Week in Review: August 23, 2024 - with Erica Barnett

Hacks & Wonks 2024 Post-Primary Roundtable from Hacks & Wonks

“Just 51 votes separate these two WA candidates. Next: A statewide recount by hand” by Amanda Zhou from The Seattle Times

Recount Elections FAQs | Washington Secretary of State

“With $260 million gap, Seattle City Hall prepares for tense budget talks” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times

“Why is Aurora Avenue crime concentrated in Seattle, not Shoreline?” by Amy Radil from KUOW

“We Arrest Because We Care” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger

“Moore Says SOAP Zones Won’t Apply to Sex Workers; Former Chief Diaz Still Making $28,000 a Month” from PubliCola

“Council May Wait Until Next Year to Roll Back Renter Protections; Community Police Commission Dismissed Consultant Who Advised Them to Fix Harms They Caused” from PubliCola

Eviction Crisis Compounds Homelessness Emergency, Expert Warns from Hacks & Wonks

Find stories that Crystal is reading here

Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here

[00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes.

If you missed our Tuesday topical show, we aired our 2024 Post-Primary Roundtable, which was live-streamed on August 13th to bring an insider's view of the recent Washington State primary election results from a panel of seasoned political strategists, including myself, Riall Johnson, Stephen Paolini, and Heather Weiner. Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows, where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, and co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, Erica Barnett. Hello.

[00:01:30] Erica Barnett: Hello - great to be here.

[00:01:32] Crystal Fincher: Welcome back! Well, a number of things to talk about this week - starting off, we finally have a result in the Commissioner of Public Lands statewide race. This was a race that really highlighted how different - and sometimes perilous - Washington's top-two jungle primary can be. We, in Washington, don't have a partisan primary where one Republican and one Democrat - basically representatives from major parties - make the general election. We just allow everyone to vote and whoever gets the top-two votes, whichever parties they are, get to advance. This can set up a situation like we almost saw in this election, where there are a number of Democrats that choose to run - can split the vote - just a couple Republicans ran. And while all the Democratic candidates, if you combine their votes, got a majority of the vote, they were at risk of not actually finishing in the top two and not sending a person to the general election. So, what did these results finally shape up to be, and what happens next?

[00:02:45] Erica Barnett: I would put an asterisk by that "finally," right? And I'm sure that you are, because the 51-vote margin that Dave Upthegrove has is obviously going to be subject to a manual recount. But you'll recall that the last time we had sort of a similar situation was with Christine Gregoire and Dino Rossi back in 2004, when initially Rossi was ahead, there were several recounts - two manual recounts after a machine recount - and then a court case, and votes sort of appearing that hadn't been counted in King County. And ultimately, Gregoire flipped that and won by 133 votes. So I don't anticipate that we're going to go into that territory this time, but anything's possible. I was on KUOW actually with Sandeep Kaushik, who's part of the Seattle Nice podcast, talking about elections, and he's working on Upthegrove's campaign. And he said that they're basically preparing as if they're running a general election campaign. And so, they're plowing ahead, but anything could happen - you know, look at 2004 - that was a wild time, as I recall.

[00:03:51] Crystal Fincher: It was absolutely a wild time. We did not know for quite some time. It was at least a month after the primary election was originally certified that we got the final result there. But these recounts are a process. So, Jaime Herrera Beutler finished in first place in the Commissioner of Public Lands race, so she's making it through with 22.03% of the vote. It's Dave Upthegrove at - really, there's a percentage tie if you only go out two decimal points - both with 20.82%. Dave Upthegrove has 396,300 votes. Sue Kuehl Pederson has 396,249 votes. So just that 51-vote margin after about 1.9 million ballots were counted. So in this recount process, it's so close that this is not going to be a machine recount - it's going to be a hand recount, they are not going to be using the machines. So there will be basically two people who count the ballots. If those two people counting those ballots, their tally matches up with what was originally tallied - great. If not, then they're going to note the difference and report that. At the end, if it's still the same, similar results, then we get a certification. If there are any issues there, parties can actually request, or campaigns can request a recount if they pay for it. We also saw that happen in the 2004 race. So there could technically be more than one recount if one of the campaigns wanted to pay for that again.

