At Ethics Meeting, Moore Says Changing Ethics Code Will Improve Representation and "Transparency"

The changes would eliminate a requirement that council members recuse themselves from voting on matters where they have a financial conflict of interest.

Kate Rubin of Be:Seattle testifies before the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission

By Erica C. Barnett

In advance of today's meeting to discuss legislation to weaken conflict-of-interest rules for the City Council, the Seattle Ethics Elections Commission met Wednesday afternoon to discuss the implications the changes will have, if they pass.

The proposal, by Councilmember Cathy Moore, would eliminate a requirement in the city's ethics code that council members recuse themselves from voting on matters in which they have a personal financial interest. Instead, council members—alone among all city officials—could simply disclose that they have a financial conflict before voting.

The change, if it passes, will go into effect just as the council is getting ready to vote on another piece of legislation from Moore that would roll back or alter tenant protections passed by the previous city council, including moratoria on winter and school-year evictions, a maximum $10 fee for late rent, and changes to the so-called "roommate law," which allows tenants to take on new roommates as long as they go through a screening process after moving in (the law also allows any immediate family member, including people a tenant is dating or has dated in the past, to move in without any screening.)

The vote is likely to be contentious. Two councilmembers, Mark Solomon and Maritza Rivera, own rental propery and could be disqualified from voting under the current rules.

A dozen public commenters, including many who crowded into the small Seattle Municipal Tower conference room where the commission meets, spoke out against the proposal. Several mentioned that this was the first time they had ever offered public comment on any subject.

"For the past 45 years, elected officials in Seattle have been required to recuse themselves from votes involving financial conflicts of interest," Kate Rubin, the co-director of Be:Seattle, said. "Voters elected this council with the understanding that those rules would still apply. Changing them mid term is a clear violation of the public's trust. Disclosure is not accountability."

Commissioner Zach Pekelis said he was concerned that the latest draft of Moore's legislation differs from the one the commission considered back in March, a modified recusal bill that said that a financial conflict was not a conflict "if the prohibited financial interest is no greater or less than that of other members of the same profession, occupation, class, or group affected by the legislative matter." That legislation also effectively replaced the recusal requirement with simple disclosure.

Moore, who attended the meeting virtually, said the reason she proposed eliminating the recusal requirement was "so that people who were elected to represent particular voices that are sometimes a minority in the city are not disenfranchised" by having to abstain from issues where they have a financial conflict of interest. (This caused many of the public commenters in the room to scoff loudly).

"I just want to be clear," Moore continued, "that I, too, share the concerns that [elected officials] should not be there for personal gain, but we also have to balance that with making sure that all voices are heard and people are not disenfranchised."

Moore struggled, she said, to address this "disenfranchisement" issue in her legislation, and ultimately decided to go with a "full disclosure" model (which she argued could increase "the amount of sunshine and transparency") instead of requiring council members to abstain when legislation would help or harm them financially. Moore added that if the legislation passes, the council will count on the public to keep them honest.

"As seen here today, we have very proactive, active voices in the city who have no compunction, nor should they, about holding their elected officials accountable."

The council's governance committee will take up Moore's proposal at 2:00 Thursday afternoon. On Wednesday afternoon, Councilmember Dan Strauss issued a statement in his newsletter opposing the changes. "We are just over 100 days into the Trump administration," Strauss wrote. "We are seeing in real time what happens when our elected officials are not held to the highest ethical standard. As people in power continue to cross ethical red line after red line, now is not the time for the Seattle City Council to roll back its ethics laws."

Responding to similar complaints at Wednesday's meeting, Moore said, "Yeah, we have to be aware of what's happening at a federal level. But in some ways, the greatest way to continue to have trust in local government is for local government to be effective, for local government to be able to actually solve problems."