Seattle’s Biggest Corporations Try to Buy the City Council

"Sawant’s election was surprising, but not inconceivable. Seattle is renowned for its liberal leanings, and its quirkiness. And Sawant’s policy agenda aligned broadly with the city’s political inclinations. In 2014, she saw through a minimum-wage hike to $15 an hour, one of the first big-city Fight for 15 victories in the nation, signed into law by Mayor Ed Murray. With a second term secured, Sawant pledged her focus on tackling the city’s exploding homelessness problem, proposing rent control and a head tax on the city’s largest companies to raise money for public housing. Seattle isn’t just full of scruffy progressives, though. It’s also home to some of the country’s largest corporations, like Starbucks, Boeing, Microsoft, and Amazon, all of which have long enjoyed Washington’s regressive tax environment (the state has no personal or corporate income tax, while doling out massive tax subsidies). Some of those companies rallied against Sawant’s tax proposals in the past. And now, as she’s facing re-election, Amazon has taken an active role in trying to boost her opponent, pledging an unprecedented $1.45 million, including $1 million announced last week, to the Chamber of Commerce’s PAC, Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy (CASE). The PAC has sought to elevate Sawant’s opponent and reconstitute the Seattle City Council along even more business-friendly lines. Amazon’s startling donation is the largest contribution to a local election “in anyone’s memory,” per The Seattle Times, and an intervention into politics the likes of which hasn’t been attempted by any of Seattle’s corporate titans until now." (jn) http://ow.ly/zhBH50wSDqA
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