Seattle City Councilmember Cathy Moore has just released a proposal to weaken ethics rules so that councilmembers can vote on matters where they have a direct financial interest. Why would they roll back ethical standards like this? The only explanation on offer is that there are two landlords on council and Moore needs their votes on a package of proposals to roll back tenant protections.

But this isn’t a one-off — this ethical free pass would apply to all legislation in the future. It’s a basic governance issue: Councilmembers would suddenly be able to vote to benefit their financial interests. All they would have to do is declare those interests, and then it would be fine. In other words, it would be ok to use public office to get richer as long as you say that’s what you are doing.

Council tried this same game once before, back in 2018. Public blowback stopped them.

Time for some more blowback — https://www.seattle.gov/cityclerk/agendas-and-legislative-resources/city-council-agendas/contact-the-city-council

Relevant reporting in The Seattle Times, The Burner, and The Stranger last year.

Actual proposal on seattle.gov here. More background below.

Current ethics standard

Currently, councilmembers can’t vote on matters where they financially benefit in a way that’s not shared by a “substantial segment” of the public. So for example, there aren’t that many people in Seattle who own low-wage employers, so if you own a restaurant, you have to recuse yourself from voting to lower the minimum wage.

But if your financial interests are more broadly shared, that’s fine. So you can own stock in Amazon and still vote on taxing tech companies. And you can own a home and still vote on property taxes. (The Seattle Ethics & Elections commission makes this assessment.)

This standard has been the law for many years, and is very similar to ethical standards in every other major west coast city (i.e. Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, Los Angeles.)

Proposed changes

Under the proposed legislation, it would suddenly be ok to vote in your financial interests as long as you disclose those interests. So a councilmember could vote on eliminating left turn barriers while owning a curb removal business. A coucnilmember could vote on reducing beer taxes while owning a brewery. A councilmember could vote on providing a zoning variance on a set of properties they own. And on and on. Effectively, self-dealing and corruption would be ok as long as it’s open self-dealing and corruption.

Council lineup

Cathy Moore is sponsoring the ethics rollback. It is expected to be heard in the GAED committee on THURSDAY May 8th. That committee is chaired by Sara Nelson, who is expected to be in support of the ethics rollback as you will see from previous reporting. Alexis Mercedes Rinck has already stated her opposition. Nobody else on council has taken a public position yet.