Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Socialist Council Member Re-Elected in Seattle, Defeating Democratic Challenger

Kshama Sawant, the nation’s only openly socialist city council member was re-elected last Tuesday with more than 52% of the vote in the city of Seattle. Sawant, a member of Socialist Alternative, has held the council seat since 2013.

Robert Belano

November 7, 2015
Facebook Twitter Share

Photo: Shannon Kringen/Flickr.com

Sawant was opposed in the race by Democrat Pamela Banks, president of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle. Corporate PACs spent tens of thousands in the campaign to defeat Sawant and Banks received the backing of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and major corporations like Amazon.com. Banks continually attacked Sawant during the campaign for participating in street protests and for criticizing Barack Obama and the Democratic Party establishment.

Sawant was first elected in 2013, and became the first socialist on the city council in more than 100 years. Her candidacy was propelled by the demand of a $15-an-hour minimum wage for the city. Scoffed at as an impossibility at the time by the media and corporate politicians, the demand was won soon after her election, albeitt with a timetable that won’t reach $15 until 2021, and various loopholes to make the bill more palatable to Seattle’s capitalist class. After Seattle’s minimum wage increase, Los Angeles and San Francisco also announced plans to raise their minimums to $15 an hour and this summer, the Democratic National Committee made a $15 minimum a part of their national platform.

As in 2013, Sawant’s victory demonstrates that, contrary to popular wisdom, socialists can win elections in the U.S., and that the Democrats can be defeated from the left. While refusing corporate contributions, Sawant was able to raise more than $500,000 for her campaign, a record amount in a Seattle city council race.

This time around, Sawant’s campaign focused on the crisis of affordable housing in Seattle, a city with skyrocketing rents and home prices. The median price of a single family home is now $575,000, more than double the average nationally. Her campaign demands included increased rent control, a Tenant’s Bill of Rights, and the construction of thousands of affordable apartment units.

Yet, rather than using Sawant’s seat to build an independent, working class movement, Socialist Alternative is supporting, with virtually no criticism, the candidacy of Bernie Sanders for president, and has repeated the absurd notion that he is leading a “political revolution”. In fact, as we have pointed out in this publication , Sanders aims to lead leftists, youth and combative workers back to the fold of the Democratic Party and corral any attempt at an independent movement, such as Occupy Wall Street or Black Lives Matter, that could challenge the status quo. Sanders has supported U.S. military interventions in Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia, and has continued to vote in favor of U.S. military aid to the Israeli apartheid regime. And as Socialist Alternative admits, Sanders has promised to throw his support behind Hillary Clinton if she were to defeat him in the primaries.

Rather than campaigning for liberal career politicians like Sanders, an independent movement of workers and youth is needed which rejects all collaboration with the capitalist class. Sawants victory proves socialists can win elections. But election victories will be for naught if they lead to the cooptation and downfall of the movement.

Facebook Twitter Share

Robert Belano

Robert Belano is a writer and editor for Left Voice. He lives in the Washington, DC area.

United States

What “The Daily” Gets Right and Wrong about Oregon’s Move to Recriminalize Drugs

A doctor at an overdose-prevention center responds to The Daily, a podcast produced by the New York Times, on the recriminalization of drugs in Oregon. What are the true causes of the addiction crisis, and how can we solve it?

Mike Pappas

March 22, 2024
Former president Donald Trump standing at a podium in front of American flags.

To Stop Trump, We Need Much More Democracy, Not Less

Democrats have been trying to kick Trump off the ballot as an "insurrectionist." Liberals say we have to restrict democracy in order to save it. As socialists, we think they have it backwards: to beat the Far Right, we need a mass movement fighting for radical democracy.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 18, 2024

New Jersey Democrats Attack the Public’s Right to Government Records

The New Jersey state assembly, led by the Democratic Party, just tried to fast-track a bill that would have gutted the Open Public Records Act. This is a reminder that their party is an obstacle, not an ally, in the fight to preserve democracy.

Samuel Karlin

March 15, 2024
President Biden giving his State of the Union speech at a podium in March, 2024.

Biden’s State of the Union: Hyper-Nationalism and Eroding Legitimacy

President Biden’s hyper-nationalistic State of the Union speech focused on selling himself as a defender of democracy at home and abroad. But it’s not enough to solve his — and the whole U.S. regime’s — crisis of legitimacy.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

March 14, 2024

MOST RECENT

A square in Argentina is full of protesters holding red banners

48 Years After the Military Coup, Tens of Thousands in Argentina Take to the Streets Against Denialism and the Far Right

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Argentina on March 24 to demand justice for the victims of the state and the military dictatorship of 1976. This year, the annual march had renewed significance, defying the far-right government’s denialism and attacks against the working class and poor.

Madeleine Freeman

March 25, 2024

The Convulsive Interregnum of the International Situation

The capitalist world is in a "permacrisis" — a prolonged period of instability which may lead to catastrophic events. The ongoing struggles for hegemony could lead to open military conflicts.

Claudia Cinatti

March 22, 2024

Berlin’s Mayor Loves Antisemites

Kai Wegner denounces the “antisemitism” of left-wing Jews — while he embraces the most high-profile antisemitic conspiracy theorist in the world.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 22, 2024

Lord Balfour Was an Imperialist Warmonger 

We should give our full solidarity to the Palestine Action comrade who defaced a portrait of Arthur Balfour at Cambridge University. But the problem for everyone who opposes the genocide against Gaza is how to massify and politically equip the movement.

Daniel Nath

March 21, 2024