City Council motion and declaration of City Council intent to reject Initiative No. 134, relating to voting in city primary elections and placing Initiative No. 134 on the November 8, 2022 ballot in conjunction with the Ranked Choice Voting measure (Council Bill 120369), a proposed alternative measure on the same matter.
Thank you, Madam Clerk. The motion carries and the clerk file will be placed on file. Let's move to item number two with the clerk. Please read item number two and to the record agenda. Item to clerk file 314498. City Council Motion and Declaration of City Council Intent to Reject Initiative Number 134 Relating to voting in City Primary Elections and placing initiative number 134 on a November eight, 2022 ballot in conjunction with the ranked choice voting measure, which is Council Bill 120369, a proposed alternative alternative measure on the same matter. Thank you. Councilmember Lewis, I believe you have a motion. I move to approve and file clerk file 314498. Thank you. Is there a second? Second? It's been moved and seconded to approve approve clerk file 314498. In Casper. Lois, you are the sponsor of this bill. Can you please address this item? Thank you so much, council president. Appreciate the opportunity. I want to say at the front that. In this entire conversation. I don't know that there is necessarily a fundamental need to change the nature of our elections in Seattle with districts and democracy vouchers. We have competitive elections where young people and people of color are viable candidates. I, myself, as the youngest council member, can personally attest to that. But the question has been called. And we are here. In City Hall to discuss whether there should be measures that are advanced for the people of Seattle to decide whether the system of our elections is or is not appropriate and should. Be changed. The proponents of Initiative 134 have forced that question, and I commend them for it and commend them for their organizing. And I'm not going to use my platform today to disparage their proffered alternative approval voting. Beyond some comments I will make later about the limited adoption of approval voting. But rather, I'm. Bringing this proposal forward today to give voters the choice to choose the election reform that is more broadly adopted across the United States. The approval measure voting before us is conceptually new and sparsely adopted in the United States. Only Fargo, North Dakota and Saint Louis, Missouri used this system, and we would be by far the largest jurisdiction in the country to use this comparatively novel way of conducting elections. By contrast. Several know a couple of United States States, Maine and Alaska use ranked choice voting. And it's much more broadly adopted, as do the municipalities, bearing more similarity in size to Seattle, like Oakland, California, Oakland, California, New York and San Francisco, California. In total, more than 30 American jurisdictions of all sizes have adopted some form of ranked choice voting. I'm not going to go into detail in explaining the mechanics of the choice voting proposal. I think Whish-Wilson did a serviceable job of that. But I will just talk a little bit about some of the attributes of ranked choice voting that I do find appealing and that a lot of advocates in our community have proffered and found appealing over several years of organizing to adopt this alternative method of conducting elections under ranked choice voting models, candidates need to demonstrate strong and broad appeal to be successful. Polarizing candidates have a more difficult time of securing first place preference showings and fade in support as votes are reassigned in multiple rounds of assigning the vote. It is important to note that the principle of one person one vote still applies with ranked choice voting at the end of any reassignment of preference. Only one final vote remains that as tallied, reflecting the voter's use of their franchise. In practical terms, ranked choice voting greatly enhances the discourse of our elections. And I'm going to digress just for a moment to summarize a what I thought was a really enlightening social media exchange a couple of years ago from our miserly, our county council colleague across the street who has similarly advocated for King County to adopt a system of ranked choice voting, council members actually gave an example that all of us as candidates can relate to that if you go out knocking on doors and you talk to one of your neighbors, especially in a crowded primary, and that neighbor says, Oh, sorry, I'm not voting for you, I'm voting for one of your opponents. They're my friend. They're my neighbor. That's who I'm going to vote for in this election. Under our current model of voting, that conversation ends, but under ranked choice voting, you can stay at the door and say, Well, you can rank me as a second preference. So let me talk a little bit about what I want to do. Let me talk about what my issues are. Let me talk about how as a member of the city council or as a mayor or a city attorney, I can respond to your issues and let me more importantly, hear what your issues are and how I can set my priorities to address them. The conversation doesn't end the same way it currently ends in our one vote and it's over primary process, as I alluded to just now by referencing councilmembers, Hawaii's interest in this and the process that King County has been pursuing over the last couple of years with several King County Council members , not just council members ally, it's very likely if I were to predict and get out my crystal ball that King County will at some time in the near future adopt some form of ranked choice voting. There is significant momentum and significant support for a proposal like that. We got close to having a King County measure that was going to be put forward this year, as from what I can tell from the public discourse on that issue. But they decided to wait for another cycle. I do just want to raise as a potential issue. It is possible, if approval voting were to be adopted, that king that Seattle would have a non-conforming voting