– If inflation, population growth, and economic growth weren’t a thing, that spending increase number might be meaningful.
– You don’t necessarily have your family’s policies if you run for office, but if you can’t get away from George W. Bush, you’re in trouble.
– Reporting from the “My Actual Hell” newsdesk; Cuddle Club.
– I liked the last book by Randall Munroe’s last book, so here’s looking forward to Thing Explainer
Defending Mayor Ed Murray’s crusade to rein in the scourge of electioneering, his spokesperson says that his proposed ordinance is merely intended to remove “confusion” over what political activity is or is not prohibited:
When asked about the bill’s connection to Sawant, a spokesman for the mayor said, “There seems to be some confusion over whether or not political activity related to official events organized by city staff is currently prohibited.”
“There certainly won’t be any confusion after this new language is adopted,” added the spokesman, Jason Kelly.
Uh-huh. Except, here’s the new language that’s being proposed:
No elected official, nor the official’s agent, shall engage in campaign activities at, or adjacent to, any official city public event that is organized by that elected official or any employee of the official’s office. The campaign activities may not occur during the event or at any time that attendees of the public event are present.
The glaring problem with this language is that it defines neither “official’s agent” nor “campaign activities”—and neither does section 2.04.300 of the municipal code that it amends. (Or “adjacent to,” for that matter.) Who exactly qualifies under the law as an “agent” of an elected official? I dunno. What exactly is a “campaign activity?” Beats me. If a Sawant supporter, on her own initiative were to pass out a Sawant campaign flyer on the steps of City Hall at a Sawant organized public forum, would that make Sawant legally liable for her actions? I guess that’s up to the courts to decide.
So much for removing any confusion.
Essentially, this ordinance bars Council member Sawant and her office from organizing any “official city public event” by attempting to make her legally liable for any action taken by one of her “agents” (whatever that means). And it pretty much only applies to Sawant, because she’s the only elected official who can claim any sort of meaningful grassroots support—a base that is at times unruly, undisciplined, and not under anybody’s direct control. Because grassroots!
I mean, seriously, if Sally Bagshaw were to organize a forum, do you really think she’d have to worry about overly-enthusiastic supporters showing up and violating section 2.04.300? I don’t think so.
Only Sawant needs to worry about involuntarily violating this ordinance because only Sawant has a large base of supporters enthusiastic enough to actually show up.
I’m not an attorney, but both the vagueness and broadness of this ordinance strikes me as unenforceable… though that doesn’t mean they can’t create a legal nightmare for Sawant in the process of trying. At the very least, this ordinance would produce an endless parade of bogus ethics complaints. At the very worst, it could ultimately prompt a legal challenge seeking to overturn Sawant’s reelection under section 2.04.500:
If the court finds that the violation of any provision of this chapter by any candidate or political committee probably affected the outcome of any election, the result of the election may be held void and a special election held within 60 days of such finding.
Unintended consequences? Maybe not.*
* Full disclosure: I enthusiastically support Sawant. I mean, like duh-uh.
King County Elections Director Sherril Huff
One of the stoopidest, stoopidest things local voters have done over the 11 years I’ve been covering local politics is to make the King County Elections Director an elected office. This is a position that demands a professional who knows how run elections, not a politician who knows how to run for them. And while it is putatively a nonpartisan office, we all know that’s bullshit.
The last person we want running King County Elections is a director with a political agenda, allegiance, or ambition.
Fortunately, disaster was averted back in February of 2009 when the appointed director, Sherril Huff, won a special election against a six-person field that included the likes of Pam Roach and David Irons Jr. (Irons actually came in second!) And the reason why you’ve heard so little in the press about Huff ever since is that she has done such a damn fine job. Which is why it worries me to read the press release that Huff is retiring:
King County Elections Director Sherril Huff will not seek re-election as King County Elections Director. She had planned to run for a second full, four year term but will now retire for personal and health considerations. Huff, who has held the position since 2009, issued the following statement:
“It is with some sadness that I made this decision. I love my job, my team of dedicated professionals, and the work we do to ensure transparent, efficient elections for the 1.1 million voters in our state’s largest County. I was looking forward to continuing this service, but after consulting with family, friends and colleagues, I am making the right decision to step down after this year.
