Shift has watched with bemused interest as the Seattle City Council heaps regulation upon regulation on the city’s businesses – from the $15 minimum wage to rules for hiring and scheduling employees.
In fact, back in August we highlighted a Seattle Times columnist who wondered just how far Left Seattle’s Council could go. And it turns out, if the most extreme Lefties on the Council get their way, that the body can continue moving closer to San Francisco – or Cuba – in its income redistribution approach.
The liberal blog PubiCola reports that a failed candidate from 2015 has announced his intention to again try to topple the Council’s only semi-moderate – Tim Burgess. And Jon Grant’s political playbook is lifted directly from Bernie Sanders’ (or Kshama Sawant’s) campaigns.
PubliCola writes that Grant has “already got a website up and running that stresses housing affordability, higher wages, taking the influence of “big money” out of politics, and not accepting “Donald Trump’s policies in Seattle.” Showing just how far out of touch he is with economic reality, Grant says that “the city should ensure that every new apartment (building) dedicates 25 percent of its units for affordable housing.”
Since trying to ensure that no new apartment buildings are ever built in the city will be a big task, Grant is counting on Council extremists to help him out. PubliCola notes that “Grant is a strong ally of the current council’s left wing—Lisa Herbold and Kshama Sawant were both big Grant backers in 2015. Burgess was the main opponent of Herbold, Sawant, and fellow lefty Mike O’Brien’s push to challenge homeless sweeps. As budget chair, Burgess also opposed Herbold’s recent attempt to create a dedicated fund for the Office of Labor Standards with a fee on businesses.”
After failing big-time in 2015 – he lost 55-45% – Grant is counting on taxpayers to fund his campaign, as his “initial focus now is on qualifying as a candidate under the new ‘Honest Elections’ guidelines; in 2015, voters passed I-122, an elections voucher program, which provides public money for candidates.”
Grant will need that “public money,” because it’s unlikely that he would be able to raise much from people who pay taxes in the city.
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