system to our umbrella jurisdiction in King County. I do just want to raise that possibility of a future where approval voting is what is adopted instead. That is not necessarily a reason for the voters to not do it, but they should have a potential choice on the ballot that has a stronger chance of being adopted by the umbrella jurisdiction. And that is more in line with what state voting reform advocates have proposed and supported as a long term alternative to how we conduct our elections. I also just want to address that it is totally proper and is a totally clear charter power of the Seattle City Council to put an alternative on the ballot when a initiative gets the proper signatures to qualify. This is something that the Seattle City Council has done in recent history. I was not on the council the last time those deliberations were conducted, but my colleague, Councilmember Stewart, was, and perhaps she can discuss that process. I know that Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Peterson were legislative assistants at that time, and Councilmember Peterson was actually a legislative assistant to the council member who adopted that alternative. And maybe he could speak to that process. I'll leave it. To them to discuss if there is any first hand experience that might be helpful to us from 2014. But I just want to offer that that process that involved a preschool measure offers similarities to the question that we're faced with today. The extent is of that similarity is something we can reasonably disagree on. But fundamentally, the council faced a similar question in weighing Councilmember Burgess's alternative. Should the voters of the city in facing a question to programmatically respond to a demonstrated need in that case preschool? In this case, the method that we conduct our elections have an alternative option that proposes to solve the same problem with a different method. That's why the Council has a clear charter power to exercise its authority to send the voters an alternative. If we deem it is appropriate for the public discourse in the city, there is nothing unusual or untoward in our decision to exercise it. Indeed, there is strong and demonstrated public support for this ranked choice voting alternative. We just went through a public comment session where two times the number of people called in supporting ranked choice voting as called in supporting the approval voting alternative. That proves this is an appropriate question for the voters to be the final arbiters of whether this is something we should or shouldn't do by electing to not put this proposal on the ballot. We are, in effect, depriving the people of Seattle of the chance to make the final decision. I want to give some thanks and allow my colleagues opportunities, too, to weigh in to our city clerks for queuing up this process to duly consider this alternative proposal. I want to thank Liz Whitson on Council Central Staff for doing a really excellent job of putting a proposal together that is representative of the ranked choice system that we see in lots of jurisdictions around the country and indeed around the world. I want to thank Council President Suarez and her chief of staff Brendel for really being excellent collaborators and in setting up the process and going really far in a way to be accommodating and making sure that we had everything lined up to give this due consideration. And I really, really appreciate the the clarity and the skill and flexibility in making sure we could do that and give ample opportunity to the public to weigh in now in a couple of public comment sessions. I also want to thank my chief of staff, Jacob Thorpe, for really shepherding this process in my office. And with that council president, I will turn it back over to you to facilitate the discussion so you. Can up a little bit. So I open up the floor of discussion and Councilmember Lewis, I remind me to come back to you if you have some closing remarks or if you want to close this out. So with that, the floor is open. All right. Elsewhere, herbal. I was deferring to other folks might want to speak first, but somebody who worked for a brief time in radio on the air makes me uncomfortable. So I put in here. So as the sponsor ably described as voting is used widely across the U.S., I have a different count of the number of jurisdictions . But we can we can take that up at another time. The number I have is 52%. It's in local jurisdictions where candidates in order of offense allows for more nuance in voting, removes that question that I know we have a lot when we're voting, which is should we vote our conscience or should we vote for the candidate most likely to win, even if it's not your first choice? Well, voting does not offer the. Same level of nuance. And instead of ranking candidates, you only vote for those that you are the means. By voting for more than one candidate, you are voting equally for each. Even if you have a strong front for one of the candidates. I want to quote Jasmine Smith, the former Washington boss who recently wrote, If Seattle were to adopt cutting, it would be the first major city with a majority white electorate to use this system. A scenario that risks giving white voters an outsized voice in determining election outcomes at the expense of voters of color. Some have said that adding an. Alternative option to the ballot is influencing the outcome of the election. Council is not interfering with the initiative process. The initiative process explicitly grants the Council the authority to add an alternative in the ballot design. The initiative process says if our city is going to consider an alternate voting system by initiative, we can allow a vote on both approving voting and ranked choice. Voting is our responsibility. Anchor voters have the ability to choose a voting system that they must support. Appreciate the sponsor bringing this forward and appreciate as as the sponsor said. Council President. Madam. Madam President, your flexibility and allowing us to to have this discussion. Thank you. Councilor Herbold, Councilmember Mosqueda. Thank you very much. Madam President, just