I’m particularly proud of the advancements we have made in ballot tracking, improving technologies to speed counting and processing, and improving accessibility through vote by mail, drop boxes, multi-language voting materials, and other efforts to increase participation.
I know I am leaving the office in a strong position as a state and national leader, and will enjoy the remaining months in office.”
Huff deserves a ton of credit for restoring confidence in the office in the wake of the controversial 2004 election. So my hope is that Huff has a qualified deputy in the office who the political establishment rally behind awfully damn quick before politics and personal ambition have a chance to corrupt this race. I don’t want a political ally—I want an elections professional. And so should you.
Much to the Republicans’ dismay, Washington is a “voter intent” state; but there is still plenty of room for an elections director to suppress the vote in subtle and nuanced ways. We could tighten up on the signature verification standards, leaving thousands more “challenged” ballots out of the count. We could pull back on our multilingual voter outreach efforts, reducing turnout in immigrant communities. We could scale back on the number of drop boxes in communities of color and on college campuses. In the wake of several elections in which the late ballots broke hard to the left, our new elections director could support the Seattle Times’ incessant call for moving the ballot deadline from postmarked by Election Day to received by Election Day.
There is plenty of opportunity for mischief. Or, the new director could follow in Huff’s methodical footsteps by focusing on improving and speeding the elections process.
Low profile races like this tend to fly far under the radar—voter turnout for the 2009 special election in which Huff first won office was only 22 percent. But considering that fair and impartial elections are the heart of our democracy, in the long run this could end up being one of the most important races on the November ballot.
– God, how little sense of humor must Mike Huckabee have now if he was upset about Life Of Brian in his early 20’s?
– Anti-vaxxers are more dangerous than you thought
– What the fuck, Rick Scott?
– Baltimore Police Detain Numerous Residents Without Charge (also, you should really check out all of TWIB’s coverage of Baltimore, and maybe give them some money if you can)
– The need among Republican states to punish their poor is really disheartening.
– Oh hey, more Patty Murray being awesome.
– I don’t really like the lightening round questions in the candidate debates, but I guess when there’s a large field they may be necessary. Still, Godden should answer the questions.
– Maybe Okamoto should apologize to the citizens of King County for how the Port Of Seattle operated when he was chief administrative officer? No, that would be substance rather than decorum, so it’s not important to The Seattle Times.
– Inslee’s office really should have done better on the arctic oil drilling fleet.
– Looks like Dow’s State of the County speech was pretty good.
– So Sally Bagshaw both “felt jilted for not being able to join Licata and Sawant on stage at last week’s rent control forum” and thought the forum was an ethics violation?
– Paid parental leave for King County employees
– The oil train bill did pass after all.
– I’ve always thought rightwing media caterwauling about the liberal media is more about working the refs than covering for their own failures. But I guess both are true.
– The backlash is here, and it has lawyers, and things are going to get real ugly.
A levy swap isn’t on its own a horrible thing. Poor districts should still be able to educate their children. But in the absence of new money, it’s just taking money from districts that have been doing a better job educating children, if because they can afford it or if they’re more willing to pay. Goldy explained this ad nauseum when Rob McKenna was running and losing on levy swaps.
I’m happy to pay for education in the whole state. Let’s fund significantly more education at the state level. I’m all for it! Ideally with an income tax, but absent that, the most progressive tax we can get through the legislature.
But what we shouldn’t do is take money away from some districts or force the Puget Sound to pay for it while the rest of the state doesn’t. And that’s what a levy swap will do. As long as that’s the GOP position, it’s never going to fly.
“This would be the biggest property tax increase in state history,” said Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-Orcas Island, adding that the latest estimates show residents facing the biggest jump in their property taxes would be in the Puget Sound region, while some getting the biggest break would be in Eastern Washington and other rural parts of the state.
Most property owners in Spokane-area school districts would see a drop in their local property taxes over the four years needed to phase in the changes, although the amounts vary because of significant differences in current school district levies and the complicated laws that govern them.
