City Attorney Election In Seattle, Washington (2021)

• General Goals

Our city must reconcile that it is failing to meet the needs of the most vulnerable as well as the basic functions of protecting public health and safety. Twelve years of status quo in the City Attorney’s office has greatly contributed to our decrease in the livability of Seattle for everyone. Factual observations tell us clearly this status quo approach is not working for anyone here, but for those wanting to engage in enterprise crime, those seeking to commit violent offenses, or stay in power. With apathy from the current City Attorney in place of prosecutorial discretion, public health and safety are now at a critical state.

When I moved to Seattle in 1996 for a job in the Sonics’ front office, our city had found a way to meet the needs of the most vulnerable in our city. Before my first child was born, in 2008, walking to the courthouse downtown was safe. But by the time I had my second child in 2011, our streets were becoming dangerous. Now, employees and jurors are told not to use the main entrance because it’s so unsafe, and recently 33 judges have urged the condemning of the park right outside the courthouse doors. The same can be said for many of our neighborhoods. The current city attorney was elected in 2010.

When my kids began to ask questions about why people were left living alongside Seattle’s roadways in unconscionable conditions, less humane than in a UN Cambodian refugee camp where I worked with people fleeing civil war, it was time to become civically engaged. With the exact same motivations as my previous campaigns because Seattle as experienced no improvement on homelessness, this ONE seat change can directly impact public health and safety for everyone. We must see change in this office because even our children know what’s happening in our city isn’t right. It is that obvious.

We've known in Seattle now for the last two decades that homelessness is a growing problem. But we've been so busy fighting each other, filing lawsuits, campaigning to block ideas that we perceive as imperfect or having some unintended consequences, that we've found ourselves with no progress at all. This fight will never be won by winning more people over to our own point of view. Instead, we make progress by focusing on our community and everyone in it as a whole. It's comforting to think that there are villains in this story - big bad government, large corporations, law enforcement, courts, and other systems that have contributed to our current situation. And all of these organizations have their faults - they all need to do and be better.

The real promise lies with each of us - our ability to listen, to have more actual empathy for the people with whom we find ourselves in opposition; to understand the needs, hopes and dreams of everyone in our community, especially our most vulnerable neighbors. The best solutions will happen when we change the incentives that have led us to where we are, incentives around law enforcement, housing development, and the delivery of services. Sometimes the best path forward is emotionally unintuitive for us, but we have to be willing to put the needs of others ahead of those emotional intuitions. It might mean changing the way we police or enforce rules, or creating alternatives to jail, or incorporating new services in jail to give people who do end up there the chance to leave better than when they entered. But it doesn’t mean we don’t maintain the limits for societal activity that elected policymakers have made into laws.

It's more expensive to hide from the problem, hoping it will go away if we are just forceful enough, than it is to deal with it head-on. For the majority of people in Seattle, homelessness is the single most important issue of our time. Solving it will require every single one of us to take stock of what we can do to address it. I can think of few positions that hold more promise for progress than that of the City Attorney of Seattle.

The City Attorney is a critical link to public safety, downtown and in our neighborhoods, deciding when to prosecute many types of criminal activity. We need balanced leadership that makes us smart on crime: proactive not reactive. We need a collaborative leader bringing actual compassion, who seeks progress and establishes working relationships within our city and region to restore public safety. By fixing this critical link of public health and safety and ending 12 years of status quo, we will begin to see improvement in the livability of our city. We can create a safer, more compassionate city for all of us.

• Criminal Division

• Transform existing Mental Health Court to specialized Behavioral Health Court for cases that involve mental health, substance use disorder or dual diagnosis.

• Provide medicalized treatment and care for substance use disorder when needed for in custody cases.

• Continue bail reform progress.

• Monitor high frequency people at the highest level of the office for when alternatives do not provide responsiveness

• Improve review of case referrals.

