs to get around. He wants smarter development and relief for renters because we all need it AND because he, himself, needs a place to live. That matters when it comes to legislating, and to be honest, it’s not something we’ve ever had on council before. He’s our guy.
  
  
• D5: Debora Juarez. Reverend (!!!) Sandy Brown seems ok-ish on paper, but Debora Juarez has a legacy of activism that we just fucking love. She’s fought for tribal sovereignty, has come out against Ed Murray’s walking back of the HALA recommendations for multi-family housing, and she’s a big supporter of urban development that shares roads and sidewalks. She’s also smart AF; she’s a former King County Superior Court judge and a former public defender. Oh, and she’s a cancer survivor TWICE OVER. We’re into Juarez.  
  
  
• D6: Mike O'Brien. It’s no secret that we think Mike O'Brien is cute as a button but that is not enough to endorse someone. What IS enough is how hard this man fought to get an encampment in Ballard opened post haste, even when the neighbors were having a horrible pee-pants tantrum. His opponent, meanwhile, is a definitely Ballard NIMBY who has come out against encampments, although she’s wishy-washy about that stance at debates. And while he’s been a liiiiiiittle bit spineless re: holding developers accountable, we have faith in Mike OB. He’s been pretty great so far, and we’d like to see more of him.
  
  
• D7: Literally anyone you want. Sally Bagshaw is basically running unopposed. And while she’s fine—she’s been a decent behind the scenes advocate for the homeless and a supporter of parks—she could be better, and louder, and running against essentially no one (her opponent is some lady who likes “smart small government”) is probably not going to get her there. So you could just vote for Sally B, or you could write in your favorite teacher or something. Either way, it’s her seat.
  
  And it’s an important one! It’s Downtown and also SLU! It’s a district that has a lot of important issues to tackle, and she can (and should) be a tone-setter for how we confront some of Seattle’s most prescient issues (development, affordability, inequality, transportation) in a way that’s inclusive, empathetic, and courageous.
  
  If the elections go the way we want them to, she’s going to be one of only three returning council members. It’s time for actual leadership, Sally, and for us, the people, to hold you to it. We intend to do our part. You do yours.
  
  
• D8: Jon Grant. Big duh. We have not been a fan of Tim Burgess since his boneheaded aggressive panhandling ordinance, and he’s continued his pattern of shitty behavior: For example, bullying Mike McGinn into digging that giant tunnel that’s so great that we all drive through every day (oh wait).
  
  And while he loves to come out with all of his most progressive politics during election cycles, we’ve seen enough of his middling policy during the off years to know that we are tired of him. Jon Grant is a dope guy with good ideas. And while you may have heard that the Tenants Union, which he ran, is some kind of obstructionist monolith, the fact is that that’s definitely not the case and that they actually do good work for people. If we could get a council with both him and Sawant and Maddux on it, we could actually probably see some real-ass protection for renters. PLUS he deserves our endorsement if only because of that whole getting-blackmailed thing and the cool as fuck way he handled it (if you’ve been living under a rock, read all about it here). Go Hawks!
  
  
• D9: Lorena González. Lorena González is a badass. She’s an attorney with a long history of fighting for migrant workers — she comes from a migrant worker family — and seems very passionate on workers’ rights, housing affordability, and social justice. We are not super into the fact that she’s Ed Murray’s personal pick (if only because we believe that City Council and the Mayor should be TWO branches of government, not one huge fist of policy run by the Mayor) and that she’s taken money from SPOG (UGH), but the alternative, Bill Bradburd, is a someone we do not care for. He’s been known to say some pretty unfortunate things to constituents online, and we think he agitates shitty NIMBY attitudes (even the Weekly says so!) and just kind of gives off a bullying vibe (after posting this article, he promptly accused us of libel) and we don’t need any more of that. Pick González.
  

You made it! We all made it! Good job! Don’t forget to mail your ballot by November 3! 


A previous version of our endorsement said that Bill Bradburd trolls women on Facebook. And while we, as women, have often been made to feel uncomfortable by Bill’s comments in various civic Facebook groups, we regret having to deal with an onslaught of messages from both Bill Bradburd and his supporters for saying so. We have have retracted that part of this article, because we received Facebook messages threatening action if we didn’t.