More Chaos as Cathy Moore Resigns from the Seattle City Council

In case you haven’t yet heard, Seattle City Councilmember Cathy Moore is stepping down from her role on Council, the second member to do so in six months. Rumors had circulated for weeks, maybe months, and Publicola was the first to confirm it was coming and break the news. 

Moore cited personal and health reasons for her decision, although Publicola reports that insiders say the primary reason was her frustration at pushback from the community against her. Granted, her policy proposals and high-handed behavior were extremely unpopular.

A local Democratic Party activist and former Legislative District leader weighed in on how Moore’s decision denied her voters a year of democratic representation—she resigned four weeks too late for an election this year. This means the seat will be filled by an appointee instead of an elected, for seventeen months, rather than five.

Moore recently fought for the Seattle City Council to relax its own ethical rules in order to allow members to vote on issues where they have a personal financial conflict of interest. Her reasoning? Recusal denies voters a vote on their behalf by their elected representative. That’s right, Moore wanted to relax rules - in order to pass a specific, favored piece of legislation no less - because democracy. She recently backed off from the unpopular legislation.

But the irony was that while she feigned that she was expanding the franchise by trying to get rid of ethical constraints, she was fine waiting a few extra weeks to resign and leaving her own voters without elected representation for an extra year, presumably at the behest of Sara Nelson who is worried they might elect a moderate Democrat who doesn’t aim for policies that punish people for being poor.

Look, I will start by saying that, having gotten close to office myself, I can confirm that the hate directed at you takes its toll. And I certainly wish the best for Cathy’s health.

At the same time her tumultuous tenure-including her exit—has been morally problematic, which has fueled a fair amount of the pushback she has received.

Early on, she demanded that Seattle Policy arrest of peaceful protestors, showing little deference to their first amendment rights, and behaving as if she could hold people in contempt (she is a former Judge) for making noise.

In front of an audience, she went on to condescendingly accuse her colleague Tammy Morales of behaviors she refused to substantiate, and pretty much every reporter covering the matter noted that she had no evidence to back up her claims. This behavior seemed to be the canary in the coalmine with this council, with Moore, Rivera, and Kettle all engaged in petty bullying. Eventually, the toxicity of the workplace, and the bullying by Sara Nelson’s council acolytes, drove Tammy Morales to resign. More than a few of Morales’ supporters see a kind of justice in Moore’s resignation for this reason.

Moore has taken a somewhat more moderate position on a few issues - splitting the difference between her conservative and progressive colleagues - proposing a modest progressive tax, resisting big cuts to minimum wage laws pushed by Council President Sara Nelson.

But she also became the council’s leading anti-housing voice, claiming apartments in her community would “sacrifice” her neighborhood. I was deeply disappointed in her behavior here, as she campaigned on a strong and specific pro-housing platform and then did a 180° as soon as she was in office. Her constituents felt deceived. She even voted against relaxing restrictions to make it cheaper to build affordable housing.

She also voted against police accountability and to give away any leverage for getting it after having campaigned specifically for it - another 180°. She even voted against funding for school violence protection. Her signature public safety policy - “Stay Out Zones” turned out to be totally ineffective.

A Final Bow

Upon Moore’s exit, she provided an interview to a known Republican-owned talking point machine that is little different than FOX News - KOMO, a once strong station that has been mired in scandal since its acquisition by the propagandistic Sinclair network.