Tuesday, November 5, in consequential races for Garfield, progressives delivered a blowout to moderates in Seattle, and Democrats defeated Republicans and their initiatives statewide. These results signaled to moderates in Seattle that their day of supermajority rule may be coming to an end.
The most decisive race was to replace the 43rd district state representative and former house speaker Frank Chopp. Far left progressive Shaun Scott swept the floor with moderate, even fiscally conservative Andrea Suarez like a bulldozer. This means that there will be a strong voice for more school funding representing a respected district in the state house, which is important since SPS has a torrent of cuts looming on the horizon from its $100 million plus deficit.
Washington’s carbon tax and capital gains tax both survived attempts to dismantle them. The carbon tax funds the Climate Commitment Act, a bill which directs money into climate solutions. Garfield students rely on CCA-funded programs a lot, the most important being free public transportation. The capital gains tax, a tax on selling stocks and other assets, is very important since it funds schools. Repealing it would’ve further added to the ongoing financial devastation at SPS, so its survival bodes well for Garfield. Initiative backers say that the CCA increases gas prices statewide, but whether or not the effect is significant is heavily debated. The consequences on climate related projects, however, are clear.
State Attorney General Bob Ferguson comfortably defeated former US Representative Dave Reichert in the Gubernatorial election, which was the first statewide election to be called. This clears the way for the Democrat-controlled state legislature to continue to pass more progressive priorities . All this gives progressives hope, but may be hampered by more moderate Democrats and the fact that they will not have a supermajority in the state senate (it is unclear at the time of writing if Democrats will secure a supermajority in the state house).
The race for an empty citywide Seattle council position was another victory for progressives. Moderate Tanya Woo, who was backed by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, lost to progressive Alexis Mercedes Rinck. Woo has run before and lost multiple times, but this loss was more decisive than before. Mercedes Rinck is a champion of affordable housing, taxes instead of cuts, and more government spending. This will likely not change many things in Seattle, since there still is a moderate supermajority on the city council and a moderate mayor, but shows that there is potential for progressives to come back in the next city council elections.
Lastly, the City of Seattle passed a $1.55 billion transportation funding levy, funded through a property tax. This, while expected, was a very important part of this election. These levies fund all sorts of improvements around Seattle. Previously, they have funded projects like bike lanes and road improvements. This year there will be bridge upgrades, bike lanes, sidewalks added in more suburban areas of Seattle, transit improvements, etc. This will keep people moving through Seattle for the next few years, but won’t be any sort of transportation revolution.