There could also be questions about the scope of the recount. In the 2004 race, we saw an issue where King County had inappropriately disqualified some ballots. So they originally weren't in the pile - so to speak - to get recounted, although they should have been. And so they took that issue to court - the Supreme Court ultimately ruled 600-700 or so ballots were improperly rejected by the machine and needed to be counted. So, there are some issues like that that could wind up in the courts. But we've seen this happen before - it doesn't happen frequently, there are processes involved. This is going to be happening in all of the county elections offices, and those people do great work. There will be observers there from each campaign, each party - so this is not happening in a back room - it's a very, very transparent process. And we'll see how it turns out, but this margin is close enough that really anything could happen.

[00:06:32] Erica Barnett: Well, yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is the first time it's happened, in this particular way, where you have a top-two primary with all of these Democrats running and then just two Republicans, as you mentioned. Usually the top-two primary goes in the Democrats' favor in Washington state, or often it does. And in this case, obviously it went in the Republicans' favor. But I just think that this is such a unique situation in Washington state - I don't think we have quite the same scenario in any other state - particularly with ballots getting counted so late here. And it opens up a lot of room for challenge. One of the things that the campaigns do is they go around trying to cure ballots, where if somebody's ballot is rejected, they knock on their door, or give them a call, and say - Hey, you know, your ballot was rejected, you didn't follow up and we think you voted for our candidate. - they probably don't say that - But would you like to cure this ballot? And so Upthegrove had a very large volunteer operation trying to get people to validate their rejected ballots. And so I think that is also an interesting part of the process that voters are not necessarily aware of, because it just doesn't happen that often - that it's so close that they need to do that. So I just think there's a lot of really interesting parts of the machine of democracy that sort of play out here. And I'm sure it's a nail-biter if you're invested in one of the campaigns or on one of the campaigns. But as an observer, it's really fascinating to watch.

[00:07:51] Crystal Fincher: It's very fascinating. And Republicans also had a ballot curing effort going on - it looks like the Democrats likely had a larger and more sophisticated operation. I remember, I think what - 2012, 2014 - there was a legislative race in Puyallup where it was really, really close and we went out to help cure ballots there. Former Speaker JT Wilcox, who is a Republican, noted that this race was likely going to come down to the ballot curing operations from each of the campaigns. I think that was correct. And I think, fortunately, the Upthegrove campaign really got going immediately, knew what they were doing, was able to equip volunteers with all of the appropriate information, track it effectively - so that was really helpful. But this is going to be really exciting to watch in the coming weeks - hopefully not months, hopefully just weeks.

So I also want to talk this week about Seattle's budget process, which sometimes starts earlier than now, but is really kicking off in earnest. And is looking really stark, based on the approach that the Mayor and Council majority is looking to take with this, which doesn't involve any new revenue that had been recommended by the task force that the Mayor put together. So they're looking at trying to bridge a $260 million budget gap with some cuts and some potential accounting gimmicks, transferring money that was intended for other purposes to fill this gap. What is happening here? What is being asked of those in the City to prepare for this?

[00:09:36] Erica Barnett: Well, essentially, the Mayor proposes the budget and the Council adopts and amends. And what the Council is going to be facing - most likely - is deciding on a range of cuts. Harrell most likely will propose very minimal cuts to public safety departments, so Fire and Police, and the very small CARE teams. And very large cuts to other departments that typically get cut - things like the Office of Planning and Community Development and potentially Housing. So, we're looking at very large cuts. But also, as you mentioned, shifting money around. The JumpStart payroll tax, which is supposed to pay primarily for housing but also equitable development, Green New Deal, small businesses - it's a tax on the very largest businesses and the payrolls of their very highest-paid employees - and it's supposed to go to all these purposes and there's actually law that says it has to go to these purposes. So, what the City is likely to do is amend that law, basically, to allow more of that funding above what's already allowed to fill that gap. So, it's projected to bring in $400 million next year - and so, that money, I think, is very much on the table for this Council, as far as filling budget gaps.

But I think we are going to see some really significant cuts, and to the same places that we always see cuts. The City is saying they don't want to cut Human Services, but even not cutting Human Services is a cut - particularly when you're talking about the homelessness budget, which primarily goes to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. With inflation every year, everything costs more every single year. And so when you're talking about paying social workers, human services workers - who are actually on the ground doing outreach, doing the work that comprises our homelessness system - those organizations have to cut when you don't give pay raises, when you don't increase their funding, even to keep them at the same level. And I'll just mention, we're about to lose 300 shelter beds in the city. I've written about it a few times. It hasn't really gotten a lot of mainstream attention, but Human Services cuts are going to impact the stuff that Mayor Harrell has said he wants to fix, like street disorder, like encampments, etc. So they're facing a really stark and unpleasant series of decisions, and I'm not sure how prepared they are for that.

