Good afternoon and welcome to this August 6th meeting
of the Seattle Ethics Commission and the chairs.
And let me in the Zoom platform are Vice
Chair Schwab and Commissioners
Kristin positive in basalt
and new commissioner just
Mr. Smith.
Is the first order of business in our agenda and to welcome
Hi who's my apologies loggers as well to the commission.
So welcome
Thank you for starting Mr.
Cassidy
welcome
to you.
Appreciate it.
Turning to the remainder of the agenda we have received,
I believe, one public comment, which I am aware
from Dr. Howard.
Gail, is
are there any other public comments
we should have received within or club?
No. No.
Okay.
So is there any discussion on Mr.
Gale's July seven email to me,
which asks for a revision
of the revised May seven
meeting minutes.
Normally the approval of meeting
minutes is a fairly pro-forma affair, but Mr.
Material has made it a little more interesting for us.
My view is that he suggested additions
to the meeting minutes by Dr.
Gail. Our not needed.
As I previously noted on the record.
All of our meetings are recorded
by video and audio and I went back
and listened to the May 7th meeting and I don't think
there's anything in the video or audio that's unclear or
captured the discussion perfectly well.
So I think in my view, the meeting
minutes are accurate as revised and
I do not favor a change to them as proposed by Dr.
Dale, but I'd open it up to the
discussion of any other commissioners before
we need to entertain a motion.
I agree.
I would like to rewrite the revised
flags
appropriately, reflect the public comment, and also agree
these are important meetings
on the requirements.
I agree as well.
I think that I get the impression that Dr.
Gail has a desire or the minutes to emphasize
certain points
that she would like the commission to emphasize,
and I'm not sure that we are appropriate
so that I think it's again, it's it's accurate.
And if someone checking to see what what was emphasized
and what wasn't there, then they can watch the video.
Yeah.
I mean, just being the last to weigh in.
I agree with what everyone has said.
I think that the
the revised minutes
adequately and
and we will address
the comments that were raised
in our last meeting seeking additional specificity.
And I don't see a need to go beyond that consistent
with like everyone else has articulated
very well.
Unless there's a further discussion about
I would entertain a motion
to approve the May seven revised minutes,
I'll make a motion to approve them.
It's like a good
move by the Vice-Chair and seconded by Commissioner Haws,
all in favor of approving the revised May 7 minutes.
Please say I raise my hand.
I opposed it the same day.
The reason
any abstentions
motion carries object.
Mr. Smith is abstained.
All others voted in favor.
The motion carries.
let's move on to the adoption
of the June 4th regular meeting minutes.
Any discussion of the June 4th minutes that were circulated
and seen?
None.
Is there a motion to approve the 4 minutes?
moved.
Seconded.
Move by pause.
Second chair All in favor of this matter
at all Opposed.
Please say they are raising it.
Any abstentions
and commissioners members James and the remaining
commissioners voted in favor of the motion carries
on to our three
and a half discussion items.
So first decisions regarding the 2026
special election claims on a brief was on a yes.
As you all heard by now, Mr.
and Councilmember
Moore has resigned her seat in District five.
She is retiring for health reasons to vote for her.
And so that opens up
a special election next year to replace her.
And your job is to design
the voucher program
for the special to run in a way that doesn't
endanger our budget, balance and also serves
the purposes of the commission.
So we've left out just a couple of choices
for you here.
First off, the mailing dates
we're proposing going to be the week of March 16,
which will give us enough time
to close down this year's election and also deal with the
task force that's going to be set up
to look at changes to the voucher program more broadly
and then to get ready for 2027.
So that so that will
march of the neighborhood proposing for the
the other things are
you have to set
an available program, limit the maximum campaign valuation
for the candidates
who choose to participate in the program next year.
We're recommending that not be changed to be
what it was this year,
which would be $225,000 for general election
candidates and half of that for those who
participate in primary to participate in general.
So that's another choice you have to make.
