‘They’ve woken up a storm’: Pierce County Council candidate Mike Solan back on ballot after court ruling

A candidate for the Pierce County Council, former Seattle Police Officers Guild President Mike Solan, has had to surmount some significant challenges over the course of his campaign, including allegedly being removed from the ballot entirely by one of his opponents.

Solan explained the steps he took to be added back onto the ballot, and why he was even removed from the ballot in the first place, on “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio.

“The why is because of political shenanigans by my opponents, and I think that they’re scared because I have a legitimate shot of winning,” Solan said. “What I’m witnessing in Pierce County, and it’s a wonderful community down here, is they’re embodying and emulating King County policies, particularly on public safety, and we have a significant issue with public safety in Pierce County.

“It must be completely overturned,” he continued. “My fear is that they’re adopting these policies that are basically sinking Seattle and King County, and I decided to not sit on the bench anymore and go public to try to do something about it.”

Inside the attempt to remove Solan from the Pierce County ballot

Curley made sure to clarify if one of the people currently on the commission, allegedly advocating for Solan’s removal from the ballot, is an opponent of his.

“She is on the commission, that is for sure,” Solan said.

Curley noted there were some “shenanigans,” but it couldn’t be proven. The woman on the commission can determine who can and can’t run, but she’s also running for a seat.

In an attempt to bar Solan from being on the ballot, a rule was cited that a candidate must be a registered voter in District Seven for at least one year, which led Curley to ask if that was a last-ditch effort to kick Solan out of the race for good.

“The rule is one year of residency and voter registration, that is the verbiage,” Solan said. “The opponents saw that as an opportunity, because I registered in March of this year as a chance to use that language, as gray as it is, to disqualify me. They’re scared I’m going to more than likely win this seat, so they tried all the stops, reaching out to the auditor, and perhaps did some hand-wringing on this.

“Then I was contacted, not even 24 hours into the deadline of my candidacy being removed,” he continued. “They’ve also referred to me as a MAGA extremist. They’re using all the stops they can to fear-monger because they can’t stand on their policies, they can’t embody their platform in terms of being verbal about it. They have to attack the character, and to me, that is not genuine. It’s not what we need here.”

The court ruling that put Solan back in the race

Curley asked if Solan was a registered voter for a year, to which he responded that he wasn’t, but made a strong argument for why the rule in place goes against a person’s civil rights.

“I challenged it because we thought it violated my First Amendment rights,” Solan said. “It turns out a Superior Court judge in Pierce County agreed, so here I am back on the ballot. In my opinion, that’s going to ultimately change charter review language, which should marry what Washington law says, that people have a fundamental right to run for office.

“One of the examples we used is, if you’re an 18-year-old and you meet all the requirements for residency, but during that timeframe you register to vote when you turn 18, then if you view that language as they view it, you wouldn’t be qualified to run for office,” he continued. “That’s a violation of your civil rights, and that was my argument. And the superior court judge agreed with me.”

Looking back on the incident, Solan believes that his removal and successful challenge of the rules may have “woken up a storm” of like-minded voters searching for a change.

“I don’t think that they realize that they’ve woken up a storm of people who are going to vote and going to use this as energy to overturn the status quo,” Solan said. “The status quo, I call them the establishment, have been in charge for a very long time. Their actions are done because they’re terrified that I can win, and they don’t want to give up control, so they’re going to do what they can. To your point, use politics, character assassination against me, because I’m going to be effective, and I’m going to be moderate. I can reach across the aisle and get moderate Democrats and Republicans to coalesce and vote for me.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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