Seattle’s mayoral candidate Andrew Grant Houston. (Campaign photo by Jessica Rycheal)
Seattle mayoral candidate Andrew Grant Houston was cleared late last week to be released from the $ 400,000 spending limit imposed on campaigns.
4 candidates are still on duty to raise funds for the mayor’s race in Seattle
Typically, mayoral campaigns participating in the city’s Democracy Voucher program are capped at $ 400,000 for the primaries and then to $ 800,000 between the primaries and general election. Houston had requested that this limit be lifted, pointing out that the combined expenditure between opponent Bruce Harrell and an independent spending committee (IEC) on his behalf already exceeded this limit.
Houston was consistently a leading fundraiser in mayoral campaigns as the first candidate to reach the $ 400,000 cap. Ultimately, the SEEC unanimously voted to allow him to spend beyond this limit.
Because IECs operate without their own caps or boundaries, IECs can raise and spend large sums of money to support anyone of their choosing, provided the candidates are not directly involved or soliciting money for them.
To date, the joint editions between the IEC “Harrell for Seattle’s Future” and Harrell’s current campaign have already passed the $ 400,000 mark. And although the Harrell campaign is not coordinated or directly affiliated with the IEC, the city still allows opposing campaigns to use this combined sum as a justification for lifting their own spending caps.
“In this case, at least, I would think that any issue by this committee should be viewed as an issue in support of Bruce Harrell,” Wayne Barnett, executive director of the Seattle Ethics and Election Commission, said at a meeting Friday.
Meanwhile, candidates have also raised concerns about the IECs’ ability to promote candidates outside the confines of the Democracy Voucher program.
“Our campaign doesn’t need or believe in PACs,” a spokesman for Houston’s campaign told MyNorthwest. “By participating in this program, we made a commitment not to take large corporate funds and hit the cap first with the highest coupon-to-cash ratio of any of our competitors. (Houston) has a net worth of $ 0 in a field of candidates like Mr. Harrell (who is worth millions) who have inherent ties to big money in our city. “
“Seattle passed groundbreaking law in 2015 with the voucher program, and I think it’s a shame that special interest groups are short-circuiting the citizen-based voucher program we are introducing,” agreed Mayor candidate Colleen Echohawk.
Seattle mayor, council, and city attorney election fields set
While no other campaign has called for its own spending cap to be lifted, it is likely to open the floodgates in the coming weeks.
“No other campaigns are eligible for publication unless they ask for it; I can give the releases under the law, ”remarked Barnett. “I moved this to the Commission because it was the first clearance process – I will be able to make the decision based on this precedent in the future.”
Currently, Echohawk is the only other mayoral candidate to have raised $ 400,000, though both Harrell and Lorena Gonzalez are both fast approaching that number.