Property taxes in Spokane School District, for example, would go down most years between 2018 and 2021 – as much as $1.80 per $1,000 of assessed value in 2021 – but up by .01 per $1,000 in 2019.
Ranker and other Senate Democrats have a competing plan designed to address the same problem of a system the state Supreme Court says is unconstitutional: using local tax money to pay for a basic part of public education, the salary of classroom teachers. Their solution is a tax increase, plain and simple: a capital gains tax on any resident who collects more than $250,000 a year on investment earnings. Money raised by that tax would be used to replace the money local districts now contribute to teacher salaries. That amount varies from district to district, but the amount a district receives from the state’s capital gains tax they would lower the amount they could collect from local taxpayers, so everyone would get a property tax reduction and only about 7,500 residents would pay the capital gains tax.
Neither one has everything I would want, but at least one actually has new money for education. If the problem is that there isn’t enough money for education, that seems like the thing at the outset you should deal with. I don’t understand how you can try to take education dollars from Seattle and Bellevue and say you’re supporting education statewide.
Lawrence O’Donnell: Who smoked pot in the White House, and other tales from Pennsylvania Avenue.
Sam Seder: A Republican story of self-hate and projection.
Bill Maher: Zombie lies of science-denying Republicans:
Vsauce: When will be run out of names?
The 2016 Clown Car:
Climate Change Denial Disorder.
Roll Call: Congressional hits and misses of the week.
Thom: The origins and true face of American Libertarianism.
Slate: Where does lightening strike?
Hillary Announces:
Minute Physics: How do airplanes fly?
White House: West Wing Week.
Mental Floss: Misconceptions about history.
Indiana Legalizes Discrimination—Still:
Larry Wilmore: Maybe Black people need to fly gyrocopters instead of marching
David Pakman: Walmart pharmacist refused to fill prescription for woman who had a miscarriage.
Thom: Montana Democrats and Republicans team up to get dark money out of state politics.
How ALEC lobbies for the private prison industry
Mental Floss: 20 facts about Abraham Lincoln (and his family).
What’s White and Black and Red All Over?
Matt Binder: Fast food strike for $15 grows into a larger social justice movement.
Maddow: Reid, “The Senate is a better place because of women”.
Jon: Who Actually Strengthened Iran’s Nuclear Program?
Pelosi on Corker’s innocuous Iran bill.
Mental Floss: What makes a permanent marker permanent?
Michael Brooks: Obama’s biggest accomplishment?
Lawrence O’Donnell: What woman should be on the $20 bill.
Thom: The Good, the Bad, and the Very Very Morbillously Ugly.
Matt Binder: NRA’s Nutjob Prez Wayne LaPierre: ““Eight years of one demographically symbolic President is enough”.
Maddow and Harry Reid: That time McCain threatened to kick the shit out of Sen. Reid:
ObamaCare is Still Working:
Stephen Hawking sings the Monty Python Galaxy Song.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
– Seriously, business owners, why are you volunteering anti-gay garbage?
– The people in Kayaks meeting the Shell rig are pretty amazing.
– Oh hey, here’s your list of possible people to fill Sally Clark’s spot on the City Council. Oddly, no Goldy this time around.
Rents at newer luxury “Class A” apartment buildings in Seattle are rising at twice the rate of rents at older “Class C” buildings, despite having twice the vacancy rate. Which which is weird because…
The data seem to defy the law of supply and demand. I asked Cain about it; he believes it has something to do with the different types of ownership models at luxury apartment buildings compared with the older ones.
Premium Class A properties are typically owned by institutional investors and managed by a national property-management company.
In contrast, Class C properties are usually owned by people with a connection to Seattle — either a family (though that’s become a lot less common in recent years) or a small group of local investors.
“Also, these owners seem to hold the properties longer,” Cain says, “and as a result, they have lower debt coverage ratios.” The less debt they have to service, the less pressure to push rents to the maximum.
In other words, many of these landlords aren’t jacking up rents to whatever the market will bear. It’s a refreshing change from the all-too-common stories of brutal rent hikes forcing tenants to relocate.