give me the sign of my Internet is unstable. I'll be brief. I really appreciate the dialog that we're having today, the dialog that's been brought forward and initially nationally initiated by Initiative 134 proponents and those who are seeking to add ranked choice voting as an alternative to the ballot. I want to thank Councilmember Lewis for his work with the staff members. And he noted to really provide an option, an option for voters. And I wanted to echo some of the comments from the sponsor. And Councilmember Herbold. Sending an alternative to the ballot for voters to choose is not precedent setting. Council member Tim Burgess spearheaded this effort less than ten years ago to offer voters the alternative regarding child care that council member Lewis noted This is an initiative about excuse me, this is a question to voters about engaging in our democracy, and there is nothing more democratic than giving voters a choice on something as consequential. I have friends who are supporting both policy approaches, folks who similarly want there to be more engagement and more options. And I think it goes to show that there is a long and deep standing interest in broadening out options for voters to cast their vote for a candidate who really represents them. Proponents of each approach will then get a chance to talk to the voters, and the voters will get to weigh in and make the decision. Seattle has been on the cutting edge of voter reform in our country. Other jurisdictions continue to reach out and ask about how our local elections work. They are very excited to learn more about the democracy voucher program and our election transparency laws. We are on the national map for the ways that we have improved voting and voter access over the years. And now with this option, voters will get the chance again to decide about how we will continue to amend how voters can engage in our local election. I'm going to be voting yes, and I really appreciate the dialog today and I know that there will be much more dialog to come throughout the next few months. And again, thanks to everyone because this is really about increasing voter turnout and increasing voter options. And I think the conversation is to come and will will continue to evolve over the next few months with both options. Thank you. If you council members want. Thank you. I will be voting yes to a ranked choice voting option on the ballot alongside approval voting. Democracy means much more than simply having the ability to vote for a candidate. How the votes are structured can have a big impact on the ability to have a democratic debate. To win support prior to the vote has the biggest effect. And the reality is big business and the super rich on most of the forums of that debate. In Seattle, they owned the Seattle Times and the TV stations, and they use those media to blatantly promote their own interests. There is a limit to how much struggling working people can donate to an election campaign, but there is no limit to the spending of corporate backs which are used by the wealthy. For example, last year I faced a recall election which started less than a year after I was reelected in 2019. The signatures required to put the recall on the ballot were selected by paid signature gatherers. With enough money, anything can be put on the ballot. In fact, the Seattle Approves Ballot initiative before us today was put on the ballot by paid signature gatherers from essentially true deep pocketed donors. When we consider the structure of elections, we have to consider not only how it might work in a hypothetical, hypothetical, apolitical or neutral world, which we all know does not exist under capitalism, but how big business can use their resources to take advantage of any system in reality. For example, in presidential elections, the two party system is used to pressure voters to accept the so-called lesser evil. As a result, American working people have never had the option to vote for a presidential candidate in the general election who actually represents our interests, who supports progressive measures like single payer, universal healthcare, which the overwhelming majority of working people support. The two party system has been used ruthlessly by big business and the party establishment for decades to disrupt all efforts to create a new Worker's Party and to stamp out challenges from left populist candidates like Bernie Sanders in Seattle. The current doctor primary system has been a relatively good electoral structure, given the fundamentally undemocratic nature of elections under capitalism. It offers candidates to win often win support on the basis of our program without being immediately drowned in lesser evil arguments and bears similarities to what are called runoff elections in other countries globally, allowing a greater opening for third parties and independent candidates than many other structures. Approval voting would be a major step backwards. While it is being presented as more democratic, it would in fact give even more of an upper hand to big business by filling the ballot with well-financed brand candidates who ostensibly stand for nothing and attacking working class candidates with smear campaigns reinforced by corporate media and big business PAC money. They would be in a much better position to control who can make it onto the general election ballot. But there is far higher voter turnout and to block working class and socialist candidates from the outset. Approval voting makes no distinction between whom a voter really wants to win the election and whom they merely do not actively oppose. But that lack of opposition is strongly influenced by the forces in society who control the debate. Big business candidates rarely campaign openly on their plans to maximize the profits of the wealthy at the expense of workers. Instead, their campaigns have empty slogans and slogans and pictures of their families in their fancy ads talking about how they want to address homelessness, crisis, make Seattle affordable, and keep our communities safe. All this is a coded way to make it very clear they will be loyal to the