(Images: Ananya Mishra/CHS)
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.”
The nearly three hour council renters committee session included two hours of public comment on Sawant’s proposed legislation that would tie Seattle rents to inflation and be triggered by any lifting of a statewide ban on capping rents.
In echoes of her past successful campaigns to push forward a $15 minimum wage and the so-called Amazon tax, the committee heard from dozens of Socialist Alternative and Workers Strike Back supporters speaking in favor or the legislation.
Wednesday’s hearing received all the trappings required of an official council session including a broadcast by the Seattle Channel, the ability for councilmembers to attend remotely, and public comment speakers to participate both in person and by phone. Renters rights committee members Tammy Morales and Sara Nelson attended remotely as did non-committee member Lisa Herbold. Sawant said committee members Andrew Lewis and Debora Juarez were unable to attend.
In January, Sawant announced she would not seek reelection as her political group Socialist Alternative is setting its work in District 3 aside to focus on the creation of Workers Strike Back to take on the “Democratic establishment” including the growing ranks of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Not every speaker supported the new movement.
The first to take the mic was roundly booed during his use of the one-minute speaking window to cite multiple studies with evidence that rent control damages supply and can raise rents. Later, another speaker earned another round of booing. “When you make rent capped at the inflation rate, that means real estate cannot be an investment,” he said. “Do you want real estate to not be an investment? Then let’s say that and have a conversation about the consequences about that.”
But most testimony took a shape closer to the minute from one renter new to Seattle. “I have fallen in love with the city in the short time have been here. I think the people here fantastic and everyone in this room is amazing,” a University District renter new to Seattle said. “But the sad fact of the matter is because of the absolutely awful housing crisis and the absolutely despicable actions of a lot of these corporate landlords, there’s a very real possibility that I won’t be in the city next year.”
The hours of comment also included a musical interlude with Mark Taylor-Canfield and his guitar supporting rent control with a “the rents are too damn high” song.
The unusual committee session also included some local perks including banh mi sandwiches provided inside the Broadway church. “So don’t stay hungry,” Sawant said.
Underlying the call for rent control in Sawant’s final months in office is a hard to ignore affordability crisis. Her office points to the U.S. Census Bureau report showing rent climbed nearly 92% in the Seattle area from 2010 to 2020. Sawant’s office says the price-fixing allegations against Seattle landlords using the YieldStar software from RealPage is proof that rent levels are already being centrally managed.
Sawant also points at the Democratic leaders who have failed to lift the statewide ban on rent control that has been in place for 42 years, “longer than many of you have actually been alive.”
“Who is to blame?,” Sawant said Wednesday in comments during a press conference outside the church. “Our rent control bill will be put to a vote.”
In the press conference, Sawant laid the situation on the line as she prepares for Friday’s committee vote showdown with her fellow councilmembers.
“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 asked, “Or is it going to be rent control in the interest of the survival of the majority of our working people?”
The Sustainability and Renters’ Rights Committee is scheduled to vote on the legislation Friday. The meeting begins at 9:30 AM. You can learn more about Sawant’s proposal here.
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