Seattleite behind Sawant recall effort details next steps after court victory

The court has cleared the Kshama Sawant recall effort and now they can actually move forward with collecting enough signatures to get a recall vote against her. The citizen behind the effort is Ernie Lou, and he joined the Jason Rantz Show to discuss his reaction and next steps.

Lou discussed the four of six charges that were approved by the judge.

“The fact that she has ceded her hiring and firing authority to this Socialist Alternative party — that was one that was definitely accepted by the court. The use of city resources to promote the Amazon tax ballot initiative, which is against city rules. Her using her key card to allow the protesters into City Hall in June of 2020. And the fourth charge was leading a protest to Mayor Durkan’s private residence, which is covered under confidentiality because of her role,” he said.

Judge approves Sawant recall effort for signature phase

In a recent statement, Sawant accused the recall effort of being in cahoots with Mayor Durkan. Is he working with her in any way?

“No, I am not. You know, it’s funny because everyone has brought that up, and actually I’m just a normal citizen … I am a big bleeding heart liberal, and I am not a right-wing conservative. I am far from that. I have voted Democrat every year of my life. I voted Democrat at the city, county, state and national level. If you go to my house, you see a gay pride flag in front of it because I’m a gay Asian-American. So I am far from a right-wing business political establishment,” he said.

He says the campaign is grassroots in nature, and not a product of the local business establishment as opponents have claimed.

“One of the big things that our campaign has done is that we only accept a maximum of $25. People say, ‘Oh, you did that because you don’t have to report.’ We actually do have to report everyone’s address and name and their business employer. It’s just the fact that if you donate $25 or less, it’s not publicly disclosed, but it is recorded … We wanted Sawant not to be able to say this was not a grassroots campaign. It is a grassroots campaign. We have not accepted any corporate donations whatsoever,” he said.

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In terms of next steps, Lou expects appeals and having to gather signatures in an old fashioned way.

“The next steps is that Sawant’s office is going to appeal to the state Supreme Court. We are totally ready for that … Probably the first or second week in November, we will find out from the Supreme Court if we can go ahead and petition and do our signature gathering … With COVID, we’re not gonna sit in front of QFC or Safeway to gather signatures. We’re gonna have to do it the old fashioned way,” he said.

“We’re literally going to target specific districts, precincts in District 3 where Egan Orion did well or was competitive, and we’re going to send every residence and precinct a petition,” Lou added. “We’re going to ask them to gather signatures and have them send it back to us. That’s how we’re going to have to gather 10,800 signatures.”

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