political establishment and corporate interests. They will not mention rent control, taxing Amazon and other wealthy corporations to pay for the housing. We need real measures of police accountability or concrete steps to reduce the deep inequality at the root of crime in our neighborhoods. Approval voting is a scheme to drown out establishment voices in a sea of pro-establishment candidates. In this process, the goal of big business is to deny voters the opportunities to have any real alternatives. Ranked choice voting is significantly better than approval voting because it at least gives voters the ability to prioritize who they actually want to win the election, rather than lumping everyone together into a general category of approval and drowning out the differences. However, I think ranked choice voting is still less democratic than our current primary system, which, as I said, bear similarities to runoff voting in other countries. Socialist Alternative has had experience with ranked choice voting in Minneapolis, and we have found that the political establishment can use the ranked choice voting to game the system and prevent third parties from gaining a foothold. Candidates recommended supporters formed a list of second and third choices when a socialist candidate looks like they may win the election. The political establishment throws well-financed additional candidates into the race who can get the second and third round votes of both. And more conservative voters such as the Socialists and come in first place and Bush and get drowned out in later rounds. Essentially, this allows the political establishment to pull the votes of several candidates campaigning to different demographics. This is only possible because they have the money to run several candidates for the same position, but it can have a big impact in 2017. Socialist Alternative Run. It ran a candidate in Minneapolis who has the most first choice votes but was eventually knocked out of the race by the Democratic establishment. To do just this kind of boat pooling while ranked choice voting is significantly better than approval voting. I do not support changing the go to primary system either of them. The reason the current primary system is being challenged is precisely because it has been successful, independent and third party challengers and victories that have disrupted the status quo and the Chamber of Commerce of the wealthy of this city are fed up. However, I do support putting ranked choice voting on the ballot. I think voters in Seattle should have the Democratic choice to vote for ranked choice voting if they prefer, not just approval voting, which has had lots of money behind putting it on the ballot and not for no reason. Elections in the United States have always been heavily weighted against working class third party candidates. Despite the Socialist alternative, rank and file workers and union members and community activists have been able to win four elections on the basis of fighting for working class demands, like the $15 an hour minimum wage, the Amazon bags, renters rights, and standing with working people. With a strong enough movement behind us, regardless of which electoral system is adopted, that will continue to be true, which is that working class people can win victories if we have a movement building approach based on strong demands. But we should not accept attacks on democracy lying down either. I will be voting yes. Thank you. Thank you. So what she has Premiere Louis. Do you have some closing remarks before I make a few statements and then we'll move to about. It looks like there are a couple of them. They just showed up. Thank you. Did not you guys have a little bit quicker there? So Councilmember Nelson and then Councilmember Peterson. Councilor Nelson. I'm sorry. Please move on to Councilmember Peterson and then I'll go. Okay. Are you ready, Counselor Peterson? Go ahead. Thank you, counselor. President Juarez. Let's see. Well, to provide more options to Seattle voters, I'll support Councilmember Lewis's proposal to add the ranked choice voting to the ballot. In that way, voters will have three choices. Initiative 134 Ranked Choice Voting and the current system, which already includes major election reforms such as democracy vouchers, easy to use mail in ballots and extended voting periods. As I understand it, this afternoon may be our only opportunity to address these complex issues officially before they become external campaigns. So I'd like to present an additional and somewhat skeptical view toward all of this. This is just about elections for nonpartisan offices in city government. And right now, the top local government concerns of people in Seattle are increasing public safety and reducing homelessness. If either of these two new measures is enacted into law, will they really increase public safety or reduce homelessness? I'm not so sure. I'm afraid that no matter how much we tinker with the local electoral system in Seattle, which already includes robust reforms, there is no easy fix to guarantee that will generate more candidates for city government who are qualified for city government, who adequately appreciate what city government does, who will be responsive to their constituents , and who can deliver on the basic requirements of our city charter. And so while I'm supporting adding more options to the ballot, I don't think either option will solve the problems facing Seattle today. