Amazon fails to unseat pro-tax city council members in Seattle

Enlarge / The Amazon Spheres in downtown Seattle. (credit: 400tmax / Getty)

Amazon has suffered a setback in its own backyard as several candidates for Seattle's City Council won election despite a $1.5 million campaign by business groups to defeat them. That included Kshama Sawant, an incumbent and socialist who has been a thorn in Amazon's side in recent years. The vote was held last Tuesday, but the results only became clear in recent days.

The result is significant for Amazon because last year Seattle's city council passed a $275 per employee tax on large employers. Amazon, Starbucks, and other large Seattle businesses blasted the law and funded a ballot measure to overturn it. Facing the threat of having their law overturned by voters, the city council itself repealed the measure a month after it passed.

If business groups had defeated pro-tax candidates in last week's election, it would have made the city council very reluctant to consider taxing employers again. Instead, the election results have emboldened supporters of an "Amazon tax."

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