In a surprise to almost no one, Council member M. Lorena Gonzalez announced today that she will be running for re-election for the city-wide Council Position 9, which she currently holds.
In her press release, she notes that her top legislative goal for this year is extending paid family leave to all Seattle workers. She also says that she intends to participate in the new Democracy Vouchers program for public campaign financing. That’s a bit of bad news for the handful of other candidates also planning to use the system, since the pot of money is of fixed size: the more money a popular candidate like Gonzalez draws, the less is available for the others. Of course, this is the first run for the Democracy Voucher system, so we’ll have to see if the money is used up over the course of the election campaign season.
No one else has yet announced that they intend to run against Gonzalez this fall, and by most people’s estimation she would be tough to beat.