• Civil Division

• Provide trusted legal advice to those deciding policy in our city

• Set clear compliance standards for city departments

• Focus on improving efficiencies within division in regards to zoning

• Administrative Division

Focus on not increasing budget but better service to Seattle for same dollars. The budget has been growing 50% faster than the city budget, with 13,000 referrals in 2019, 7,300 charged and less than 1,000 cases going to court.

• Administrative: 10M (30% of budget)

• Civil: 15.6M (44% of budget)

• Criminal: 8.6M (24% of budget)

• Precinct Liaison .7M (2% of budget)

• TOTAL: 35.4M^[33]

• Decriminalize Poverty

Stop prosecuting most misdemeanors

As a Public Defender I saw up close who the City chooses to criminalize. The City Attorney's office prosecutes poor people, almost exclusively. Prosecutions for stealing things needed to survive --small amounts food, sleeping bags or socks from Goodwill--are shockingly common. Those too poor to pay bail are kept in jail for months unless they plead guilty to be released. Each charge makes finding housing and employment more difficult. Those living paycheck to paycheck lose jobs or housing while jailed, those living in cars have them towed thereby losing every last worldly possession. Our unsheltered neighbors are criminalized for doing things common to all people (sleeping, having disagreements, going to the bathroom) because they are not done in a private and personal space. With every prosecution poor people become poorer and more desperate. Prosecuting poor people has not, will not, and was never meant to solve poverty. I will not prosecute people for trying to meet their basic needs and survive. It is a cruel waste of time and resources.

End the failed “War on Drugs”

The next City Attorney will have significant power to decide the future of Seattle’s policy for this health crisis. The war on drugs is a racist, classist, expensive failure. The repeated cycle of prosecution and incarceration only exacerbates conditions that lead to poverty and substance use while doing nothing to address the underlying issues. Residents experiencing substance abuse or dependence are not receiving critical health care and support to truly transition them towards a safer life. Substance use disorders require safe injection sites, needle exchanges, and professional guidance to curb public health risks. I will not waste vital resources prosecuting misdemeanor drug possession. I will instead partner with community programs like People’s Harm Reduction Alliance and the HaRRT Center-- critical resources for community health and safety. Rather than punishing residents for health conditions or forcing them into treatment before they are ready, I will push Seattle to ensure proper medical care, housing, and essential services necessary to reduce the harm of substance use on the community, and on individuals.

Fund victim’s services, harm reduction, and non-coercive treatment options

I will make survivors of trauma, and their recovery, the first priority of the Office, rather than an accessory to a conviction. The City Attorney’s office staffs victim advocates for some who experience domestic violence. These services are limited and are contingent on a vulnerable person’s cooperation with re-traumatizing legal proceedings. I will expand these services offered by the City Attorney’s office, and they will no longer be contingent on criminal charges.

Survivors of domestic violence, physical abuse, and other forms of trauma need access to care. Support services are not widely available or accessible, especially to people in poverty who are disproportionately affected by violence.I will collaborate with community programs that provide this critical care and support to create genuinely healthy and safe communities.

I will not prosecute disability. Individuals experiencing mental or emotional issues must have an alternative to armed confrontation with police when in crisis. The City has a responsibility to provide supportive and safe responses to people in crisis that don’t put disabled people at risk of death or incarceration. Not only does SPD commonly arrest our disabled neighbors experiencing mental health crises, the City Attorney then prosecutes them, often over the objection of the family members who called for help. Jail and punishment do not address or ameliorate mental health problems. I will collaborate with the City Council to to provide unarmed, properly trained professionals who can assess, de-escalate, and support people in need instead of throwing away money punishing people for disabilities.

Defund SPD

Pete Holmes refers to himself as a leader in police reform, but the events of last summer: rampant police violence, chemical weapons unleashed nightly and repeated provably false lies told by SPD to the public laid bare the fact that SPD answers to no one. The federal consent decree, negotiated and overseen by Pete Holmes, has failed to curb police violence. Holmes has used the consent decree and the guise of “reforms” for too long to mask SPD’s inherent dysfunction. Commissions, measures, data gatherings, federal oversight, and multiple offices of “accountability” have failed to keep Seattle safe from its own police.

