💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › eat-the-state-the-big-sleep.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 09:49:23. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Title: The Big Sleep
Author: Eat The State
Date: September 9, 1998
Language: en
Topics: Seattle, Elections
Source: Retrieved on June 9, 2007 from https://web.archive.org/web/20070609231633/http://eatthestate.org/03-01/ETSPrimaryElection.htm

Eat The State

The Big Sleep

Most primary elections force us to hold our noses. This time, try

stifling yawns instead.

Seattle is a one-party city. Republican developers and bankers are

content to buy off whichever corporate-friendly Democrat is in office;

the Greens and Labor Party have (so far) failed to mount candidacies;

the usual alphabet-soup left is, despite the charming quaintness of

their campaigns, generally not a serious factor. In this state of

affairs, all offices are decided in the Democratic primaries in

September, and suspense comes strictly from intra-party squabbles that

spill over into the ballot box.

The September 15 election features competitive races for the state

legislature in only two of Seattle’s districts; the winners in each, as

with the unopposed incumbents in other districts, will get their

November coronation as a mere formality. There are a few other races on

the ballot, but the big-ticket ones--minimum wage, affirmative action,

anti-abortion, medical marijuana, transportation, Seattle’s library--are

all November ballot measures.

You’d think that with utterly safe seats in liberal Seattle, these

incumbents would be out busting their butts for other candidates, in an

effort to take advantage of the very real opportunity the Democrats have

to retake the state Senate. You’d be wrong. They’re also generally

missing in action on the initiatives, even though items like livable

wages and reproductive rights should be core issues for these folks.

Seattle’s incumbent Democrats are a major reason that the Republican

onslaught of regressive, mean-spirited initiatives in the last two years

has met with so little organized, effective opposition--despite the

Democrats having the Governor’s mansion and nearly 50% of the

legislative seats.

These are our elected representatives, and they’re the politicians in a

position to take risks and rally the public on important issues: saving

health care reform, protecting the environment, youth rights, funding

for public education. They’ve been invisible much of the time instead.

As such, we’re taking a little space in this issue’s primary preview to

list the unopposed candidates as well, and why some of them need some

healthy opposition to keep them honest, or at least engaged with the

public. At the moment, holding a Democratic legislative seat in Seattle

is a job for as long as the incumbent wants it, regardless of what she

or he does--and that’s a situation that’s bad for everyone.