Since Seattle City Council candidate Jon Grant went public with accusations he'd been blackmailed, there has been some head-scratching over legal niceties. The Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission (SEEC), responsible for enforcing election rules, has said numerous times it is unable to do anything because the interaction between Grant and Triad Capital VP Brett Allen centered on possible actions by an Independent Expenditure group that hadn't officially been formed.
Allen apparently told Grant that the group was prepared to spend $200,000 attacking Grant but that could be headed off by the candidate's intervention to settle a suit over a Triad project.
In response, Councilmember Nick Licata sent a letter to the SEEC urging a rule change. "Public trust is undermined by the lack of a clear, unambiguous prohibition in the Seattle Ethics and Elections Code of these activities that could be construed as unethical coercion at best, extortion at worst," he wrote. "I am requesting that the Ethics and Elections Commission propose amendments to the Ethics and Elections Code to clearly and unambiguously prohibit similar activity in future Seattle elections."
