Former Dem Chair Slams Anti-Social Housing Prop 1(B)

Don't be fooled. Vote 1(A)

Ballots for the Social Housing Initiative are on their way:

Vote “yes” and “1(A).”

With Dems like these

I was disheartened last fall when I heard that Maritza Rivera proposed that the council rush what is now option 1(B) onto the ballot.

You see, Proposition 1(A) (the petitioners’ version) taxes the richest $50M to pay for more affordable housing—in this case, “social housing” which includes housing for the poor, for working class, and for middle income residents. (Vote for this one!)

Proposition 1(B) (Rivera’s version) takes money from affordable housing programs to barely ($10M) fund something that isn’t really mixed income social housing—all while leaving our richest as some of the least taxed in the nation.

I was so disgusted to see this that I posted a rhetorical question on Twitter/X. I’ll admit I was a little surprised to see the former Democratic Party State Chair chime in:

Ouch!

Let’s be clear. Tina has a talent for diplomacy—she deftly managed a state party with highly diverse views and a significant corporate donor base. But she was clear here on our party’s values.

Is our city council?

Now look, to be fair to some of 1(B)’s supporters—Proposition 1(B) is deliberately designed to daze and confuse good Dems into believing they are supporting a good cause.

Proposition 1(B) is what I’d call the “gaslight option.” It is there to convince voters that Rivera, Nelson, and Harrell still support social housing—when they clearly don’t. In fact it explicitly bars funding for the range of mixed income housing that last year’s Charter Amendment was sold on. If this feels like gaslighting, that should sound familiar. Even the Seattle Times has said that Rivera’s rhetoric on another matter “felt like gaslighting.” (Rivera has had repeated problems with telling the truth).

Even worse, Proposition 1(B) does two other very stupid things.

First, it doesn’t raise any new money.

Remember, Proposition 1(A) funds mixed income social housing by making it possible to acquire buildings by taxing incomes over $1M at a nickel-on-the-dollar (the first million bucks are free, every year!). This is why the Chamber opposes it—but they cannot be straightforward with voters about that because they know the voters do not support their demand for ever-more-Republican tax-and-starve policies. So they proposed this klugey doozy of a bill.

In addition to embracing Republican tax ideology, 1(B) pulls a reverse-Robin-hood by taking money away from existing affordable housing providers—$10M per year! In this case the “not-really-mixed-income-housing” gets 1/5th the money, and only by taking money away from other affordable housing. This is on top of top of Sara Nelson and Bruce Harrell’s existing $92M in cuts to affordable housing.

Don’t listen to their silly claims about “accountability” being the reason for 1(B)—and not just because these people do not actually believe in their own accountability. The reason not to believe it here is because they could have written 1(B) with their ideas about governance in mind and still provided the $50M in funding.

But they didn’t.

—

Now, I know of some good people that have objections to the 1(A). I don’t find these objections convincing, but I have yet to find almost any objection that serves as good reasons to vote for 1(B).

I think we all need to be honest with ourselves.

Do we support social housing and taxing the rich for it?

Or do we believe in keeping the rich undertaxed while the poor are overtaxed and making sure public goods are just for the poor, and not for the middle class?

That’s the choice between 1(A) and 1(B).