District 3 Endorsement: Kshama Sawant

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With a victory in District 3, Kshama Sawant would become the senior member of the City Council. And in her time in office, she has redrawn the path to power in our city. She has broken conventions and fought the influence of big business money and won. But she's currently fighting her most difficult campaign since her unlikely, narrow win over Richard Conlin in 2013.

Sawant has been a steadfast ally for biking, safe streets and transit in Seattle. And as a longtime member of the City Council Transportation Committee, she has consistently voted to move our city's most ambitious efforts to make our transportation system work better for everyone. And she often speaks up to make sure equity is being centered in decision-making.

No, biking is not one of the primary centerpiece issues for her office, but that's OK. It doesn't need to be everyone's top issue (that would be weird, actually). But she is always there when needed. And as I've written in several previous endorsements of Sawant, I'm not fighting for safe and connected bike lanes that only the rich can use.

Her opponent Egan Orion isn't anti-bike or anything. But he is receiving an enormous sum of cash from big businesses, especially Amazon, in an effort to kick her off the Council. We need a Councilmember we know will stand up for the people if we are going to make the bold changes to our transportation system that we need, and Sawant will do that. Just watch her in this April Transportation Committee meeting fighting back against Mayor Jenny Durkan's decision to cut the planned, designed and funded bike lanes on 35th Ave NE:

Download transcript (.txt)

Sawant has also been endorsed by Washington Bikes, Seattle Subway (PDF), the Urbanist and the Transit Riders Union.

Yeah, Seattle Bike Blog enthusiastically endorses Sawant for reelection.