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Collection: Honest Elections Seattle

All articles from this series are 2016 and earlier
https://www.sightline.org/series/honest-elections-seattle/

Seattle’s Democracy Vouchers: Already sparking a lively election season

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Seattleites are flooding a small office in the Seattle Municipal Tower with stacks of mail. In the last eight weeks, city residents have sent more than 43,000 democracy vouchers to the city, each a small publicly funded donation to candidates running for city office. Though several public financing programs exist across the United States, Seattle’s … Read more

Seattle’s Democracy Vouchers Are Changing the Campaign Trail for Candidates and City Residents

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When Seattleites adopted the democracy voucher program in 2015 they made a bold decision to become national leaders in campaign finance reform. Democracy vouchers had never been tried anywhere before. They were an exciting idea, but no one really knew how they would play out. On November 7th, the city closed its first ever election … Read more

Democracy Vouchers are Finally Here!

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Check your mailboxes, Seattle! In the next few weeks, every registered voter and eligible resident in the city will receive $100 worth of Democracy Vouchers. That means more than 500,000 Seattleites—be they bank presidents or baristas—will have $100 to support the candidates of their choice. Democracy Vouchers are the groundbreaking element of Honest Elections Seattle, … Read more

8 Things Honest Elections Seattle Has Quietly Been Up To in 2016

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Things have seemed quiet on the Honest Elections Seattle (HES) front lately. After the flurry of excitement over its landslide victory last November and the attendant thrill of Seattle’s leadership on campaign finance reform, the media attention died down, and most Seattleites got back to their cynical norm about the influence of Big Money in … Read more

Video: Honest Elections Seattle, Explained

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Last week, Seattle Channel debuted a new series, Citizen University TV: Lessons in Power with host Eric Liu. The first episode explores what it calls “the building blocks of civic power,” and it featured Seattle’s groundbreaking new campaign finance reform intitiative, Honest Elections Seattle, as the case study of the episode. Host Eric Liu interviewed members … Read more

A Win for Northwest Democracy

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Stopping fracked gas in King County? Together, franchise fees and utility taxes could be prime instruments for raising costs on gas utilities.

Wednesday will dawn a little brighter in the Northwest, thanks to a new democracy reform measure that Emerald City voters passed tonight with more than 60 percent of the first round of ballots counted. Honest Elections Seattle, I-122, will empower everyday citizens and limit the power of big money interests in city elections. I’ve written about … Read more

No, Honest Elections Doesn’t Silence Minority Business Owners

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The opponents of Honest Elections Seattle, I-122, have repeated, in the King County voters’ pamphlet, the same facepalm-inducing falsehoods that I’ve already corrected. They also introduce a new claim—a gobsmackingly offensive and nonsensical one. I-122, it says: “- Bars many minority-owned small businesses from participating in the political process.” Yet I-122 says not one single … Read more

Yes, Seattle’s Elections Should Be Cleaner than Chicago’s

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Honest Elections Seattle, I-122, would lower the city’s campaign contribution limits to $500 per donor for all candidates, down from the current limit of $700. For non-mayoral candidates choosing to participate in the Democracy Voucher program, I-122 would lower the contribution limit further, to $250. Opponents argue that Seattle’s campaign contribution limits are low enough … Read more

Honest Elections Seattle Bans “Pay to Play”

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In 2013, when then-state senator Ed Murray was running for mayor of Seattle, his campaign asked Microsoft for the maximum allowed political contribution, which was $700 that year, and the company obliged. Murray was not alone in benefiting from Microsoft’s largesse: the software maker distributed similar contributions to a bevy of candidates that year and … Read more

Listen In: “It Gives Everyone—from a Dishwasher to a Bank President—a Voice”

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Where did Honest Elections Seattle I-122 come from? Who’s behind it? Why vouchers? And what’s it all about? Sightline executive director Alan Durning recently spoke with KEXP Mind Over Matters host Diane Horn to address these questions and others. The full 25 minutes are worth a listen, and you can listen in here, but some highlights are below.

On how Honest Elections Seattle limits the power of Big Money to influence our elected officials and their policy decisions (5:30):

We’ve banned contributions from entities that spend a lot of money lobbying City Hall, and we’ve banned contributions from entities that make big money getting contracts from City Hall. A candidate shouldn’t be collecting money from businesses whose whole economic future depends on the regulations that those city councilors are making at that time.

The bottom line of “democracy vouchers” (7:30):

It will turn everyone from a dishwasher to a bank president into a $100 donor from the perspective of the candidate. It gives everyone a voice.

On why this is the best solution for democracy reform, even under decisions like Citizens United and McCutcheon (8:20):

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