It is time to have the courage to face our problems and correct our course. I will not capitulate to police unions during the next contract negotiations. I will push the City Council to significantly cut SPD’s budget every year while my office-- led by the community--builds up programs of genuine justice and real accountability. In order to reduce violence it is imperative that we redirect misguided funds wasted on police into community care.

• Community Self-determination

Support grassroots programs of restorative/transformative justice

The City Attorney’s Office is tasked with pursuing justice and ensuring safety, and yet marginalized communities have been targeted for arrest and imprisonment for decades. The only justice to be found in such a system is in its destruction. Our current system of mass incarceration has deep roots in colonialism and slavery from residential schools to slave patrols, our laws have never been applied equally. Even in progressive Seattle where Black people comprise 7% of the population, they still make up nearly 35% of those prosecuted by the City Attorney. Despite Indigenous people making up .4% of our population, they make up 3% of these prosecuted by the City Attorney. We must end the cycle of trauma caused by our racist carceral system and dismantle this entire infrastructure of violence.

Once elected, I will collaborate with community groups to develop structures of true accountability and transformative justice that can take the place of current criminalization and prosecutions. A lot of this work has already been started by community groups and needs to be expanded. Programs like Community Passageways and Choose180, for example, have practical and effective methods for empowering communities that disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline and equip people with the skills they need to avoid repeated encounters with the criminal punishment system. The practice, the results, and the research already exists; the only thing missing is the political will to change.

Work with affected communities to create programs that meet their stated needs

The Seattle City Attorney’s Office has been so focused on punishing perpetrators that victims have become an afterthought, with little to no resources allocated to pursuing accountability and healing. The current method of addressing situations like domestic violence, mental health crises, and substance abuse are to prosecute and incarcerate people without addressing the root causes of their criminalized behavior. The effects of these policy decisions have been devastating to poor, Black, and Brown communities and have only worked to make the City less safe for everyone.

Even when the City does provide victim services, they are system-based advocates focused on helping victims navigate the overwhelmingly complex criminal legal system. They don’t provide the resources needed to actually get people back on their feet. Unhoused folks who steal food because they’re hungry don’t leave jail with an apartment and food benefits lined up to make sure their needs are being met. Victims of domestic violence don’t get free housing and childcare to safely leave their abusers. The City Attorney’s Office has been systematically destabilizing communities under the guise of “public safety” while taking resources away from what we know actually makes our City safer: housing, food security, and access to non coercive healthcare.

As Seattle’s next City Attorney, I will listen to affected communities and make space for them to create programs that meet their actual stated needs. Lawyers and judges have no business dealing with the complex issues of mental health crises or substance abuse disorders. Experts in these areas already exist and they’ve been advocating for safe use sites, expanded mental and behavioral health services, and community based stabilizing, healing, and supportive programs that prevent violence instead of simply exacting retribution after the fact. As an elected official, I will work with community experts to dismantle our criminal punishment system and replace it with a prevention oriented and transformative justice approach that address and reduces the conditions that lead to violence.

• Green New Deal

Divest city pensions from fossil fuel corporations and the banks that fund them

My office will prioritize people over profits, including the profits of the fossil fuel industry. The legislative and the executive branches of the Seattle City government have committed to a Green New Deal, which states “The City envisions a future where Seattle residents can live healthy, prosperous lives, free of toxic chemicals and fossil fuels, and the social and ecological well-being of all people is prioritized over the profit of private corporations.” I will enact that vision with action, not wishful thinking.

