King County Elections (KCE) expects to wrap up the signature certification this week for Initiative 137, a poll measure that may tax companies with anybody making at the least $1 million on their payroll. The income will completely fund the social housing Public Improvement Authority (PDA), which voters accepted in a February 2023 poll measure. Home Our Neighbors (HON), the group heading the marketing campaign, already claimed a victory on Twitter.
Finally, the voters of Seattle will resolve on the measure, however the Seattle Metropolis Council nonetheless has an opportunity to thwart the progressives bid to decommodify housing. Within the coming weeks, the council will resolve which poll the initiative will go on, November’s poll, which could have the very best doable turnout due to the presidential election, or the February particular election in an odd yr when the fewest voters hit poll packing containers.
In a press launch Friday afternoon, HON inspired the Seattle Metropolis Council to go the initiative outright, seeing that voters accepted the social housing developer by a 14-point margin final February. But when the council decides to place it to a vote of the folks, HON mentioned they need to accomplish that “instantly” and with out a competing measure. “There isn’t a time to waste on the housing disaster,” the press launch learn.
To get the initiative on the poll for November, the Metropolis Council must vote on it by August 6, in accordance with KCE spokesperson Halei Watkins. KCE has to submit a Certificates of Sufficiency notification to the Metropolis Clerk, who will then transmit it to the council to go on the agenda. This course of has been accomplished inside a day for earlier initiatives.
The council doesn’t boast an excellent observe report of performing rapidly, however they need to have at the least one alternative to go the laws at a full council assembly earlier than that deadline. They may additionally name a particular assembly if their agenda fills up. Council President Sara Nelson didn’t reply to my request for remark concerning the timing of the vote.
There’s purpose to suspect this council wouldn’t help this measure—it might tax large enterprise, the very curiosity group that purchased their seats. The best, most face-saving method to delay the vote, pushing the initiative to the decrease turnout February election, could be to suggest a competing initiative that takes a while to draft up. A number of sources, together with some near the Metropolis Council, instructed The Stranger that Council Member Tanya Woo might suggest a competing poll measure that will redirect I-137’s tax income, a projected $52 million a yr, to the Workplace of Housing, the place it might pay for reasonably priced housing moderately than social housing.
If the council places such a proposal on the poll, they might, in impact, pit reasonably priced housing and social housing in opposition to each other, a combat already waged in 2022 by scarcity-mindset idled advocates when Home Our Neighbors! (HON) ran their first initiative to ascertain the PDA. The 2 measures may additionally confuse voters. The Tacoma Metropolis Council pulled the same gambit after they proposed their very own measure, which restated pre-existing legal guidelines, to compete in opposition to a grassroots suite of renter protections. A choose struck down the Metropolis’s initiative earlier than it went to the poll, and voters accepted the brand new protections.
Woo denied the rumors. In an e mail to The Stranger, she wrote, “I’m not planning to introduce a competing poll measure to I-137.”
That doesn’t imply different council members received’t strive. Nelson didn’t reply to questions on a doable competing measure. However, if Nelson supported a competing measure, she would go in opposition to her earlier stance on the council “interfering” within the initiative course of.
In 2022, the Metropolis Council put a competing measure on the poll subsequent to a measure to ascertain Approval Voting. Nelson raised a giant stink, or as she put it, “[took] a stand for good governance.” She argued it’s commonplace apply for council to simply ship measures to the poll, not add their very own, which the council had not vetted correctly and voters didn’t sign help for by way of petition.
“I feel the council ought to simply get out of the best way, ship [the Approval Voting initiative] to the poll, and let the voters resolve in November,” Nelson mentioned earlier than voting in opposition to the competing measure.
But when Nelson, Woo, or anybody on the council slows the method, and Seattlites have to attend till February to vote on I-137, HON mentioned that’s okay too. The marketing campaign believes they will win both manner.
