It’s hard to convince the public that you’re changing city ethics rules for the right reasons.
Certainly the more than 50 people who testified with concern and scorn for the proposal during two City Council meetings and a Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission meeting this week were not convinced.
Councilmember Cathy Moore introduced legislation Thursday to modify Seattle’s ethics rules to allow Councilmembers to disclose conflicts of interest and still vote on legislation that presents the conflict, rather than recuse themselves from the vote, as is currently required.
Moore argues that when a Councilmember, especially a district Councilmember, must recuse themselves from a policy discussion and vote, the constituents that they were elected to represent are left without a voice in the political process. The Council has seven district seats and two citywide seats.
Under Moore’s proposed revision, a Councilmember with a conflict of interest, financial or otherwise, would have to follow current disclosure protocol, which includes announcing the conflict during a Council meeting, posting about the conflict on their Council webpage and alerting the executive director of the Seattle Ethics and Election Commission (SEEC) and the city clerk. But they would not have to recuse themselves.
Councilmembers would still be governed by city and state law around conflicts of interest when issuing contracts. The new rules would not apply to city employees or other city elected officials.
“It’s a very heated, controversial topic. It seems like everything we talk about in Seattle these days is heated and controversial,” said Moore during Thursday’s Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee meeting. “We are just trying to get work done. We are just trying to do the business of the city.”
Public commentors certainly found the idea controversial. Alice Woldt, retired executive director of Fix Democracy First, captured a shared sentiment among commenters in her testimony at the May 8 committee meeting.
“[Current recusal rules] have been going on for 45 years. I think some of you have not even finished one term,” said Woldt. “So why? What is this? … Given the increasing lack of trust and faith in elected officials due primarily to the chaos and confusion of the Trump administration, I would think twice if I were you about voting for this.”
Councilmembers Dan Strauss and Alexis Mercedes Rinck are opposed to the proposal. During the May 8 committee meeting, Councilmember Bob Kettle said he has questions and concerns that he plans to continue discussing with the SEEC.
Current rules bar city employees and elected officials from participating in matters in which they have a financial interest, thus elected officials occasionally must recuse themselves from discussions and votes on bills that pose potential conflicts.
Typically, if a Councilmember is concerned about a conflict, they seek the guidance of SEEC executive director Wayne Barnett and the Ethics and Election Commission, an independent body of subject experts appointed by the Mayor and Council to serve in an advisory capacity. The director and commission weigh the circumstances of a Councilmember’s case and advise on how to proceed.
Council recusals are relatively rare. Reporting by Publicola found nine Councilmember recusals since 2001. But recusals played a role in two pieces of legislation last year.
The first, introduced by Council President Sara Nelson, would have scaled back new minimum wage standards for app-based delivery workers. Former Council appointee Tanya Woo was advised to recuse herself because her family owns a restaurant. The legislation stalled and never went to a vote.
Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth introduced legislation related to tipped wages for restaurant and service workers. Woo was again advised to recuse herself, as was Nelson, who still has a stake in Fremont Brewing, which she co-founded. Hollingsworth rescinded the bill amid backlash from unions and others.
According to emails obtained by The Stranger last fall, Nelson emailed SEEC executive director Barnett questioning his interpretation of ethics rules and advice to recuse.
In November, in response to a request from the Council’s lawyer, Barnett outlined possible changes to the ethics codes to privilege disclosure over recusal and the tension, as he sees it, between democratic principles and the city’s ethics rules.
Barnett wrote that he is at times uncomfortable with being put in a position to influence policy decisions. He has been Seattle’s ethics director for more than 20 years. Prior to that, he worked in Boston and New York, where he said ethics rules do not require recusal.
“I’m not as happy as I would be enforcing the recusal requirement in our code,” Barnett said at the May 8 committee meeting. “There are times when I think everyone should just know. If you put out in public what your interests are, then you can either recuse yourself or go forward. And you’re going to be held accountable for the decision you make by your voters.”
Moore said she took on the task of modifying ethics rules after Barnett’s email circulated last fall because of her experience as a judge and lawyer and because she chaired the rewrite of the Washington Bar Association’s bylaws.
Moore told The Seattle Times that the timing of her proposed ethics changes was not tied to any other upcoming legislation. But the Council is potentially considering changes to renter protections, and both Councilmember Maritza Rivera and appointed Councilmember Mark Solomon own rental properties and would potentially have to recuse themselves.
At the May 8 committee meeting, SEEC chair Zach Pekelis, a lawyer with Pacifica Law Group, said there are tradeoffs with any conceivable municipal ethics rules, but so long as the system can be clearly administered, which he thinks is possible within Moore’s proposed system, it is fundamentally a policy choice.
Pekelis continued, however, saying the reasons for changing ethics codes matter.
“If the Council amends the code with an eye towards particular policy objects anticipating that one or more disqualifications would be compelled under current provisions, that would be a cause for concern. I think it’s precisely that concern that motivates much of the public comment and opposition heard today and in the commission meeting,” he explained.
He made clear that he does not “cast aspersions on any reasons for consideration of this bill or on any Councilmember’s ultimate vote on it.” But as chair of the Ethics and Elections Commission, he urged the Council to “consider the bill on its own merits from a governance standpoint independent of how it may affect any specific pending or potential legislation.”
Echoing a suggestion made by a public commentor at the May 7 SEEC meeting, Pekelis said the Council could consider delaying the implementation of the ethics rule changes until 2028 to ensure the current Council complies with the rules they were elected under, mitigating the concern that they’re acting to further a particular policy goal.
Benjamin Brunjes is unsurprised the public has responded negatively to Moore’s proposal, given the national political climate. He is an associate professor at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, whose curriculum includes government contract management and executive ethics.
Brunjes agrees with Moore that elected officials must find a balance between protecting ethics and not impeding progress on policy. He also argued that there are times when an elected official’s experience with a subject, and therefore perceived conflict, could help the Council have a more informed discussion on the matter.
In a review of ethics rules in comparable cities such as Portland and Denver, Brunjes said he found Seattle’s rules more stringent. However, he is not sure changing the underlying ethics rules is the right solution to the concerns raised by Moore.
Brunjes suggested the Council could instead look at modifying implementation of the existing rules. The Council could clarify the SEEC’s advisory role and power over policy-making. And the rules could, for example, provide elected officials more opportunity to publicly dispute an advisement to recuse if they felt it was improper.
Moore’s bill is in the early proposal stages. At the committee meeting, she said she’d like to make one amendment to require Councilmembers to state their conflict of interest for the public record in both a committee meeting and during a full Council meeting, instead of the current rule requiring only a single disclosure for the public record.
Other Councilmembers will have the opportunity to introduce amendments in the coming weeks.
Correction: A previous version of this article misquoted Zach Pekelis saying "one or more disclosures." He said "one or more disqualifications."
