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Sawant and her supporters have had a pretty loose relationship with the truth in general, so I wouldn't put too much stock in that. It seems far more likely tha

by abeyer 5y ago

Sawant and her supporters have had a pretty loose relationship with the truth in general, so I wouldn't put too much stock in that. It seems far more likely that if it's specifically in response to recent events that it's actually the fact that "conservative" (by Seattle standards, where we just elected the first republican in 30 years to a city office) candidates did quite well in the Nov elections where they were running against far left candidates and had squeezed out any more moderate voices in the primaries.

pagibson 5y ago
That's a reasonable point, Ann Davison's victory could definitely be a factor as well. And I don't know much about the background of the petitioners here; I think it's likely they're sincere in their belief in the same way that the original recall petitioner probably is. That doesn't change the fact that big business in Seattle would love to see Kshama out of office, and if she survives her recall and this initiative gains traction, I'm confident they'd throw their resources behind it to get another bite at the apple. With the exception of Sawant, they have a city government that works for them, and I think they'd prefer the middle path to rocking the boat in either direction.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  We shouldn't reject an otherwise-good improvement to the voting system just because one current politician might be negatively impacted.
troydavis 5y ago
> It seems far more likely that if it's specifically in response to recent events I can answer this conclusively: it's not a response to any single election or event. We've been working on this for almost 2 years. Here's a tweet from June 2020: https://twitter.com/SeattleApproves/status/1277699381756452864 https://twitter.com/SeattleApproves/status/12776993817564528... As we all say, correlation is not causality, but more practically, it's impossible to announce an initiative that addresses a real problem without it seeming related to something recent :-) Until the prior election is done, no one cares, and yet signature-gathering deadlines basically require starting as soon as that election ends. (AMA about running an initiative, particularly one that doesn't have an enemy - that is, we're not trying to "Move the goalposts" towards or against any viewpoint. That's incredibly valuable (IMO!) and quite rare, but also means the typical you're-with-us-or-against-us fundraising and voter pitches don't apply. "You're with us if you support representative democracy" requires a different campaign plan targeted at people and organizations who support systems and incentives, not only candidates and positions, and who put their own preferences second to the will of the voters.)

by abeyer 5y ago

pagibson 5y ago

That's a reasonable point, Ann Davison's victory could definitely be a factor as well. And I don't know much about the background of the petitioners here; I think it's likely they're sincere in their belief in the same way that the original recall petitioner probably is. That doesn't change the fact that big business in Seattle would love to see Kshama out of office, and if she survives her recall and this initiative gains traction, I'm confident they'd throw their resources behind it to get another bite at the apple. With the exception of Sawant, they have a city government that works for them, and I think they'd prefer the middle path to rocking the boat in either direction.

TulliusCicero 5y ago
We shouldn't reject an otherwise-good improvement to the voting system just because one current politician might be negatively impacted.

troydavis 5y ago

> It seems far more likely that if it's specifically in response to recent events I can answer this conclusively: it's not a response to any single election or event. We've been working on this for almost 2 years. Here's a tweet from June 2020: https://twitter.com/SeattleApproves/status/1277699381756452864 https://twitter.com/SeattleApproves/status/12776993817564528... As we all say, correlation is not causality, but more practically, it's impossible to announce an initiative that addresses a real problem without it seeming related to something recent :-) Until the prior election is done, no one cares, and yet signature-gathering deadlines basically require starting as soon as that election ends. (AMA about running an initiative, particularly one that doesn't have an enemy - that is, we're not trying to "Move the goalposts" towards or against any viewpoint. That's incredibly valuable (IMO!) and quite rare, but also means the typical you're-with-us-or-against-us fundraising and voter pitches don't apply. "You're with us if you support representative democracy" requires a different campaign plan targeted at people and organizations who support systems and incentives, not only candidates and positions, and who put their own preferences second to the will of the voters.)