And just let me know if you have any questions
or comments.
The third thing you have to do is determine the budget
for the Type C voucher outreach fund.
I'm only prepared.
The memo we were thinking a $100,000 budget overall
with five awards of up to $20,000.
We had some discussions
with community based nonprofits up in the Divide,
and after that we've kind of revised our thinking,
still speaking to $100,000 as being the maximum,
but for awards of $25,000,
give us a little bit more flexibility
in terms of deciding who gets how much money.
We're also planning to lean heavily on the Department
of Neighborhoods next year alone.
Suburban neighbors has a large presence in 85.
So we're thinking about this a lot.
So that's that's that's probably the biggest choice,
though, is how many vouchers we're going to mail in.
How are we going to be able to citywide or just in 85?
That's probably the most
notable of your decisions to make today.
We're recommending $100, $100 in vouchers,
but only mailing 85 thus far.
We've done that
by the elections through the cycle of six.
This been one special.
And each of those we've made citywide
because everyone has been able to participate.
The one I'm sorry, one of the special election we covered
before this year was for one of the city
life elected seats.
So this so every time you mail vouchers,
everyone who got a voucher would be receiving a ballot.
So that was that's important.
If you use your voucher,
you would also receive a ballot.
This year we mailed
citywide six, six, seven.
The people were mailing to
vote in the open ballots so they could be confused.
We also just kind of principle,
you know, if we think of
districts that serve a purpose being these have these rates
to have someone from their community represent them.
We're just not sure whether mailing vouchers to encourage
people to raise money
outside their districts serves the purposes of districts.
So we're recommending you just mailed in D five.
There's also a huge cost savings for us
just by emailing 55
of the mailing citywide or roughly 4000
for the $50,000 proposition each year.
We're thinking it be
on the order of 75,000 before just barely, just to five.
So that's that's important.
And those are really those are the choices
you have to make.
I'll open up the floor now if you just want
to take back. yes.
And this is just a follow on question.
If memory serves, the last special election
we had, we did $50 worth of vouchers.
Was that correct?
Rather than 200?
We did, yes.
So can you just give additional color on that,
why you're recommending the a higher spend? yes.
Yes. That again, that was a citywide election.
So sending those in, we didn't think anybody
was going to be problem raising money.
If we mailed less dollars to as many people as we did.
Do you find that we been a special case
even in 2023 when the election there, we didn't have
as many vouchers collected as a
as they might have otherwise.
So I think the leading
candidate raised 120,000 or those 8000.
I've got the numbers here.
I'm in the
front hundred and 40,
so there's just not as much money up and
they're not as active in terms of the voucher question.
So we're thinking
a candidate because this whole whole thing
we have to do is try to make sure
that we're for candidates and residents.
We're concerned about candidates looking at
looking at those figures.
Then if there's only $50 up there, that would be
I'm not sure I'd participate in programs like that.
So that's the main reason.
It's about just making sure candidates
can run competitive races.
And then one question I have is
when do we need to make this decision,
These decisions, I should say, to not create
a program happen in September would be the last minute.
You could do it
so next month or you could do it this month.
That's as many as you could do today.
We'd like you to do today.
But yes, if you want to have something
you can't hold over until next month,
but after that, it gets really tense.
I think my my view
is that this particularly the question
of whether to send vouchers district wide or citywide
is a difficult one
and one on which I would prefer to advocate, but from
campaign professionals and more importantly,
members of the public.
So I'd like to
set this as an action item on next month's agenda
and inviting public comment and specifically soliciting
campaign professionals
and potential candidates comment on on
especially that issue.
But really
all of these issues, I think we should tackle them together
and as long as as long as making our decisions
next month doesn't create any logistical challenges,
I think it would be best
that we wait on everything until we receive it.
Okay.
One thing I should point out is Renay
did do a lot of outreach
to the people
who've run in the past in the fight,
as well as the campaign consultants.
And they were broadly I think we had one consultant
who thought it should be available citywide.