Except, of course, it’s not weird. Because there is no “law” of supply and demand. Supply and demand is a useful construct for describing, in general, how markets tend to work. But it’s not a law. People—and thus the markets they create—are a lot more complicated than any three-word phrase can describe. So no, merely adding more supply is not the only (or even an adequate) solution to Seattle’s growing affordability crisis.
I’m not saying we don’t need to add more housing units. Of course we do. Massively. But the market alone will not solve this crisis because the form of ownership matters.
– Did you pay your taxes? I’m sure this open thread will be all the reminder you need.
– Yesterday I had a post complaining about how much money was in the City Council race. Maybe comparing it to last time isn’t as bad after all.
– Patty Murray is working hard for the Healthy Families Act for paid sick leave.
– Is it possible we’ll have some action on oil trains, or is anything good just going to die in the State Senate?
– It’s kind of sad that a silly cartoon about Hillary Clinton has more useful info on her policy than most think pieces.
Last week I upset some of my urbanist friends by once again suggesting that the market alone could not build its way out of Seattle’s growing affordable housing crisis. Yes, our current NIMBYist regulations have helped create the current crisis, so of course we need to free private developers to build more density. “But…” I insisted, “if we want to substantially add and retain middle and low income housing in Seattle than we’re going to have to build and retain tens of thousands of units outside of the market.”
So what exactly do I mean “outside of the market?” I mean the city is going to need to build and own these units itself. And if done right, we can do this at no cost to taxpayers.
Specifically, the city and county have hundreds of millions of dollars of untapped bonding capacity that we can use to build middle-income and workforce housing at below-market rents. And we can do this because municipal governments have three huge advantages over private developers: we can borrow money more cheaply, we don’t have to produce a return on investment, and have we no incentive toward extractive “rent seeking.”
Here’s how it works: The city sells bonds to purchase and develop a piece of property, pledging revenue from that development (not taxes!) to pay off the bonds. You know, just like private developers borrow money. But cheaper. We then hire the same private architects and private contractors that private developers hire, because that’s how you build stuff. No need to reinvent the wheel.
In fact, the whole process works pretty much like a typical private development, using the same standard math that private developers use to determine if a project pencils out (banks won’t lend to them if it doesn’t). The only difference is that absent a profit motive, the goal of our bond-backed public development will be to charge as little rent as possible, not as much. We want to build as affordably as we can on any particular piece of land while charging rents sufficient to service the bonds, pay for management, maintenance, and improvements, and keep sufficient financial reserves. The larger rental market will necessarily influence our design decisions, but not define it. As a result, we will make different design choices than the typical private developer.
For example, in order to keep costs down, we might opt for smaller bedrooms and communal laundry rooms rather than washers and dryers in every unit. And rather than providing an off-street parking spot for every unit, we might build only a limited number of spots, made available to tenants at an additional cost. On the other hand, we might provide onsite dedicated parking spots for car-sharing services like Car2Go and Zipcar, or in a family-oriented development, we might include space for onsite preschool and childcare, thus reducing the need for young families to own a car.
It’s not about building cheap. It’s about building smart. We want to provide those amenities that best serve the needs of median-and-below-income tenants, rather than those amenities that might fetch the highest rent from a crowded market of well-paid tech workers.
And finally, even if we initially fail to offer these units at substantially below market rates, public ownership will allow us to impose our own voluntary form of rent control, only raising rents to meet our actual costs or necessary improvements, rather than hiking rents to take advantage of whatever the market will bear. If managed properly, over time these public developments would grow increasingly affordable relative to the larger profit-driven market. In fact, if we meet or exceed our goals, we may even be able to collateralize these developments in order to free up bonding capacity for additional projects.
To be clear, this is not subsidized housing—although additional subsidies could be leveraged to further reduce rents for low-income households. It is more like a public utility: like Seattle City Light pledges revenue from ratepayers to bond the investments necessary to build and maintain a system that delivers some of the cheapest and greenest power in the nation. The goal is to provide affordable rent-stabilized housing to as many customers as possible.
Also, this is not an entirely radical idea. Many state and local governments already offer low-interest municipal bonds to finance projects from both for-profit and not-for-profit developers in exchange for setting aside a number of low-income units for a specified number of years. I propose departing from this model in two ways: 1) We build for median income households as well as low income, and 2) We maintain public ownership and operation, keeping these units outside the market in perpetuity. I don’t have all the details worked out, but the research I’ve done convinces me that the basic premise is sound.