[00:11:48] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it doesn't seem to me like they are substantively prepared for it. It does seem like they are trying to rely on JumpStart, which is really ironic because it was opposed by many of these people, initially - and it has assisted with bailing out the City and budget challenges before. But now, if they're looking at diverting this revenue, you're really defunding a major part of the affordable housing effort here in the city of Seattle. And that's really a challenge - it's one of the voters' foremost concerns. Certainly, they've talked about trying to assist with affordable housing and this would absolutely be devastating. Also, several offices - several critical functions of the City - that help to protect workers, help to protect consumers, renters, others are at stake. A lot of the work that's done in those offices, their budget is people. So there's no way to cut the budget without just cutting the people who do the work. And really, if you cut the people who are going out and servicing the public, you essentially kneecap those offices and departments. So, I'm thinking about things like the Office of Labor Standards in Seattle, thinking of various offices there - that are doing really crucial work that the city values - that they're asking to cut. Earlier this year, Mayor Harrell asked several City agencies - what it would look like to cut 20% of their budget, and then what it would look like to cut 40% of their budget. It is just really challenging - anywhere you're at, any organization you're a part of - cutting 40% of the budget is a massive cut, regardless of the circumstance, regardless of the context. And this is happening at a time - we've seen polling that says the city is opposed to this. They do want progressive revenue. We just ended a primary election where there were candidates that had very clear views on how they saw the appropriate fix to the budgets. The candidates led by Alexis Mercedes Rinck, who got over 50% in the primary, saying we absolutely need progressive revenue. And it's not her idea, it's the idea of the task force that the Mayor put together with a roadmap on how to get there, essentially. And Tanya Woo, the incumbent, finished under 40%, which is just a wild result in a crowded primary. And it seems like the city residents have made their voices pretty clear on what their preference is. The Council majority is just in a different place, and this is going to be a pretty painful process if they don't change course here.

[00:14:42] Erica Barnett: I want to call out one particular department that got cut - since we're talking about history with Gregoire, I'll bring up a little more recent history, which is the McGinn administration. When they made cuts, they cut, I think what was then called - it was DPD - it's the Planning Department, which changes names all the time for some reason. And they cut it, I want to say, by about 40%. It's a largely fee-based department. But what happens when you cut the Planning Department, when you cut the Permitting Department, is that you get these tremendous years-long backlogs that developers already complain about - and people who are trying to everything from build a porch onto their house to develop affordable housing. And it just has these immediate effects on what can be built in the city of Seattle when you cut all the people that are in charge of building permits and inspecting - even vacant buildings. There's just a lot of stuff that these departments do that people are not necessarily acutely aware of. But when you hear affordable housing developers and other developers say - It's taken me two years to get a permit and I just gave up - that has a real impact on the city, on the built environment, on the amount of housing that's available, on things like the revitalization of the city. And so as obscure as those departments may be - if you're not a developer - they're really important and they always take a huge hit. And I think we're still crawling back from the cuts that were made 14, 15 years ago - and now it looks like we're about to do it all over again.

[00:16:10] Crystal Fincher: It really does. And that's really important. And another thing that has been the case, but has not been making the news in the way that, say, police department worker shortages has - are there are worker shortages throughout the city right now, especially for frontline human service workers. They've been trying to hire and have been unsuccessful at being able to fill all of the positions needed, and now we're talking about potentially cutting those back even more - it's just a really challenging situation. And the Council majority has shown the willingness to spend money, to invest to try and address the police officer shortage, but we haven't seen the same with other City employees. In fact, they've delayed pay increases for those workers and obviously, adding delays in earned compensation is a major challenge to even keeping the depleted workforce that's already there. So I do hope they get more serious about that. I do hope they value the people delivering the services that the city is reliant upon. But there's a lot to be discussed in this budget process. I do hope that they move for a more transparent process, that they move to really hear and consider views from the public more than they have shown with recent issues and ordinances. This is a really big deal.

So the next thing I want to talk about is Cathy Moore's attempt to somehow address gun violence through cracking down on sex worker activity on Aurora. But a really interesting story this week about the differences on Aurora Avenue across Seattle and Shoreline, which are right next to each other - they're right in that area. Seattle's side, basically south of 145th, has been plagued with various challenges. Shoreline's hasn't. Why is this the case and how has this impacted Cathy Moore's approach?

