At last Thursday’s City Council Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee meeting, Council President Sara Nelson introduced a bill that would regulate political consultants in Seattle’s ethics code. It’s up for more discussion and a possible vote at 2 pm today.
If passed, the legislation would require consultants who are contracted by a city official for a candidate or ballot measure campaign to register with the Seattle Ethics and Election Commission, disclose their work publicly, and, most significantly, ban them from working on a campaign and with the city at the same time. It would also enforce a one-year “cooling off period” barring a political consultant who worked on a campaign from taking a consulting contract with the city for a year.
At face value, the bill isn’t especially controversial—more transparency around who is advising city leaders is a good idea. Portland and San Francisco have similar political consultant reporting laws. But the reason? Nelson’s either changed her mind about why she’s introduced this bill, or she’s not being honest.
It was assumed that Nelson drafted this bill in response to an ethically murky arrangement between outgoing Mayor Bruce Harrell and his long-time political consultant, Christian Sinderman. The Seattle Times reported that after Sinderman worked on Harrell’s campaign, the Mayor kept him around for years through a series of taxpayer-funded consulting contracts. Sinderman was never a city employee, but he was attending internal strategy meetings and advising on policy while simultaneously running political campaigns for candidates like Dionne Foster, who, as it happens, just wiped the floor with Nelson in the general election.
Nelson told the Times this kept her from speaking openly with Harrell about policy. She worried anything she said could reach Foster and be used against her.
Sinderman rebutted: “For a full year, Councilmember Nelson has complained, without substance or merit, about contracts and relationships that were both transparent and followed city rules. So now, on her way out the door, she wants to change the rules to justify her unfounded political grievances.”
But at Thursday’s meeting just two weeks later, Nelson said Sinderman was not the reason for the bill.
“This is not about Christian Sinderman’s role within the mayor’s office or the Harrell administration, as reported by the Seattle Times,” she said, calling the arrangement “unprecedented” and “highly unlikely to be replicated.”
“Rather,” Nelson said, “the blurring of the line that I’m most concerned about is more likely to occur in the context of ballot measures.”
If consultants can work on a ballot measure and advise city officials at the same time, they might be able to use insider knowledge to their advantage, she said.
“[The bill] simply creates transparency and establishes boundaries between public service and private profit—the same principles that we already apply to lobbyists and electeds and employees,” Nelson said. “The goal here is to establish very clear rules so that we can reduce the perception of the potential conflict of interest amongst consultants that we are already trying to do when it comes to elected officials’ financial interests and other entities that work with the city.”
All true, but to say Sinderman had nothing to do with it is almost like having all your horses stolen, talking to a newspaper about how mad you are about your horses being stolen, and introducing an anti-horse stealing bill a couple weeks later, only to say, “The horse thief? This is not about the horse thief.”
Whoever inspired the bill, it’s undeniably rushed during this lame duck period. Political consultants say the bill is half-baked. Its definition of “political consultant” is too loose, they say, creating unintended consequences for others in the politics field. Lexi Koren, communications consultant at PowerHouse Strategic, says under Nelson’s bill, someone like the lowest level field organizer doing paid voter contact work for a campaign could be defined as a consultant. They’d then have to register with the city and wouldn’t be able to work with the city for a year.
Michael Fertakis, principal at Upper Left Strategies, said the same.
“The definition of a political consultant under her ordinance is so broad,” Fertakis said. “If I was a volunteer on a campaign and I bought some water bottles for a door-belling day and got reimbursed for the campaign, under this ordinance, I would be classified as a political consultant.”
Even though Nelson says it has nothing to do with Sinderman, “it clearly fucking does,” says Stephen Paolini, principal at Bottled Lightning Collective. “She never had any issue with other consultants…who have had similar relationships in the past. Like, this was not a thing that she brought up until specifically her opponent, who cleaned her clock, had a consultant that also had a contract with the city on unrelated issues, and it was just a reaction to that.”
But let’s assume Nelson is sincere in saying the bill isn’t about Sinderman, but about ballot measures. Koren says that makes no sense.
“I don’t see the throughline that she is making here,” Koren said. “There is an impact from the end result of a levy, and I don’t know, does that matter more than the people we elect in terms of how taxpayer dollars are spent? I would say probably not in Seattle.
The Stranger reached out to council staff and Nelson’s office for clarification. They did not respond.