It’s time to put our money where our mouth is. I will push to divest the Seattle City Employees’ Retirement System - which oversees over $3.7 billion in assets for public employees and their beneficiaries - from the energy sector and fossil fuel corporations. Fossil fuels are not a growth industry and are a poor investment for the 19,000+ individuals whose retirements are stewarded by the Retirement System. To demonstrate our commitment to a sustainable, green future, Seattle must divest from any banks that fund pipelines, which continue to threaten Indigenous sovereignty. Instead, these assets should be invested in sustainable, growing, and regenerative technologies that fight climate change. I will work with the City to craft policy that achieves these goals, and join the growing number of cities and states divesting from this deadly industry.

Sue fossil fuel companies for the lasting and irreparable harm they have caused our city

Fossil fuel corporations are the biggest perpetrators of greenhouse gas emissions, and they continue to extract, produce, and promote their products despite knowing how these emissions contribute to global climate change. This environmental destruction disproportionately harms Black and Indigenous communities. In 2019, after mounting community pressure by a broad coalition of activists and tribal members, Pete Holmes promised he would file a lawsuit against oil companies on behalf of our City. Months later the City Council wrote a letter encouraging him to make good on his promise. More than three years later, despite devastating wildfires, heatwaves, and an ocean on fire, that promise remains unfulfilled. Seattle can’t afford to wait any longer. I will make good on the promise to hold these companies responsible for devastating and dangerous messes they have left us with so that we can finally begin to enact the vision of the Green New Deal.

Advocate for an end to exclusionary zoning and increase density

Exclusionary zoning (aka restricting the number and type of housing that can be built in a certain area) is steeped in racist ideology meant to protect property value by keeping renters, apartment-dwellers, and poor families of color out of white, home-owning neighborhoods. These zoning laws also have harmful environmental impacts. Limiting the number of housing units drives up costs for everyone, pushing people further away from urban centers and necessitating development on previously undisturbed land. Restricting density and prohibiting multi-family units also increases the need for employees to commute to work, resulting in traffic congestion and ballooning carbon emissions. Low-income and other marginalized communities are more likely to live along busy highways and become exposed to unhealthy levels of pollution. These practices also exacerbate disparities in access to green spaces.

It’s time to put an end to this. I will advocate for and collaborate with the City Council to craft legally sound legislation to end the exclusionary zoning rules that currently stifle over 50% of Seattle land use.

• The People’s lawyer

Drastic increase in resources to fight wage theft

Employers steal billions from low-wage workers each year. Nationwide, minimum wage workers alone are cheated out of 15 billion dollars a year. Another study found that 68% of low-wage workers had experienced at least one wage violation. Wage theft creates economic insecurity and can result in acts of desperation that make our city less safe. The amount of capital lost through wage theft is larger than all theft, burglary, robbery, and car theft, combined. Wage theft is a crime, but it is never prosecuted by the Seattle City Attorney.

Workers deserve better. I will significantly increase the number of lawyers in the office working on wage theft. I will develop a legal clinic where individual workers can obtain legal advice and assistance, and I would sue companies that commit large scale wage theft in Seattle on behalf of the City. Wage theft is prevalent because it is easy and profitable. My office will not be focused on punishment for bosses or fines for the government; we will concentrate our efforts on ensuring workers regain the income they lost and providing protections against future abuse. Businesses will stop stealing from their employees when legal action no longer makes such theft profitable.

Aggressively protect tenants rights against abusive corporate landlords & sue to overturn the ban on rent control

Just like workers, renters are often the victims of hostile corporations. Renters now outnumber landowners in Seattle, but still tenants are treated as secondary to homeowners. The Council recently passed some modest tenant protections, which is great. Actual implementation of protections leaves a lot to be desired because some policies, for example, require police investigation, while relying on community groups and nonprofits (not the City) to provide most tenant support.

Seattle residents must be protected against powerful landlords. As rental costs skyrocket, we need to defend the tenants’ rights that have already passed, and also litigate to implement the strongest tenant protection there is: rent control. To solve our housing crisis, we need the trifecta of immediate housing, an end to apartment bans, and rent control. I will do my part as the People’s Lawyer by trimming the wasteful criminal division budget so it can be re-allocated to the community, collaborate with the council to end exclusionary zoning that stands in the way of developing multi-family housing, and sue the state over the ban on rent control so that the people who work in Seattle can afford to actually live here too.

