Kshama Sawant stood alone in the Seattle City Council chambers Tuesday afternoon as her colleagues appeared via remote video to vote against the last big push of her decade representing District 3, a rent control trigger law she has been championing from her first days in office.
“Great investment opportunities mean rapacious exploitation of the many,” Sawant said in her final statement before the inevitable votes against the bill were tallied.
“Seattle has seen unparalleled development alongside rampant homelessness,” the D3 rep said, admonishing the rest of the council before the vote. Continue reading →
Despite its rejection last Friday by the renters’ rights committee she runs, Kshama Sawant’s rent control “trigger law” will come in front of the full Seattle City Council next week.
It is unlikely the outcome will be better for rent control supporters at Tuesday’s session of the full council. Under council rules for legislation rejected at the committee level, the bill will come forward with a “do not pass” recommendation.
CHS reported here on the Friday session and “no” vote as Sawant and supporters made their case for Seattle rent control tied to inflation that would be put into effect only if the state ban on the restriction is lifted. “The question is whom will they allow to control rents? Is it going to be rent setting, price setting, or price fixing in interest of the insatiable greed of these millionaires and billionaires,” Sawant said earlier this month during a press conference on the proposal, “Or is it going to be rent control in the interest of the survival of the majority of our working people?”
In last Friday’s vote, only South Seattle’s Tammy Morales joining Sawant in voting yes on her proposed legislation. The other committee members Sara Nelson, Andrew Lewis, and Debora Juarez voted no. Continue reading →
Capitol Hill’s socialist representative on the Seattle City Council is on a showdown with local Democratic leaders as she brings a vote on rent control in the city to a committee vote this week.
The march to Friday’s legislative battle included a skirmish last week on Broadway at All Pilgrims Church where Kshama Sawant held a rare Wednesday night city council committee meeting beyond City Hall and at an hour “working people” could attend.
Calling soaring rents in Seattle a “brutal reality” and “a burning issue,” Sawant said her push for Seattle rent control in her final months on the council had the support of the now renter-majority city.
“Do ordinary people and specifically renters support rent control? Of course they do,” Sawant said. “They don’t need to be told that their lives suck who they are that the mercy of corporate landlords and they need some policy to protect them.” Continue reading →
A Sawant poster from 2019 made her intentions pretty clear
It is time for the last big push of Kshama Sawant’s decade on the Seattle City Council.
Friday, Sawant will introduce her long-promised Seattle rent control legislation at the morning meeting of her renters’ rights committee.
The proposal would bind rent increases for most housing in the city to inflation.
The District 3 representative for Capitol Hill and the Central District is calling for support for the proposal in the face of what the Socialist Alternative leader says will be opposition from her Democratic council counterparts.
“The eight Democrats on the City Council need to know that if they choose to vote against rent control or undermine it from behind the scenes that there will be hell to pay,” a message sent to supporters Wednesday afternoon reads. Continue reading →
Coming into the 2019 legislative session in January after the midterms, Washington Democrats held hefty majorities in both chambers in Olympia, allowing them to pass progressive legislation that had been on the backburner for years with close margins or Republican control of the state Senate.
And Democrats passed a suite of legislation, including expanded higher education funding, increased renter protections, and a public option. But, despite the advantage, they still fell short on other policy goals, like clean fuel standards, banning high capacity magazines for firearms, and comprehensive sexual health education in the state’s schools.
So when the 43rd District legislative delegation — which includes Capitol Hill, First Hill, and other parts of the city — came to Seattle Central College Tuesday night to preview their priorities for the 2020 session, one of the lawmakers’ biggest pleas was to expand that Democratic majority through other parts of the state to make passing progressive legislation simpler.
The environment, gun safety, behavioral health, and housing, were some of the top issues for the delegation, made up of Sen. Jamie Pedersen, Rep. Nicole Macri, and Rep. Frank Chopp, who Pedersen called “speaker emeritus” given his extensive time serving as the top lawmaker in the House that came to an end in 2019. Continue reading →
Between 2010 and 2018 average rent in the Seattle area rose 69% while inflation in the same region rose just over 20%.
This is a statistic that came up time and again Monday night at City Hall as Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant released a draft of her controversial rent control proposal that would tie increased rents to the rate of inflation.
