What Now For Seattle Head Tax Supporters?

SEATTLE, WA - The Seattle City Council repealed the revenue-generating head tax on Tuesday without a backup plan - they eliminated $47 million in revenue from the tax, but not the thousands of homeless people living on Seattle streets.

Politically, the path forward is uncertain for homeless advocates and head tax supporters. A group called Bring Seattle Home organized in recent weeks to fight the anti-head tax signature gathering drive - but now there won't be an anti-head tax referendum.

According to guidelines on the Seattle City Clerk's website, head tax supporters might be able to mount a referendum on Tuesday's repeal - yes, a repeal of the repeal.

Bring Seattle Home spokesperson Katie Wilson (also the general secretary at the Transit Riders Union) said Tuesday there's been some "idle discussion" about turning Bring Seattle Home into a repeal-the-repeal campaign - but the time frame is too tight.

"Many organizations involved in Bring Seattle Home are definitely thinking hard about a way forward, and we recognize we need to act fast because we can't let the homeless state of emergency go on," Wilson said. "It's not clear what that path is."

The repeal legislation takes effect 30 days after Mayor Jenny Durkan signs it. Per city rules, if a campaign can get enough signatures before the end of that 30 days, it's possible a referendum on the repeal could make it to the ballot.

But, that's an extremely, extremely limited amount of time. The campaign would need signatures from 8 percent of the turnout of the last mayoral election - a little over 17,000 signatures total. That means a campaign would have to collect about 600 signatures from per day, and they would all have to be valid.

A King County Elections spokesperson said that there are no county-level guidelines for submitting a city-specific referendum.

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