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A12 News | | SUNDAY, MAY 12, 2019 2 R That storyline tends to work against business, and it also ignores the fact that Seattle politics routinely cross ideo- logical boundaries, as when developers ally with pro-den- sity environmentalists, or when labor and business back the same mayoral can- didate. To sidestep that trap, CASE hopes to avoid politi- cally charged labels like “business” or “conservative” in favor of themes such as “inclusiveness” and “open- ness” — as in, “we want a council that has an open mind, that is willing to listen to all sides of the conversa- tion, and isn’t driven solely by ideology,” as Strickland explained. Along these lines, CASE hopes to recruit nontradi- tional candidates. CASE won’t indicate which candi- dates it favors, but other business community insiders and consultants say CASE is interested in political outsid- ers, such as small-business owners or public-safety em- ployees — figures who could be popular with voters but won’t be as easily be labeled as stooges of Big Business. McIntyre acknowledges that CASE has met with peo- ple who have “frustration” with city policy, but are “new to politics” and are “inexperi- enced with what it takes to actually get elected or to govern.” Second, the business lobby will play the local angle. Although CASE will push a few broad election themes — better homeless policies and more city budget account- ability and transparency, for example — it wants candi- dates to focus on local issues that are important in their districts. In theory, CASE’s localized strategy would hurt incum- bents such as Sawant, who is often criticized for being too focused on a citywide pro- gressive agenda (rent con- trol, for example) to attend to constituent issues. Sawant declined to comment for this story. As important, the district focus will make it harder to frame the races in conven- tional ideological terms. “There’s not going to neces- sarily be an easy us-versus- them rubric that you can cast across all the districts,” says McIntyre. Instead, the cam- paign “is going to divide into these more district-specific kinds of political coalitions.” Third, the Seattle business community is clearly ready spend some money. Ama- zon’s $200,000 contribution in particular will likely en- courage other businesses to write big checks, consultants say — and Amazon itself may not be done spending. “It’s fairly common for a large funder, especially one that is wading in the political wa- ters gently, to do so incre- mentally,” Anderstone says. Business insiders are also encouraged by the fundrais- ing around last year’s head- tax fight. The $486,000 that businesses contributed last year to the anti-head-tax referendumwas almost triple what labor spent trying to support the tax. Andmany business leaders say it would have beenmuch larger if the council hadn’t quickly backed down on the head tax. The $486,000 “was a drop in the bucket” compared to what business was ready to spend “had they gone through with the actual referendum,” says BobWal- lace, a commercial real estate investor and former chair of the Seattle chamber’s board of trustees. With barely three months to go until the Aug. 6 primary election, it’s too early to say whether the Seattle’s busi- Continued on next page > gressives were ignoring local problems, such as homeless encampments, within their own districts. By 2018, the council’s favorability rating was down “in the mid-thirties,” or bare- ly half of the level of support enjoyed by local business, according to another politi- cal consultant who has worked for business cli- ents. A January poll by The Seattle Times found that nearly 7 seven in 10 Seattle residents “do not trust that Mayor Durkan and the Seat- tle City Council can solve the problem” of homelessness. CASE won’t share its poll- ing on individual council members. But political con- sultants who have seen CASE’s polling say it indicat- ed trouble for council pro- gressives up for reelection. Herbold’s favorables were reportedly under 50%—not encouraging for an incum- bent. Sawant’s favorables were in the 30s, while O’Brien’s were in the high 20s. O’Brien declined to comment for this story, but according to one progressive consultant, O’Brien’s internal polling was “so bad that labor went to him and said ‘don’t run because we can’t save you.’” Reframing the narrative To convert that frustration into a new council majority, the business community is pursuing a strategy that tries to exploit progressive weak- nesses while sidestepping business’s ownmultiple vulnerabilities. First, the business lobby wants to reframe the conven- tional Seattle election narra- tive. In recent city elections, races often have been cast as battles