“That’s unjust,” Rev. Angela Ying, senior pastor at Bethany United Church of Christ, said at a press conference before the hearing after citing the stat. “That is just plain unjust.”
The unveiling came at a council committee meeting her office has been planning for months as the incumbent’s bid for reelection has made rent control a rallying cry. No other committee members or city council members attended the Monday night special session.
Sawant’s check boxes from 2017 could add another check in 2020 — though “TAX THE RICH” needs more work
Monday night, the Seattle City Council’s Renter’s Rights Committee, chaired by District 3 representative Kshama Sawant, will discuss draft legislation for rent control at City Hall during a public hearing. It’s a cornerstone moment in the final months of her term and in her race to retain her seat in November.
Sawant’s draft legislation follows her six-year-old call for rent control, a 2015 City Council resolution supporting the repeal of a State-wide rent control ban, plus an April letter from the Seattle’s Renters’ Commission urging the council and Mayor Jenny Durkan to pass a rent control ordinance in Seattle.
In the letter, the commission’s co-chairs noted that “the unpredictability and rate of rent increases in the past decade has caused a massive burden on renters which has led to both homelessness and displacement of Seattleites.”
So, what does rent control mean to Sawant?
It’s an umbrella term that can mean different things depending on specific rules and regulations. Overall, rent control, in some cases also called rent stabilization, means limiting rent increases. This can happen in various ways: it can be tied to inflation, the cap can apply only per tenancy or beyond the duration of a tenancy, and come with or without restrictions on evictions. Some include only buildings of a certain age and exempt new buildings.
Here are a few more questions about the whole thing — and as many answers as we have heading into Monday night’s session.
What does Sawant propose? Sawant’s office remained tight-lipped about the details of the draft legislation ahead of the committee meeting on Monday. What is clear: rent increases would be tied to inflation (around 2% or 3% per year), and the legislation will be “free of corporate loopholes.” Continue reading →
Rent control was the topic on everyone’s mind at All Pilgrims Christian Church in Capitol Hill Saturday night as Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant’s office and other local organizations hosted a rally to build momentum for the controversial — and currently illegal — policy.
But Sawant was nowhere to be found.
The Socialist Alternative council member who is facing a contentious reelection campaign for her District 3 seat excused herself from the event because of the threat of an ethics complaint for participating in a political rally after ballots have dropped for the August 6 primary.
Several of Sawant’s challengers for the seat criticized her in the lead-in to the rally for holding council-related events so close to the August 6th Election Day.
“Kshama is clearly using her city office to advance her political campaign by holding a city-sponsored rally and promoting it with her campaign,” entrepreneur and D3 candidate Logan Bowers said Friday, adding “Good policies and good leaders don’t need to resort to unethical tactics when they’re working in the interests of their constituents. We deserve better.”
“If Sawant is using city money to hold an election rally, I find this an egregious breach of trust and another reason why we need a change in leadership,” Broadway Business Improvement Area head Egan Orion said. Continue reading →
Council member Kshama Sawant has decided that 2019 is the year to push for rent control in Seattle — even though there is still a statewide ban on it. She held a rally in April announcing that she would be introducing rent control legislation to become effective if and when the state lifts its ban, and she invited the Seattle Renters Commission to present in her committee (video here) on why they are recommending that the city implement rent control.
I’m not an economist, not a landlord, nor a renter. But since we’re having this debate, I went to the UW Library and pulled the literature on rent control so I could understand the issues, the studies, and what the experts conclude. Here is what I found. Continue reading →
Building on recommendations from the Seattle Renters’ Commission, CityCouncil member Kshama Sawant announced two measures Monday aimed would alleviate some of the burden for Seattle renters. The first is a proposal to enact a Seattle rent control ordinance. The second, the Economic Evictions Assistance Ordinance, would look to protect tenants against substantial rent increases.
“We have two choices,” Sawant said at a Monday morning press conference at City Hall to announce her planned proposals. “One, just sit on our hands and expect that some day, in the distant future, the Democratic establishment will gather the courage to break from the real estate lobby and finally stand with us. We’ve done that kind of waiting for 40 years.”