[00:18:12] Erica Barnett: Well, this is really interesting. So I think those are two separate questions, so I'll start with what Councilmember Cathy Moore has said, which is that - If you look at Shoreline and you look at Seattle, there is not a lot of sex work activity on the Shoreline side, and there's a ton, obviously, on the Seattle side. Her conclusion from that is because Shoreline has laws against prostitution loitering - and they have what's called Stay Out of Areas of Prostitution orders that they can issue - that that is the reason. And if we just did that, we would also not have a sex work issue on Aurora. KUOW reported this week - they had a really good story where they just talked to officials in Shoreline, who basically told them - No, that's not the reason, or at least it's not the primary reason. The reason is that we have changed the pedestrian environment in that area to be a little bit more friendly to pedestrians, to be a little bit more just nice-looking - they put trees in, they have curb cuts. And even though it is still a large state highway, it's a little more of an inviting environment. And often that is part of the issue - you do environmental design in such a way that it attracts more people who are using the area for legal purposes, and it just makes an area feel less inviting for more - shall we say - seedy purposes. And I thought what was interesting about this story too is that it doesn't appear that Cathy Moore, at least based on what I have heard her say and what I read in this story, doesn't appear that she really consulted with Shoreline before making all these broad statements about - Well, they have a SOAP law and they don't have prostitution, so we need a SOAP law and then we won't have it. And she said that many, many times in justifying her proposal, which I just think it's an example of this Council's tendency to sort of forge ahead with what they feel is best - based on what they want to do and not really doing the deep research and analysis that would maybe reach a different conclusion, like let's make better sidewalks, let's do some improvements and spend some money making Aurora more friendly. But no, what they go to instead is reinstating an old law that we rejected because it didn't work and was punitive.

[00:20:24] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And I think it's a problem that's even more than neglecting to do research. Sometimes, like in this instance, Cathy Moore did talk to Shoreline, did meet with Shoreline about this, and seemed to indicate that she planned to take a more evidence-based approach initially and address root causes. That did not end up manifesting in the bill that she proposed. But Shoreline told her directly - Hey, we haven't used that law since at least 2018. Our improvements are due to the things that you just talked about, Erica - their infrastructure, environmental improvements - that makes a difference. The story asked the police chief - Is that really true? I mean, we heard this from one of your city officials, but do you agree? Police chief said - Yeah, absolutely. That's what made the difference. Those facts were told directly to Cathy Moore, were put in front of her face, and she just decided to reject them. It makes me think about Maritza Rivera and being confronted with people who would have to live with the impact of her attempt to effectively defund some of the EDI initiatives, that - No, I know this looks like the result, but you just don't understand, or those facts are for some reason irrelevant to this situation. And given the City's challenges that they've had here, given the challenges that this Council has had over the past year-plus, it just seems like they would do better to listen to people who are successfully addressing the problem. It's really hard to see how you can disregard the same stretch of road - and the problems magically stop at the point where they implement these changes - and yet we're trying an expensive and disproven method once again. It's like they're allergic to evidence, and it's really irritating.

[00:22:25] Erica Barnett: I will say, Cathy Moore has really emphasized verbally this idea that we want services first - she pays a lot of lip service to that, and she talks about it all the time. But the legislation does not include any new services. It includes some whereas clauses about - whereas we really care, and whereas we really want services first, and whereas diversion to services should be the first alternative. But there's no service - I mean, there are services, but they're extremely limited, already overtaxed. And we were talking about the budget - Moore has said that she wants to fund a receiving center, which is for people who want to leave the sex trade. Right now, there are seven beds of that type in Seattle - and so maybe expand that a little bit, which even if that happens, it will be for a small subset of people. Will not include things like healthcare for sex workers or alternatives to sex work for people who want to leave - it's just this sort of concept that everybody who is in the sex trade is being exploited, wants to escape right now, and go into a shelter. And I just don't anticipate that's going to be very much funding, given what we were just talking about with the massive funding gap that they're facing. So there's a lot of lip service going on and probably Cathy Moore - to be perfectly fair to her, I think she really does believe that there need to be at least that type of service for people who want to go into a shelter, but I don't think that that is comprehensive. And I don't think that it's really going to be meaningful funding to address the numbers that we're seeing. And as far as the gun violence - it may be related to sex work, it may not - but I don't think that cracking down on women and on men paying for sex is going to solve the problem. It may very well move it - that's what's happened in the past with these exact same laws.