between labor and business, or between pro- gressives and conservatives. members are trying to “address social problems by taking it out on busi- ness,” said Seattle cham- ber President Marilyn Strickland in an interview last fall. But the head tax also delivered some good news for business. First, it brought some unity to an often fractious business community. Long-standing political differences, especially between small neighbor- hood businesses and big downtown firms and orga- nizations, such as the chamber, were temporari- ly shelved to focus on flipping the council. Second, the head tax revealed that progressives were vulnerable, business leaders say. Polls showed that histor- ically generous Seattle voters were growing skep- tical about new spending for homeless programs. In CASE’s December poll, six months after the head tax, 23 percent of voters be- lieved “city government needs more taxes for pro- grams to effectively ad- dress the homeless prob- lem,” compared to 70 percent who said the city needed to spend existing funds “more effectively.” Although homelessness had been a growing prob- lem for years, many voters “hadn’t necessarily seen where to direct their ire,” says Ben Anderstone, a veteran political consul- tant with Progressive Strategies. With the head tax, Anderstone says, that frustration had a target: the City Council. That frustration verged on outright hostility among some neighbor- hood groups and small businesses, which com- plained that council pro- Seattle) and Sawant (Capitol Hill) could face serious challeng- es. “Fromwhat we’ve seen in our polling, they’re politically vulner- able,” says MarkhamMcIntyre, CASE’s executive director. That perception of weakness, coupled with wide-open elections this year — all seven of the coun- cil’s district seats are on the bal- lot, four incumbents are retiring and nearly 60 candidates have filed—has the city’s business lobby feeling confident that 2019 will be “a change election,” says McIntyre. Not surprisingly, city progres- sives have a different view of the city’s homeless response — and of business’s chances among the city’s progressive voters. Sawant made that point when she an- nounced her own reelection bid Jan. 24. “Who runs Seattle?” she asked. “Amazon and big business, or the working people?” A unifying issue The plan to flip the Seattle City Council emerged in late 2017, soon after council members pro- posed a per-employee head tax to help fund new homeless pro- grams. For many business leaders, the tax underscored the implacability of the council’s five-vote progres- sive majority: O’Brien (elected in 2009), Sawant (2013), Herbold (2015), followed by M. Lorena González (2015) and Teresa Mosqueda (2017). That majority had given labor unions, social-justice advocates and other progressive constituen- cies a steadily larger role in coun- cil policymaking. But business leaders say it has left them side- lined in policy discussions. Even the election of relatively business-friendly mayors, such as Jenny Durkan and especially her predecessor, EdMurray, hasn’t stopped that progressive majority frompursuing policies, like the head tax, that many business leaders see as both economically costly and openly ideological. Council policy has become almost “punitive,” as if some council kind of campaign talent.” A year later, that campaign is in full swing. The council’s head tax may be dead, but criticism over Seattle’s home- lessness policy has only in- tensified, creating what many Seattle business lead- ers see as a crucial opportu- nity to dislodge the city’s progressive political estab- lishment. CASE has been reaching out to potential business- friendly candidates. It has also been raising a lot of money —$702,277 as of May 10, including a $200,000 contribution in March fromAmazon. The online retailer played a ma- jor role in last year’s head-tax fight and, says one Seattle political consultant, “is tak- ing the city races very seri- ously.” What do Amazon, CASE and others Seattle business players hope to accomplish by going after council pro- gressives? After all, Seattle is a city whose voters are so liberal — and where unions and other progressive constituencies are so strong — that busi- ness-backed candidates often don’t even get out of the gate. The last City Council candidate that business endorsed, in 2017, didn’t even survive the primary. But this year, business leaders say, progressives’ winning streak could come to an end. A December poll by CASE found that the City Council had a job-approval rating of 43% and was trusted by 40% of voters. Anti-incumbent sentiment is so strong that O’Brien decided not to seek reelec- tion this year in his Ballard district — and Herbold (West < Unseat FROM A1 FROM THE FRONT PAGE