The rest were all in favor of limiting it to five.
And then we have a problem with 100. And so
right over.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
Hopefully we can
discern a similar consensus in the next week's meeting
or have difficult choices to make that.
Yes. Okay.
I think I think we can probably digest this.
I mean, if other people want to discuss
any of these elements now, knowing that
we don't have to vote on them today,
I'd be happy to entertain.
And we've got plenty of time and no other, I don't think
any other extremely time consuming agenda items.
Yeah.
I mean, I think we discussed the
the citywide, we've discussed citywide versus district
wide before.
The concern
I have is setting a precedent here
where here
where you're sending vouchers for people to assign dollars
to someone
who is not
going to represent them
if they live outside of the district.
I know particularly
I'm not particularly enthused about that.
And I recognize there,
you know,
there's some arguments for it,
but just in terms of overall costs and the differences
as allowing those to influence an election, for someone
who's not that representative, it raises concerns for me.
I'm happy to get input
and and next month's meeting and vote on it.
Then then for me, we have discussed this in the past.
In the past. And I you went away from it.
So it's just my inclination
to remain in the district for both the initial reasons
and also reasons of focusing that this type of speech
amongst district voters rather than citywide.
So we had
just in the 2023 election that was a district
special election, and we decided to send out
with only district lines.
That is, that
we've never had a district,
a special election for a district seat.
It didn't coincide with election results this year.
D There's this.
There was a special
you just voted on if you had to do it again.
But people could have done it even around year two.
Yeah, I heard that citywide council seats or the city
attorney race for the mayor.
So we just Councilmember
Michael's.
I think I was concerned about deterring participation
in the program.
I think that's probably
my overarching concern, and that is if a candidate
is limited to
vouchers in the district, are
they going to make a judgment that it's not work?
Participation in the program is going to be simply too hard
by limiting their base to one seventh of the population,
limiting their voucher
opportunity to one segment of the population.
I mean, I think there's also the element of,
you know,
representational government, virtual representation.
I've heard from some councilmembers
that although they're focused on their districts
and they provide constituent services
targeted to their districts, that they think of themselves
as representing the city
as a whole and act
in the best interests of the city as a whole,
which I think is admirable.
Democratic government, if true.
And then, of course, our campaign
finance system more generally is not set up to restrict
campaign contributions only
to those voters who reside in a particular jurisdiction.
The D not even be a Washington state resident
or a Northwest resident
to contribute your own money to municipal ordinance.
As long as you're a U.S.
citizen, you are able to do so. So
I don't know.
I think it raises actually difficult questions.
I haven't made up my mind one way or the other,
and I certainly appreciate hearing from others
and reflecting on the court.
I think I agree with that
90% of public comment
and some of the campaign professionals make sense,
at least for me.
But it's a weighty issue
and you worry about setting a precedent for the other side.
Some reflections, reflection
from members of the public is appropriate
for a question I have.
Do you know what percentage of vouchers
and special election what percentage managers
are looking at this position of that District?
74 is slightly higher
because
they believe
that is
on page two.
This second part,
it looks at what we saw in polling.
Just answer the question.
So I think it does.
So when we were coming to this
sort of action item decision,
the discussion, we wanted to see it.
It was said
that your use statement collection standing out
unusual would be five active activity in several
environment.
So we put together some numbers
and nothing
puts us in either v five versus city citywide
in any way.
So if you want to try this.
Yes. So that second it shows that by district
how many of them were assigned
to candidates in the same district.
So if you find a voucher user
in D one, how many how likely
do they like vouchers in D one?
And that's like you can see that's 83% in D one, D five.
It was 67% contributed to any district member,
I think defined as that.
You know, six months lower.
I think it's the second lowest
in the districts in terms of overall voucher use.
So that's that's why I be recommending $100
just because there's just not as much civic engagement.
