Kshama Sawant: The way City of Seattle runs is often not in the interest of the majority

Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant says she doesn’t find it that unusual that no other councilmembers supporter her proposal to review Seattle City Light’s rate structure, which she says unfairly charges residents more than big business.

“In reality, what we saw today, is what we see most of the time, which is that most politicians who are not clear that this who I am fighting for, I’m fighting for working families, I’m fighting for the ordinary guy on the street, they’re going to have their own hesitations to carry out progressive measures.”

Sawant told KIRO Radio’s Jason Rantz that in her experience, many politicians are more likely to step up when it comes to big business.

“Most of the time, when we’re talking about progressive measures, the response is well now is not the time, this is not the right measure. That’s always said without exception,” said Sawant. “But contrast that to their eagerness to pass corporate loopholes for big businesses like McDonald’s and Target in the $15 an hour measure. They had no problem complicating the process immensely just to benefit big business.”

The resolution Sawant put before the council Wednesday sought a review of Seattle City Light’s rate structure “with a view to lowering the cost to Seattle City Light’s non-business customers beginning in 2016.” Sawant thought it was unfair that residential customers pay more for power than commercial customers. She cited Boeing as an example.

No other members of the council were willing to second the proposal, so it was not granted a vote in the council.

Rantz asked Sawant if proposing a resolution that doesn’t have a lot of support might discredit her when it comes to some of her other platforms.

“I was talking to a friend of mine who generally supports your positions, but they wondered when you take on something like this, that probably wasn’t going to pass, it may end up unnecessarily marginalizing some of your other ideas,” said Rantz. “How do you respond to that?”

Sawant said there are still benefits that come from introducing the idea despite its lack of immediate support.

“You could say if I hadn’t even discussed it, first of all, nobody would have known that Boeing pays less than residential customers, nobody would know that such a problem exists. Nobody would know there is such a strong advocate for working families on the city council who is willing to take this on, on their own.”

From speaking to people in the community about the issue, Sawant said she got the idea that many were surprised by the fact that Boeing pays less per unit of electricity than residential customers.

“The reaction I hear from people is, ‘Wow that is quite outrageous, Boeing pays less than I do, I don’t accept that and thank you for fighting the good fight, you know I wouldn’t have even have known about this had you not mentioned it,'” said Sawant.

“If you look at the big picture overall, the political mood in this city is changing, and people are starting to be aware of how the city actually runs, and for the most part it’s not in the interest of the majority.”