Seattle Democrats on Notice

Jason Thiel

May 5th was a bad day for City Council President Joy Hollingsworth. Over thirty people joined the 2 PM City Council public comment period to lodge their anger at the council’s lack of action against ICE. There was an array of groups present, including members of Seattle DSA, Labor Militant, Seattle Revolutionary Socialists, the American Party of Labor, Seattle Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Our Seattle, and the Green Party of Seattle. 

The previous week, the Democrats had a “public” hearing on making their one-year ban on detention centers permanent. At that hearing, only one of the City Councilors publicly committed to supporting a permanent ban: Alexis Mercedes Rinck. Joy Hollingsworth, when directly asked whether she would support the permanent ban, used the excuse that “public comment is your time to speak” to avoid answering. This enraged the room, prompting demands to answer the question.

The Democrats on the City Council thoroughly exposed themselves to workers in the room. Multiple commenters called for a new party to challenge the Democrats, and for a slate of independent socialist challengers to the City Council. This drew loud applause from people in the room.

The permanent ban on detention centers is only being considered due to pressure from actions like this over the last four months.

We asked Kshama Sawant to join us at City Hall, and to mobilize supporters of her socialist congressional campaign. Unfortunately, she didn’t respond. With her support, we could have packed City Hall.

Still, May 5 was the largest anti-ICE mobilization yet to City Hall in Seattle, showing that the Democrats don’t get to just stick their head in the sand and hope that we’ll go away.