Challenge I-200, the state’s ban on affirmative action

I will sue the state to abolish I-200, the Tim Eyeman initiative banning affirmative action. This ban has had a measurable negative impact on BIPOC communities. There is no place in Washington where that impact has been greater than in diverse Seattle. Over time this ban has destroyed women- and BIPOC-owned businesses. It is time to stop waiting for the state to fix this. I will sue the state to overturn the ban. Seattle’s Black population fell from 13% to 6% over the past 20 years. If Seattle is to be the progressive beacon we claim to be, then we must undo a ban that is at the forefront of Seattle’s economic segregation.

Getting rid of the ban is the right thing to do. Our current City Attorney says he supports repealing it, but is waiting for a Mayor to direct him to do so. I do not need such direction. We must make this investment so that all of Seattle’s communities can flourish. The positive impact will ripple out into the City as a whole.

• Stop the sweeps

Challenge the City to end these expensive acts of cruelty

Our unhoused neighbors, who often live together in encampments for their safety and a sense of community, are increasingly under attack. The city continues to conduct brutal sweeps of encampments, forcibly displacing these communities and regularly destroying their belongings.

The number of sweeps ballooned from more than 500 in 2016 to just shy of 1,200 in 2019, despite showing no evidence of reducing homelessness. Last year, space in our city’s shelters were limited due to Covid-19 shutdowns. The city, under Jenny Durkan, said it would halt sweeps. The CDC recommended cities halt sweeps. And still, the sweeps continued. A 2020 report found that the fastest way to solve King County’s homelessness problem would be to build 15,700 affordable homes for those facing immediate lack of housing. But the city continues to pursue a punitive approach, which is inhumane, wastes resources and has not moved us closer to transitioning the houseless to permanent housing. Additionally, these sweeps have emboldened independent groups to violate the unhoused by invading their encampments and disposing of their possessions, many of which are necessary for survival. I will call on the City Council to end these inhumane and ineffective practices, and defend the City against lawsuits challenging their authority to do so.

Redirect wasted dollars towards long-term solutions

In 2019, sweeps cost Seattle at least $8 million dollars. Earlier this year, the city paid $10,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a woman who was callously uprooted and had her belongings destroyed by SPD’s Navigation Team during a sweep. Over 20 people were arrested protesting this particular sweep. If the city continues to violate the civil rights of people experiencing homelessness, including the right to due process before being deprived of property, these types of lawsuits will inevitably become more common. And as people rightfully seek damages over the removal or destruction of their property, the already unreasonably high cost of these sweeps will skyrocket.

The price tag and inhumanity continue to swell and we’re no closer to a solution. As the City Attorney, I will appeal to city leaders to strive for real solutions to homelessness instead of those intended to demoralize unsheltered Seattleites. The money we waste on sweeps, fences, and other hostile architecture, should be used to create more permanent low-income and truly affordable housing.

Support on-the-ground mutual aid

Not only has the city ignored the CDC and continued tent encampment removals, last year SPD’s Navigation Team repeatedly and intentionally damaged PPE and first aid materials of on-the-ground mutual aid groups who provide crucial services to unhoused people. During a smokey season that forced most of Seattle inside for nearly two weeks last summer due to unsafe air quality, it was mutual aid groups that delivered water, masks, and ice to heat sick camp residents. When the Mayor finally opened a handful of cold weather shelters this last winter, it was mutual aid groups dropping off coats, propane, and heaters to people freezing on the streets. As the City Attorney, I will encourage city leadership to provide support to mutual aid groups and provide unsheltered communities with basic essentials to support public health—trash pick-up, mobile bathrooms, and street sinks, and other survivial supplies. ^[33]