Back in June, we made our case in front of the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission (SEEC) that Councilmember Sawant. Please remember the Councilmember Sawant is not the problem in Seattle. She’s one vote on a 9 member City Council that, along with the Mayor, is supposed to be running a City of thousands of employees. They’ve all failed to do that basic function and are now adding to the problems by making bad policy that impacts housing. And Jenny Durkan has been a terrible Mayor; she did nothing to stop this nor did her predecessor or the many Councilmembers that have watched City government spiral into its current broken state. More on that at another time.

Still, I think that our arguments standing up for people who provide housing are worth reading or listening to. You can hear the whole presentation at this link: http://www.seattlechannel.org/ethics?videoid=x114731&jwsource=cl. Unfortunately I can’t embed the video. There isn’t much to watch, honestly, so if you have the time take a listen.

Thank Mr. Chair, members of the Commission, and Mr. Barnett for hearing our concerns today. 

When the COVID-19 crisis began to unfold months ago, I was on the phone almost hourly with housing providers from Seattle and the region expressing their concerns about their residents, their own families, and their businesses. Their concerns were not about money — although the massive losses of income to people and families were looming — but how would they keep residents housed and for how long would this crisis persist? Would they have to lay people off? How would they pay their bills while government sorted out COVID-19 response?

As eviction bans were imposed, and housing providers were beginning to sort through the impacts of lost income and how they might help their residents get help and find help for themselves, Councilmember Sawant began using City resources to urge people to not pay their rent — whether they had income or not, a “rent strike.” My phone rang again and again, this time not just with anxiety about the future but outrage and anger. “How can a public official using resources I help pay for,” they asked, “try to put me out of business? Isn’t this illegal? Isn’t it wrong? Isn’t it unethical?”

That’s why we filed this complaint. There are two issues detailed in the written documents. First, we believe that the Councilmember violated her oath when she urged people to disobey the Governor’s stay at home order. There is no disputing the facts here: demonstrations like the one that the Councilmember was fomenting were clearly a violation of a legal order by the Governor, no matter the content of the protest. The public health basis of that order was that prohibited activities would contribute to the spread of COVID-19 and cause substantial harm to the wider community. “It’s not about you,” we were told at the time, “Think of your grandmother or your friend’s grandmother.”

Second, also a fact, the housing provider and resident relationships are legal contracts between a business owner and customer. The money to pay for costs of operation, maintenance, health and safety, and debt service come from rent. Consider the business of the law, for example. To urge people to engage attorneys, contract for legal services, have those services fulfilled, and then refuse payment is destructive both to the lawyer and to the client. The lawyer is legally owed money for their work and the client is now in arrears and in violation of that contract. In the case of housing the same is true, there is harm to both parties. 

That the instigator of these illegal and harmful acts is an elected official is why we’re here. Does this Commission think that a plain violation of oath and urging risk and damage to housing providers and residents is appropriate and — this is key — ethical conduct based on the code that mandates your work and the plain meaning of that word to most people in this city you serve? An elected official swears an oath to uphold all the laws, even those she may want to change them — like tenant landlord law — because she believes them unjust. 

And civil disobedience assumes the violation of a law upon appeal to a higher standard; but civil disobedience assumes a violation of the law and accepting its consequences. Councilmember Sawant, I guess, paid her mortgage while urging others to not pay their rent. There are no consequences for her in this action.

This is not a free speech or civil disobedience issue. Not only is Councilmember Sawant entitled by our Constitution and 1000 years of legal precedent to speak her mind, as an elected official, she is obligated to do so. She’d be violating her oath just as seriously if she did not speak out about things she thought were wrong and if she did not exhort action from the community to make them right. I think it’s ethical to break the law or a contract when accepting the consequences to make a point. 

But that isn’t what she did. She urged others to violate a lawful order made to protect the wider community –including those not participating in the protest – and to harm lawfully functioning businesses and their legally binding relationships with their customers and clients. She did all this using City resources during a period of great anxiety and stress for millions of people in this region grappling with an unprecedented health crisis. This was, clearly a case of yelling, “Fire!” in a crowded theater. 

You might find it ironic that I agree with Christopher Hitchens assessment of the Supreme Court decision written by Oliver Wendell Holmes in the Schenck case that socialists like Eugene V. Debs were shouting fire when there really was a fire. Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Debs’ ideology is antithetical in many ways to what I truly believe, his imprisonment for speech is an embarrassment to our country and was wrong — it was not moral and it was unjust. It was also, unethical. However, in Councilmember Sawant’s case not only was there no fire, she was trying to set one. 

But we’re not suggesting here that the Councilmember have her right to speech abrogated, or that she be penalized for her beliefs. She should say what she thinks, even and especially while using City resources. But asking people to violate a legal order and harm legal relationships and business during a crisis using the platform and influence of public office and public resources isn’t protected speech but is unethical as we’ve described based on the code and the plain meaning of the word. This is the question we’re anxious to see the Commission consider and answer on the record.