This post was originally published on this site
Since the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) has taken every opportunity to blame progressive policymakers for our city’s ills (see their “This is Seattle” posts retweeting conservative “journalist” Jonathan Choe), but surprisingly, they’ve entirely kept their money out of city politics. This week, though, they got back in the game. Their candidate? City Attorney Ann “Became a Republican After Trump Was Elected” Davison.
It was only a $350 donation, which doesn’t buy much in a campaign, but that’s the maximum individual donation democracy voucher candidates are allowed to take.
SPOG is the largest police union in the state. They negotiate the police contract with the City (and, as a result, are largely to blame for our inflated police budget and lack of independent, effective police alternatives). In the lead-up to the primary, the only candidate SPOG endorsed was Rachael Savage, the Republican running against Alexis Mercedes Rinck for City Council Position 9. But they kept their dollars out of city politics. That is, until the results of this month’s primary election rolled in, and their girl was way down.
At final count, Davison came in a far-distant second place, 22 points behind former DOJ prosecutor Erika Evans, who dominated the race with 55.8 percent of the vote. She’s also trouncing Davison in fundraising: $311,670.00 to $254,253.88.
It’s no surprise that Davison is the cops’ darling. In her first campaign, the Seattle Times endorsed her as the candidate who will crack down on post-pandemic crime. And in her four year term, she’s adopted a tough-on-crime approach to the City Attorney’s Office, pushing for ineffective exclusion zones for people who’ve been convicted of sex or drug crimes, championing a “high-utilizer” initiative that increased recidivism, dismantled community court, and opposed a state bill that would allow her office to dismiss misdemeanors, all while backing Harrell’s graffiti obsession and waging a bizarre war against one municipal judge (inspiring a lawsuit from the ACLU).
SPOG jumped into the race after Evans became the apparent frontrunner. Her campaign has made a case to undo a lot of Davison’s (SPOG-friendly) work: She’s argued for rebuilding our community courts, focusing on restorative justice where possible, and deprioritizing the enforcement of SOAP/SODA zones.
This isn’t the only hand they’re playing this year. Outside of their direct donations, SPOG has recently become a funder for the police PAC called the Washington State Council of Police Political Support. In the last two years, SPOG has contributed $16,525 of their $115,796.62 budget, but the PAC hasn’t backed anyone yet in this election cycle.