So and I think that that reinforces
maybe one of my concerns that if district five
candidates in 2023 only receive
about half of their democracy voucher
funding from India district residents,
does that operate as a deterrent to them
participating in the program, knowing that
they're only going to be able to collect vouchers from
district residents?
How many candidates in City five
participated in the democracy voucher program?
Do we know any of the candidates
that we had three or four qualify to receive funding?
But one thing we can do is take a look back at 21
and see if there's a variance in D five.
This is this was a concern that we had in looking at
what that information really got to give us some guidance.
And it was
concerned about candidates being able to fundraise
within the district
and because of because of that 55% we've seen.
But I don't know if that was true in 2019,
knowing that the elections are so
common or what.
There was no incumbent.
So that was
2023 was the first open seat
for D five in a couple of years.
So that's why we looked at it. That was probably the best
situation similarly to what
was going to happen next year in a special open race.
There'll be no incumbents.
I mean, people are using.
Yeah, I mean, I.
I hear you, Jared.
This is this is a very
basically shooting in the dark in some other choices
it makes to be perfect.
We're just trying to make sure we get it right.
This is part of the question.
Yes, I'm
is there
is there any information that shows
I mean, you guys are touching on
if there's a strong incumbent and does that incumbent draw
vouchers away from maybe a particular
race in this fight where there maybe are no incumbent?
So, you know, I'm I'm trying to understand,
does a strong incumbent or candidate or its options away
from a particular district that might be,
say, completely open?
I don't know if we have that data.
We've been strong.
Incumbents have all kinds of effects on the
race as
opposed to if you have a strong county,
you're less likely to run against them.
You know, all kinds of ideas,
all kinds of stuff downstream from that.
So it
and then also we have that incumbency thing
is, you know, the more high profile
race like the mayor's race versus say, a
council member race or another race to get to that dry and
vouchers that didn't dilute or take away from
a race that might be almost a profile.
The race
I don't know.
I'm not sure we have data.
There should be enough vouchers.
I mean, normally,
like as you all probably heard throughout the campaign,
there's a lot of focus on how little voucher
participation there is, how few of them are used.
And that's a big that's a something we hear a lot about.
So and that's
I think there's always an effect which is out there.
You can collect.
I have a follow up question on this page
agency PDF Design and this shows
the number of vouchers returned by districts,
but it doesn't show
where the vouchers were directed to that number.
It says two candidates in the same district.
So that's like
that is you're right that's how blind is vouchers assigned
that six times is assigned to the same district.
So D one, for example,
20,160 people came about here
and 83% of those went to 51 candidates.
So that's D five
13,042 people gave a voucher and 67
67% of those went to try to
think.
I'm looking at 38.
I think I want to the democracy
sorry, I was looking at the democracy voucher report
and not that page two, at least
the one that was circulated earlier, has a different
metric.
And that's you're looking at the same one.
I think that's I'm looking at
this chart for those that
maybe the link version
I think
was referencing the word document.
Yes, Yes.
I'm looking at it and I know it's a three page memo.
You all have
page two about
Do you have that memo, Mr.
Smith, or no word?
I do have that
saying thank you.
It might be interesting to know
if we can get this data,
what percentage of democracy
vouchers go to
and innings in other disagreements
as opposed to at large these
that is does anyone
I mean obviously someone that does a substantial percentage
of the of residents
assign
vouchers to in the district by district
candidates
but for different districts or are they are the other is
the is the delta really a county accounted for by
At-Large candidates
at lunch candidates and and district candidates aren't
running in the same election so that 20 23.3% of people
give to the 95 days to the other districts.
Can they go to.
you're right, you're right.
All due to lack of good.
Okay,
that was a test
except in special election at some point.
But you're right.
You're right for 2010. Okay.
All right.
This has been an interesting preliminary discussion.
I look forward to a more full throated
and comprehensive one with public comment next month.
All right.
And we will get those new.
But please remember,
campaign professionals, all they're all going to have
to address.
I was very worried about this when I sent Rene in today.
They are going to want as much money
flowing around as possible.
