Last week, socialist Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant made headlines for her stunning hypocrisy. As Shift reported, Sawant has allegedly structured payments to her campaign staffers in a way that “allows her to avoid payroll taxes, paying them overtime, and offering them insurance.” Making matter worse, the consultants Sawant employs are illegally working without a business license. That means they avoid paying Seattle’s business and occupation tax.
Sawant has yet to issue a public statement or even attempt to explain her hypocrisy. But, she has moved on to more ethics violations.
The Seattle Times reports that Sawant’s fellow city councilmember, Sally Bagshaw, has filed an ethics complaint against her. Bagshaw claims that a “town-hall meeting”—publicized as a rent control meeting—hosted by Sawant at City Hall last week was, in truth, a “political rally designed to inflame emotions and get one council member re-elected.”
Another ethics complaint filed with Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission by an anonymous source makes a similar claim. According to the source, “Sawant violated the city’s ethics code when workers for her re-election campaign set up shop in the lobby of City Hall during the event.”
Of course, Sawant staffer Phillip Locker—the same consultant who is illegally working without a business license—denies any wrongdoing. He cannot, however, deny the fact that “workers with Sawant’s campaign used the tables to solicit signatures for a petition to put Sawant on the ballot and to recruit volunteers” at the “town-hall meeting.”
Locker—who has probably avoided paying Seattle’s B&O tax for quite some time now—said that Sawant’s opponents are “desperate to avoid a clear discussion of (rent control) because they know that she has the majority of Seattle with her.” The “town-hall meeting” was held because “housing in Seattle is becoming increasingly unaffordable — and not for a political purpose.” Presumably, because Sawant’s motives are “pure,” everyone should look the other way when she violated ethics codes for her political gain.
That line of reasoning—one that Sawant has relied on many times in the past—isn’t good enough for Bagshaw. She recently told the Seattle Times,
“City Hall should be a place where ideas and information are shared in a healthy and open way. That was not what happened.
“What happened last Thursday was a political rally designed to inflame emotions and get one council member re-elected and push a one-sided agenda. This is unfair and unjust, and statements made at the rally inside City Hall wronged many good and thoughtful people who quietly live in our city.”
