Ethics and Elections Commission Says Kshama Sawant Didn't Misuse City Property During Her Housing Affordability Town Hall

The Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission has ruled that Council Member Kshama Sawant didn't misuse city property when her campaign was present at a town hall she hosted in April. Dan Nolte, City of Seattle

In a ruling issued today, Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission Director Wayne Barnett says Council Member Kshama Sawant did not violate any city rules when she organized a town hall on affordable housing where her campaign distributed materials and gathered signatures* to get her on the ballot. However, Barnett also expressed some concern about the use of City Hall for campaigning.

"The dismissal should not be interpreted as an endorsement of campaign activities in City Hall," Barnett wrote in his ruling. "In my years of public service, I have never before seen campaign activity openly conducted in a government facility. This was clearly an occurrence that troubled many members of the public."

Barnett's decision was in response to an anonymous complaint filed after the town hall, claiming Sawant illegally used city property for campaign purposes because her campaign was present at the event. Council Member Sally Bagshaw agreed, and filed her own complaint, telling the Seattle Times the event was nothing but a “political rally designed to inflame emotions and get one council member re-elected.” Bagshaw also criticized the event in a council meeting, saying she felt "personally slighted" by the fact that she was invited but then "directed to the audience to sit and listen."

In the decision, Barnett makes a couple specific rulings:

1. Candidates are allowed to gather signatures and distribute literature in city buildings as long as everyone has equal access, which he found to be the case at the event. (Council candidate Jon Grant also had a table there.) Tables distributing materials are only allowed with permission from the city's Financial and Administrative Services Department, which Sawant's staff had. So, Sawant was within the rules there.

2. What's not allowed in City Hall is public employees (like Sawant's council staff, as opposed to her campaign staff) accepting money for political campaigns. Sawant's campaign and Socialist Alternative both had donation buckets on their tables inside City Hall, but Barnett says the investigation found no evidence that Sawant, her council staff, or any other city employee authorized that or took any contributions. In fact, he writes, one of the legislative aides who works in Sawant's council office had the tables with donation buckets moved outside.

Then, Barnett weighs in on the broader question of whether the "entire affordable housing forum was little more than a 'front' for a campaign event." He says it wasn't.

"And even if the forum was driven by campaign considerations," Barnett writes, "it would be a dangerous precedent for the commission to peer behind otherwise permissible uses of facilities during an election year to determine whether they were motivated by campaign considerations."

In response to the town hall event and the complaints, Mayor Ed Murray and Council Member Tom Rasmussen introduced changes to the city's ethics rules. Those changes would have barred elected officials and their "agents" from campaigning at or near city-sponsored events. Elected officials are already banned from using city resources for campaigning, but the mayor's proposal would have made that more explicit by spelling out that electeds and their staff can't campaign within 300 feet and one hour of "any official city public event that is organized by that elected official or any employee of the official’s office." The Ethics and Elections Commission rejected those changes as over-broad. The ACLU and the National Lawyers Guild had concerns, too.

Since then, the legislation has been in limbo. After the ethics commission rejected it, a mayoral spokesperson said the office would revise the proposal and reintroduce it, but that never happened. Everyone seemed to be waiting for this ethics ruling. Now that it's arrived, it's unclear whether Murray and Rasmussen will continue their efforts. (A request for comment from the mayor's office went unanswered.)

Even as Barnett explains that Sawant didn't violate the rules, he gives the mayor a roadmap for a narrow rule change that could address the concerns about campaigning inside City Hall.

"At a minimum, [a change to the rules] could expressly prohibit signature gathering promoting or opposing a candidate for office or a ballot measure, or the distribution of campaign literature [inside City Hall]," Barnett writes.

Sawant, who said earlier the mayor's proposal would have "a chilling effect on grassroots campaigning", told me today she believes campaigning in City Hall shouldn't be completely banned. She gives the example of a new public campaign finance initiative, a campaign she believes should be able to reach potential voters, even inside City Hall. She sees that as part of making City Hall accessible, not necessarily as a sketchy mixing of city business and campaigning.

"There's no doubt elected officials should conduct themselves with integrity," Sawant says. "The definition of what counts as integrity is so framed in the context of corporate politics that an elected official opening the doors of City Hall to the public ... is seen with such deep suspicion."

"What is new about this whole thing," Sawant continues, "is not that I am trying to skirt the rules. What’s new is having a politician in City Hall trying to do what should be done in a democracy, which is open up City Hall."