SEATTLE (AP) — At first, Henry Bridger II supported Kshama Sawant, Seattle’s combative socialist city councilmember. A liberal voter in one of the most liberal neighborhoods in an extremely liberal city, he liked her fresh outlook and support for a $15 minimum wage.
Seven years later, Bridger is leading an effort to recall Sawant. With ballots due Tuesday night in Seattle’s Third District, the results could further shift power in the Northwest’s largest city and deal another setback to leftist activists who saw business-friendly candidates win a council seat and the mayor’s office in last month’s general election.
At stake is how the city approaches homelessness, police reform, taxation and other pressing issues. Sawant has been pushing for rent control, cutting police funding and expanding taxes on high earners such as Amazon to pay for affordable housing, schools and community services.
“She literally blasts people who don’t agree with her,” Bridger said. “If you’re not in lockstep with her ideology, you become the enemy. You’re called a right-wing Republican. You’re called a racist. You’re bullied and pushed around.”
Sawant, 48, an Indian immigrant and an economics professor, is the longest-tenured council member. She has had an outsized influence on the tone and direction of Seattle politics since launching her political career under the banner of the Socialist Alternative party in 2012, when she ran unsuccessfully for state representative.
She was elected to City Council the following year, and her threat to run a voter initiative drive for an immediate $15 minimum wage has been credited with pressuring business leaders and then-Mayor Ed Murray to reach a deal raising the wage to $15 over a few years. Seattle was the first major city in the U.S. to adopt such a measure.
But critics say she offers more rhetoric than substance, and that her brash antics are incompatible with good governance.
Seattle and other cities are banned by state law from adopting rent control, for example. And last month, a federal appeals court ruled that two Seattle police officers could sue Sawant for defamation, after she claimed a fatal shooting they were involved in was “a blatant murder.”
The recall question on the ballot cites three charges: a minor campaign finance violation that Sawant acknowledged and for which she paid a fine; her alleged leadership of a protest march to the home of Mayor Jenny Durkan, even though Durkan’s address was protected by a state confidentiality law due to her prior work as a federal prosecutor; and her decision to let a crowd of protesters into City Hall while it was closed due to the pandemic.
Bridger insisted that his motivation for bringing the recall campaign was to hold Sawant accountable for those transgressions, and that it has nothing to do with her politics.
But to Sawant’s supporters, the charges are merely a pretext for an effort by big business, developer and commercial real-estate interests to accomplish what they failed to do in 2019, when a late, million-dollar push by Amazon to defeat her and other progressive candidates backfired. Sawant was reelected by about 4 percentage points.
Sawant denies having led the march to Durkan’s house, though she did participate in it.
She has defended her decision to let Black Lives Matter demonstrators into City Hall in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police. She said the protesters were only inside for an hour and that it was important for them to be seen in the halls of power.
Bryan Koulouris, spokesman for the Kshama Solidarity Campaign, called the attempt to boot Sawant part of a national backlash against the Black Lives Matter movement. Even the timing of the vote is suspicious, he said.
The recall campaign needed to turn in nearly 11,000 signatures by early August to place the question onto last month’s ballot.
Sawant’s supporters hoped that would happen, believing that better turnout for the general election — more young and lower-income voters, especially — would improve Sawant’s chances for remaining in office, as opposed to a special election on some other Tuesday between Thanksgiving and Christmas. They went so far as to collect 3,000 signatures for the recall effort to ensure it made the November ballot.
But Bridger didn’t turn in the signatures in time to make the general election, saying the recall campaign simply hadn’t collected enough by the deadline.
“This is a blatant act of voter suppression,” Koulouris said. “From the nature of the charges and from when this election is happening, it begins to scratch the surface of why this is a right-wing recall.”
The two groups supporting the recall — Recall Sawant and A Better Seattle — have raised close to $1 million combined, as has Kshama Solidarity.
Andrew Villeneuve, the founder of Northwest Progressive Institute, suggested that going with protesters to Durkan’s house was the most serious charge. Even if Sawant didn’t lead them there, he said, she as a political leader should have spoken up against it. Villeneuve called it an act of intimidation.
Still, he expected that many voters might look at the charges and conclude they don’t warrant removing Sawant from office.
“When I read the charges, I can think of far worse sins committed by other people in office,” Villeneuve said. “There are people who think her advocacy is useful, and people who think her advocacy is counterproductive. Those who find her advocacy counterproductive seem to be the ones supporting the recall.”
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“She literally blasts people who don’t agree with her,” Bridger said. “If you’re not in lockstep with her ideology, you become the enemy. You’re called a right-wing Republican. You’re called a racist. You’re bullied and pushed around.”
As bad as she evidently is, it still took “more young and lower-income voters” to get her into office. If you are going to court a Socialist and there are enough votes to get him/her into office, then you gotta deal with the consequences.
But ill-tempered brats in Liberal adult bodies, finger-pointing and name-calling calls for Conservatives to be the bigger adults and fire right back at them. They have been successful at this game for far too long and Republicans have been too submissive by cowering to it every single time. Get a backbone—this **** needs to stop. Turn the tables on them and let them holler. Give them a MAGA pacifier and put them to bed. And educate the young and the low-information voters on the superiority of the Conservative agenda—point out the differences so they can understand.
Sadly, thanks to the Communists who have been in control of our educational system for DECADES, it may not be possible to “educate” them, because they have been SO brainwashed to be good little Communist SHEEP who will meekly follow and NEVER disagree with their Communist masters, that they will simply refuse to listen to what you try to tell them.
LETS hope this succeeds!
America lost the West Coast years ago to the free lunch entitlement vote buyers. Bridger’s attempt to recall her will result in the same as California Newsom’s recall, another Bridger attempt to nowhere. Seattle itself is the suicide capitol of the county, populated like most of the West Coast with people bent on destroying themselves, which in essence defines the word “Socialism”
“”While the inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” – Winston Churchill.
LETS hope its not lost for good….
Bridger helped to feed that crocodile and foster this ultra-toxic environment. And now, the crocodile that is Sawant has turned and bitten him…. Well, too bad. He gets no sympathy from me. You reap what you sow.
ALL these America- and liberty-hating Socialists/Communists who are currently infesting our government need to be recalled, impeached or just THROWN OUT. They are DISMANTLING our liberties and our country brick by brick and replacing it with something NONE of us want, even the STUPID liberals who keep voting for them!
“Andrew Villeneuve, the founder of Northwest Progressive Institute, suggested that going with protesters to Durkan’s house was the most serious charge. Even if Sawant didn’t lead them there, he said, she as a political leader should have spoken up against it. Villeneuve called it an act of intimidation.”
Will ya look at that – it’s no longer OK to harass folks at their homes!
ONLY IF they are libtard commucrats.. If they are republican, then its STILL ok out there.
immigration can also be infiltration wake up people the republic is in peril.
IT IS Infiltration.. THEY ARE taking this nation over, from the inside out!!!