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Peterson with that, Councilmember Nelson. And Q Very much so today. I'm not going to take a stand for or against approval voting or ranked choice voting. I am taking a stand for good governance. And so for the viewing public initiative 134 which would replace the way the city of Seattle officials are elected with a new system called Approval Voting Initiative 134 gathered more than the required minimum 2000 26,000 signatures to qualify for the vote. And it is standard practice for council to just send that measure to the ballot. In ranked choice, voting has not qualified for the ballot. Instead of running an initiative, advocates opted to persuade us to advance the proposal by sending it to the voters as our preferred alternative, which we've done only twice in the past 20 years. And so here we are about to vote on changing the way Seattleites elect their leaders. And before doing that, we should first identify the problem we're trying to fix with our existing system transparently deliberate on potential solutions, consult experts, and conduct extensive constituent outreach just like we would on any other important issue. And we haven't done that. This is our first meeting, our first public meeting on the matter. And Councilmember Lewis brought up the the last time that we sent an alternate to the ballot, to the ballot. And, yes, we do have that authority. And in that case, Councilmember Burgess had been developing his preschool program for months. And so that is that's not the same. I don't think that the situations are are equal here. So I don't know if approval voting is better or worse than ranked choice voting or even what's wrong with our current system. But I do know that we're about to take five. If we take five votes to send an alternate to the ballot, that could that could influence the outcome of the election without a lot of public discussion on our preferred alternative end. And and and I think that there's a better way of coming to these kinds of decisions. So I think the council should just get out of the way, send I 34 to the ballot and let the voters decide in November. If you. Councilmember Nelson, Councilmember Lewis, do you want to make any statements before I say a few and then we go to a vote? Yes. Thank you, Madam President. I'll be I'll be very brief. But I think there might be a few things I could say to respond to the concerns raised by Councilmember Nelson, which, you know, I completely respect but disagree with. I think it's perfectly within the right of the council when facing a question like this, to have the people of the city be the final deciders, as we do have a very strong and representative movement in the city towards ranked choice voting. This is a election option that, like I said earlier, has been has had the benefit of an extensive parallel process over at King County. They did inform the process that we are proposing to send to the voters. A lot of the potential issues with administering the change in election type can be accommodated with the timeline that we have assigned the ranked choice voting under this measure. I don't know if it was made clear in Fisher's presentation. If passed by, voters would not go into effect until 2027. And part of that is, is the to give King County elections the space and the time for the rulemaking and the implementation that goes into any kind of significant, major change. The people of the city who have really reached out and advocated for a model like this, I think shows that the best way forward is to let them make the final decision. As I said in my comments earlier. I think this discussion has gotten to a point where we run a risk of making a more undemocratic decision by depriving the voters of making that choice based on the movement that's turned out for this. And in essence, there will be a proxy vote where voting no on approval voting is going to be reflecting a yes vote for ranked choice voting anyway in terms of how the question has been framed in the minds of many voters in the city. So for those purposes and the reasons that I stated in my opening statement, I do think this is an appropriate action for the Council to take. The people of the city are going to make the final decision, as they rightly should. On whether we should adopt this and this gives them the opportunity to do so. And you have to remember, Lewis, I don't make comments about how severe. Louis You raised a really good point and I actually had thought about sharing this as well. US going to a district system, seven districts and us having democracy vouchers has expanded the opportunity for many people to run. Otherwise it would not run. And I think Councilmember. Councilmember. I was in Saint Louis, but Councilmember Peterson mentioned about mail in ballots. So I don't think that either approval voting or ranked choice voting is going to fix some of the issues that Councilmember Peterson brought up. But I will say, this is kind of maybe turning the mirror on ourselves. I'm always I'm always a little bit suspicious when people use communities of color as a reason to pass any type of initiative bill proposal, because I don't think we can look away from the fact that six of our nine council members were either legislative aides or worked in this council in some way or were meant were mentored by a council member. And I'm not taking anything away from my colleagues that fit that description. So I just want to be clear about our choices. And my main concern is increasing candidate participation is getting more candidates that haven't had the opportunity to benefit from such a pipeline. And that's just that's just my observation. And again, I don't mean to cast any aspersions against my colleagues, but it is indeed a fact. So that being said, I think we should just go forward at this point, Madam Clerk, and. We'll just call the role on the approval and the filing of the court file. Councilmember Herbold. Yes. Councilmember Lewis. Yes. Councilmember Morales. Councilmember mosqueda i. Councilmember Nelson, a. Councilmember Peterson. Hi. Councilmember. Yes. Councilmember Strauss. Yes. Council president was no. Eight in favor, two opposed. Thank you. So with that, colleagues. I'm sorry. Sorry, Madam President. I thought I heard eight in favor to oppose. Seven of favor, two. Opposed, is that correct? Yes. Seven. I'll be very sorry. I'm sorry about that. I didn't catch the math either. So it is seven two and it passes, correct? Yes, it does. Okay. So the clerk file is approved and filed. And will the clerk please affix my signature to the motion and declaration of the City Council Intent? So with that, since this file has passed, we will move on to item number three, which is also Councilmember Lewis. But the clerk please read item number three to the record.