They just want as many people
to have vouchers for as much money as possible
because they're going to get some portion that.
So just keep that in mind.
Listen to them do that.
Let's just make sure you're bringing that.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it'd be important to hear
from a whole panoply of interested folks,
including as many district organizations,
the D five organizations, the organizations,
as well as all the
elected officials annual, if any candidates have
announced or preliminarily announced hearing from them.
Okay. Okay.
On to item to the democracy voucher program report
with that Segway, Renee, to take it away.
So really quick or
no real change to candidate count today,
we're pretty much through we might have a couple more
during qualifying before the
results of the primary or down
or they move on and we're not sure.
But essentially the qualifying
program a little bit about is still coming in fairly well.
We released just over 2.1 million days
and then there is a summary of the factors
that have come in to the date of when we were together.
We've got over 30,000 people so far
as returning factors in this cycle.
The chart
shows the 2025 return absolute returns by type
and the district of manager user.
And then it is a summary
of some of the outreach activities
that have been collected by staff and anything
that is coming questions about this area in this cycle.
I have a question on the chart on page one,
the utilization of available program funds
in the previous years represent to this point
in the election cycle or are those total.
So again, that explains that
a difference in yes.
Mr. Hobson
Yeah, I have a question, Rene.
With respect to the
the candidate collected vouchers
and given the rule change that we made with respect
to Kennedy,
election didn't receive mention
feedback from the campaigns as to how that process worked
this time around, or as worked.
No, I
don't think there's any questions.
I think last year we developed training, kind of a
talking training session with the administration.
We're providing feedback
what that looks like, the quality might be an issue.
And so
I guess at this point we are trying to do
a post election
discussion about how it's how it's going.
I do feel that the role as it's
I think the role as it's written perhaps isn't allowing
for as much enforcement and the intention of it.
And so that's something I think
I would like to go back to look at how we know
how we are describing what is allowable,
which is clear, but we have
a better understanding of how it's being interpreted.
And so
when you say that rule as as interpreted
kind of deviates from the intention, are you
are you thinking
that there might need to be further refinement
or is that something you would address in the trainings?
I think perhaps refinement of the rule as well as
of the training and
what people want to believe everyday reading versus
what it's actually said, so that
we don't know the time
for the fact that maybe somebody
has a different idea
of what the rule that and we're like now actually
know.
Okay, I'd be curious to hear more about that
when you do your post mortem.
Something else we've had we've had time this year
to really look at where all the areas we can open
and see
any of the questions for Renee.
Thank you, Renee
Lane, do you have a report for us?
Yes. First off in the report is the penalty letter.
As you can see, we did
assessment late filing against the Wilson
for Seattle campaign on Monday,
roughly $30,000 worth of reported under 21 days
for showing up on their seven days.
So that is something we assessed
they could appeal.
So I'm not
going to discuss it
anywhere in this, but I just want you to be aware of that.
Other things like that is Mr.
Shaw's replacement.
I've asked
Council President Nelson's office repeatedly about that.
They tell me they have a meeting on September 11th.
That will be the next committee meeting.
They're hoping to have it on then.
So I've been hearing that since April, so I'm not
pleased. Opening statement.
But I do think we're back to full strength before October
and then also coming up at the end of this year.
Sure. McHale is your term.
It comes to a close and you as well, Vice chair
Sherman Yes.
Well, see,
your terms are coming to a close at the end of this year.
Leicestershirelive will continue to see a number as
you really put your name forward.
But Chair, I believe you said you're done raising
That is my intent
from the outset served two terms
and that is extremely gratifying. But
I think two is, is it's just the right amount.
Yes, exactly.
All right.
So that's that. Finally.
So, yes.
And please keep on keep
those two things in mind and the ideas you'd like
to share with me or with anyone else.
Right.
Any any other updates is that I've said,
okay, thank you, Commissioners.
Thank you. I think your name.
Thank you.
Staff And this fall adjourned the meeting.