Seattle Voters' Guide
Guide to the upcoming election for City of Seattle voters. Background information on the election and statements from the candidates and ballot issue campaigns.

 
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November 5, 2019 General Election

City Council District 3

Kshama Sawant

PO Box 85862
Seattle, WA 98145
(206) 486-0099
VoteSawant@gmail.com
www.KshamaSawant.org

picture of Kshama Sawant

Written Voters' Guide Statement

What’s at stake this year is who runs Seattle – big business or working people. Last year, Jeff Bezos and the corporate elite bullied our city to defeat the Amazon Tax, which would have funded housing and services. Now they’re trying to buy this election, with an unprecedented $1.5 million piled up already in three corporate PACs. Meanwhile a dozen top Amazon executives, along with big developers and lobbyists, have given max donations to my CEO-anointed opponent.

 

This is a struggle for the soul of Seattle, with progressives and socialists on one side and corporate-bought candidates on the other. The Chamber of Commerce has gotten their chosen candidates into all seven City Council races. Their mission: take over City Hall and flip the Council to the right.

 

I’ve used my two terms to help build powerful movements of working people to win historic victories. I’m proud to have helped lead the way in making Seattle the first major city to win the $15 minimum wage, through a coalition with labor unions and community organizations. Since then, I've worked alongside movements to win tens of millions of dollars for affordable housing, and landmark renters’ rights laws, such as the move-in-fee payment plan, so renters no longer need thousands of dollars just to move in. We won Indigenous People’s Day, and crucial funding for LGBTQ services. We’re bringing back the Central District Post Office!

 

Seattle has become increasingly unaffordable for workers and people of color. The for-profit housing market has failed us. Our city has led in the number of construction cranes four years running, yet housing affordability remains among the nation’s worst.

 

We need rent control, free of corporate loopholes, and a massive expansion of social housing for working people, paid for by taxing big business and the wealthy, not workers, middle-class homeowners, or small businesses. Seattle needs a Green New Deal, to make our city 100% renewable by 2030, and create thousands of union jobs.

 

Seattle’s political establishment has failed to address the deep crisis of affordable housing and homelessness. That’s why we need you to join our movement. As a socialist, union member, and feminist, I’m proud to have the support of The Stranger, Sierra Club, The Urbanist, National Women's Political Caucus, Nick Licata, Cary Moon, Nikkita Oliver and Noam Chomsky, along with 15 labor unions representing workers in public schools, hotels, universities, the postal service, and healthcare.

This statement was provided by the candidate, who is solely responsible for the contents therein.

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