As for the risk to taxpayers, of course, nothing is risk free. Gross incompetence, corruption, a natural disaster, or an economic collapse could leave taxpayers holding the bill. But that’s true of anything we bond. The upside is that we could leverage our AAA credit rating to add hundreds or even thousands of affordable housing units to the region every year… units that would stay affordable regardless of market forces.
Is that enough to address our affordable housing crisis on its own? Of course not. Above all, we need more density, and that’s mostly going to come from the private market. In addition to publicly built and managed housing, I believe we must broadly lift height restrictions throughout much of the city, particularly near transit hubs, while freeing up homeowners to build “accessory dwelling units” (ADUs), both mother-in-laws and backyard bungalows. Additionally, we should liberally waive the requirement to provide off-street parking for new construction, and do the best we can to streamline the review and permitting process while maintaining reasonable standards of safety and aesthetics. NIMBYism is the enemy of density; while neighbors certainly should have input into local development, they should not have veto power. I’m not anti-zoning or anti-regulatory—I also support workforce housing set-asides and fees—but I do believe we have to be a lot smarter about the regulations we have now, and a lot more resolute in resisting our “Lesser Seattle” instincts. We need to build more housing.
So I really wish density advocates would stop viewing me as the enemy. I’m with you on almost everything.
But that said, and for the reasons stated in my earlier post, the private market is not going to solve Seattle’s growing affordability crisis on its own. As long as Seattle remains affordable compared to competing high-tech centers like San Francisco and New York, added housing supply will only increase demand. And with the possible exception of some ADUs, private developers simply aren’t going to voluntarily build many units aimed at median-or-below-income households: Buildable land is scarce and high-end housing has higher margins, so developers are going to try to squeeze as much profit as possible out of every square inch by aiming as upscale as the parcel will support.
So if we want middle-class and workforce housing in Seattle, the city is going to have to build and manage it itself, outside of the larger housing market.
Jon: Kansas is America’s welfare queen.
Slate: The tide of every 18 years.
Thom: The Good, the Bad, and the Very Very Foveately Ugly.
White and Black and Red All Over:
Roy Zimmerman: What I Mean:
Slate: A year in space.
Mental Floss: What is the origin of the high-five.
Sam Seder: Louie Gohmert unhinged, “You’re playing God with the internet!!!”
Mark Fiore: Three-eyed Billy embraces the apocalypse.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren: How she learned to ‘stand up’ and ‘speak out’.
Matt Binder: Draft dodger Ted Nuget claims to know why vets are committing suicide (hint: Obama).
The 2016 Clown Parade:
Mental Floss: 21 Fandom Facts.
Jonathan Mann: Hey, hey, NSA, stop looking at my penis.
Maddow: TN tweaks gun laws ahead of NRA convention
Ask a homo: Gays and political groups.
Congressional hits and misses: Best of Dan Coats.
Pap: How Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert held the corporate media accountable.
Bill-O the Sociopath:
Garfunkel and Oats: Rainbow Connections:
Liberal Viewer: FAUX News lies about “ban the box” law.
White House: West Wing Week.
Jon on the Rolling Stone scandal.
Mental Floss: Misconceptions about dinosaurs.
Maddow: NC Lawmakers push sweeping anti-abortion bill.
The Bloody Neocons Are At It Again:
David Pakman: Republican to Gays, at least we aren’t hanging you.
Thom: The Good, the Bad, and the Very Very Foudroyantly Ugly!
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
– It looks like the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program in Seattle has been pretty successful and could use some expansion.
– Just because you can still check Facebook while driving, doesn’t mean you should. In fact, please don’t.
– More and more abortion restrictions are coming from the states. This time Kansas.
– I don’t have a TV, so my TV news comes via the Internet, so grain of salt. Still, I haven’t noticed KING 5 being worse than other local media outlets on being super car-centric, but Erica C. Barnett makes the case that they’re pretty bad while noting their latest problematic piece.
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!