[00:24:09] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it just makes it another neighborhood's problem. And interestingly, I mean, we just talked about Shoreline's police chief. Seattle's Interim Police Chief Sue Rahr did an interview with The Stranger last week and essentially said - We absolutely need services. This problem isn't going to be fixed without services. We don't have adequate services. Obviously, as a police chief, she will try and address the gunfire problem, but essentially says directly - This is not going to address the problem of sex trafficking, of helping sex workers who are trying to get away from pimps. This won't help that. Services would, but we don't have those. And it is ultimately insidious when you're a person in power who has the ability to provide and fund services - if you do believe they are so needed - and to not do that, while increasing funding and the tools and mechanisms for jail, for arrest, for the things that often exacerbate and make this problem worse. If Cathy Moore believes it, then where is it? Where's the funding for it? Where is her legislation to introduce that? If she wants to address root causes for this problem, this is her legislation to address this problem and it's not here. And so it's just challenging in the same way that challenges about conversations about homelessness, where - yes, we absolutely need housing, we need supportive services. However, we're funding and calling for more encampments without the accompanying funding and need for services. Obviously, there's a limited budget here. But especially in a time of a limited budget that we're finding money to increase police enforcement and jail capacity and our capacity to arrest people in this position - without doing anything else to prevent or provide services to help alleviate this problem - seems really counterproductive.

[00:26:17] Erica Barnett: Yeah, and Cathy Moore did - and I think this is another example of what we were talking about - sort of listening to people before you act. So the SOAP zone - and that's Stay Out of Areas of Prostitution - is basically all of Aurora from 145th down to 85th, and then for a couple blocks on each side. So hundreds of blocks of the city where if you are under a SOAP order, you would not be allowed. And so she said in response to feedback that they received during the initial discussions on this, she's not going to apply this to sex workers - it's just going to be to people who are buying sex. So I went back - and this is a little preview of a story that's going to drop probably shortly after this episode comes out - but I went back and I looked at the SOAP orders against men. And they did used to issue them - they issued a lot more against women - but the SOAP orders were basically never enforced against men, which is in sharp contrast to what happened to women when we had these orders. So they would issue a SOAP order, they say - You can't be in this area. And there were a number of SOAP areas in the city that sort of expanded out from Aurora as people moved from place to place to place. And it would just sort of never come up again. They weren't apparently checking on men who were driving through the area. Or you'd have to believe that men were just assiduously following these SOAP orders and women weren't. So either way, imposing it against men who are buying sex is probably not going to have any impact if the past is any indication. And so I think it's just an example of hearing people and their feedback and just going - Okay, well, fine, I'll just change this part of it. But what people are primarily upset about is this idea that we're going to reinstate a prostitution loitering law that lowers the burden of proof for a cop to stop and frisk somebody that they think looks like a sex worker. And that is hugely problematic and that's still her underlying proposal - so, sort of partially listening to people, but not really, you know.

[00:28:09] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, another item that Councilmember Moore has in her sights is some modifications to existing renter protections in the city. What has she talked about and what is her plan?

[00:28:27] Erica Barnett: So, this is all just stuff that is brewing behind the scenes right now. But Cathy Moore has indicated that she wants to amend or repeal some laws that were passed under the previous Council to protect renters. One is the first-in-time law, which requires landlords to accept the first person who applies and qualifies under the criteria that the landlord sets - so that can be credit score, income, etc. But the idea with that is to essentially prevent people from discriminating - based on race, based on gender, based on vibes, whatever. And so that is going to be on the chopping block probably next year. There's also the winter eviction ban, which bars evictions from December 1st to March 1st. And there's - it's known as the roommate law, but it basically says that landlords have to allow family members or up to one roommate to live with a person who is on their lease without actually having to qualify and get on the lease themselves. So these are big things that passed under the previous Council. First-in-time, in particular, was really contentious - landlords hated it. And so this is another example of the Council essentially trying to reinstate the law as it used to be.

