Ann Davison Sattler: The letter by my name changed, but I’m still me

Ann Davison Sattler was a Democrat when she moved to Seattle from Texas a little over 20 years ago. It was a political identity that fit her well for a long time.

But in recent years, she felt like while she stayed in the same place, the local Democrats moved further away from her.

“It really was not the party that I was a part of for most of my adult life, and certainly not the one [I was in] when I moved to Seattle,” she to KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson.

When Sattler ran for the nonpartisan Seattle City Council District 5 position last fall, she did so as a member of the party to which she had always belonged. But while talking about “different approaches to problems” that incorporated fiscal responsibility, Sattler found herself shut out of conversations with Progressives.

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“Those types of conversations became unwelcome within that belief system that is currently going on locally within the Democrat party … and the place that is welcoming for common-sense ideas that are fiscally responsible while we do it has become the Republican Party,” she said.

Now, Sattler is formally declaring herself a Republican — and, with her newfound political identity, jumping into the 2020 race for lieutenant governor of Washington.

“That’s where I find myself, simply because the area to the Left has gotten smaller, and to me, the area on the Right has gotten more welcoming, because we’re really wanting to talk about everyone in the middle,” she said.

While Sattler’s nonconformity lost her the farthest-Left crowd during the council election, her  openness in her conversations won her supporters from across the rest of the political spectrum. Democrats often refer to themselves as the party of tolerance, but Sattler finds this to be extremely ironic, given her experience.

“They want to claim tolerance, but for any other ideas of how to approach problems that are in line with what they want to do,” she said.

Lieutenant governor is not a role that people typically think of as having much influence on policy, but Sattler is determined to make it a melting pot of philosophies and solutions.

“It is about combining all of the state’s ideas together so that the best ones can emerge,” she said. “And right now, it is being used as a partisan place, and it is not welcoming to other ideas.”

Sattler sees her campaign as a place for people who are tired of the toxic, partisan, party-line thinking in the era of cancel culture.

“Does it really matter that there’s a letter after my name? I’m the same person saying the same things,” she said.

The majority of the hate and intolerance, she believes, is coming from the party leaders rather than the average citizens.

“The condescending and contemptuous talk that is coming out from those who are holding the power — that is the established power brokers within that party, that is not the individual voters,” she said. “That is really where we need to divorce that, and that is why I am just a concerned mom who is tired of the problems on the ground not being addressed by our elected leaders. And I’m calling them out — and that is why they’re going to respond that way.”

To learn more about Ann Davison Sattler and the lieutenant governor race, visit her campaign website.

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.