[00:29:38] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and notable at a time when more than half of Seattle's residents are renters. And given the challenges that people are having as renters, it just seems like they - once again - are not listening to people who've been asking them to take action. Bruce Harrell even previously promised to collect data to inform any future efforts of legislation, to collect data from landlords about prices and kind of some basics on their renters that he, I think, ended up going back on - that even Dan Strauss could support, and we know that he is not the strongest proponent of this or many things. It just seems really challenging to, once again, have the opportunity to collect good data, to make evidence-based and fact-backed decisions, but this isn't happening. Now, one thing I read about was the Low Income Housing Institute is part of who informed this effort. Were they having particular challenges that they cited that was part of this, and what has the feedback been to that?

[00:30:50] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I haven't reported on this myself, but I believe LIHI has said that in their buildings, which are low-income housing, they have had problems with tenants doing destructive behavior, making it hard for other people to live there, etc., not paying rent. And they're saying that this is causing them to have trouble maintaining their buildings because they're not getting the money in that they rely on. And that's totally credible - and I've talked to low-income housing providers over the years who have talked about this being a real problem - both rent and people setting fires in places and doing all kinds of disruptive behavior. DESC has a real problem with that, too, because of the clientele they serve - they're very high-needs people. And so for LIHI, I think the solution is partly - we need to be able to evict people - they've said as much. I think that if the problem is money, one thing we could do is help them to bridge that gap with funding. But, of course-

[00:31:43] Crystal Fincher: Wow, it's almost like there's a JumpStart fund that fits in with things like that, that could be used for that purpose if it's not diverted to other purposes - to fill a budget gap.

[00:31:51] Erica Barnett: Well, right. So let's say the problem is absolutely valid and concede that - I believe that, I don't think they're making it up. And I don't think that they are the bad guys. And I also don't think that these are simple problems, particularly when you're talking about behavioral issues. But the fact is, when you evict somebody from low-income housing, you have created a homeless person - and that is against the mission of these organizations. So ideally, there would be a better solution that allows them to continue their operations without having to make cuts - and that would be funding. And so, I don't love that LIHI is out here being one of the largest advocates for this because it's not a good look, man.

[00:32:28] Crystal Fincher: It's not a good look. There was a letter to Cathy Moore that was surfaced from LIHI that talked about the winter eviction moratorium being troubling for them and wanting to reduce that. I do think - and there have been City Council hearings on this, and we did a show about it on Hacks & Wonks, one of our topical shows - that there is a longer period of time than there used to be to evict people. And some people have said - Well, clearly that means that the law needs to change. But the law isn't the hindrance here, it's a backlog in the courts. So they're able to file for eviction, they're able to get a court date - that court date is taking longer and longer to get to because they're backlogged. Ultimately, they're getting a just result - and the result that they would have gotten previously - but the challenge is that backlog is delaying the time there. It certainly is a choice to use that as an opportunity to weaken the law that meaningfully protects more than half of the city's residents, instead of addressing the challenge in the courts - which is problematic for a number of reasons and that is impacting more than just evictions. So that is a problem - it absolutely does need to be solved. I would love for us to solve the source of the problem than tinker around with other legislation - Hey, we make it easier to evict people. And under that scenario, more evictions happen - which creates an even larger backlog in the courts and takes people even longer to evict a tenant. So it just seems like this isn't the appropriate solution, given what the problem has been identified as.

I've also seen it reported that there is one entity, basically, that is providing services to people in eviction court and trying to make sure that the law is followed - the Housing Justice Project. And for some reason - because they're representing people that landlords don't like - there seems to be an attempt to try and defame them and say that they're fighting against just evictions. And really they're doing the work that public defenders, defense attorneys, officers of the court do - in seeing justice done - and is one of the only entities that is able to hold landlords accountable to the law. Still, a judge is adjudicating the law - it's not like they can override the law that's supposed to happen - judge is still making a decision. But at least there is some availability, even though it's extremely limited, for tenants facing that situation to be represented. So I would also caution people - and just be on the lookout for attempts at overreach to completely remove any kind of regulation and representation here, and suggest that somehow the existence of that is corrupt or unfair. I think we do need to address this backlog in the courts. If someone is having someone who's a tenant who's a public safety issue - and that's found to be legitimate - they should be able to take action on that quickly. And if a court backlog is preventing that, or ultimately what turns out to be an eviction for non-payment of rent, the law should be able to be carried out without delay there. I do think that we do need to address that delay, but let's not weaken the few regulations that exist and use that as an excuse.

And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, August 23rd, 2024. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, and co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter at @ericacbarnett on all of the major platforms. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. You can find me - just about every platform - at @finchfrii, with two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts - I use Overcast - just type "Hacks and Wonks" in the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes.

Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.