Candidates
Candidates
2021 general election
City of Seattle
City Attorney
Nicole Thomas-Kennedy
1115 E. PIKE ST
SEATTLE, WA 98122
(206) 484-1922
As a public defender, I saw Seattle’s most marginalized repeatedly targeted by the City Attorney’s office. The City Attorney’s office only prosecutes low-level misdemeanors, and 90% of those chosen for prosecution are poor enough to qualify for a public defender.
The US leads the world in incarceration, yet we have not achieved safety and stability. Despite decades of reform, misdemeanor prosecutions in Seattle still disproportionately target BIPOC and the disabled, and they cost this City millions every year. These prosecutions do not address the root of Seattle’s problems and they destabilize people already living on the edge. Nothing about prosecuting someone for stealing a sandwich makes them less hungry. Nothing about jailing a person in crisis encourages mental health. We need to face the fact that we cannot prosecute our way out of every problem. We must instead use these resources to meet basic human needs, build new systems of accountability, and create healthy communities that prevent harm from occurring instead of responding with expensive retribution.
I will focus on litigation that protects our health, safety, and environment. I will expand the fight for tenant and worker rights, and for progressive taxation and land use policy. I will hold the fossil fuel companies that have created our climate crisis accountable. I will stop wasting resources on lawyers when public health and education is what is needed.
We can’t keep wasting money on a strategy that does not work. Seattle deserves a candidate that has the knowledge and will to implement solutions to our city’s most critical problems, built on a foundation of justice and equity for all.
I’m running for City Attorney because our city is failing to meet the needs of the most vulnerable among us as well as the basic functions of protecting public health and safety.
The people of Seattle have suffered enough from growing crime and dysfunction. Our laws exist to help those who are most vulnerable while ensuring a safe home for our community. When the people’s courthouse is not safe, when the sheriff tells employees to stay home because it’s too dangerous to work, we need better leadership.
The City Attorney represents our crime victims and is a critical link to public safety, downtown and in our neighborhoods, deciding when to prosecute many types of criminal activity. Defense attorneys represent someone accused of a crime. When the prosecutor acts as a second defense attorney there is no justice for victims, who must be put in the center. For too long we have not had competent leadership that puts the public health and safety first. I will be proactive, not reactive. I will be a collaborative leader bringing compassion, pursuing progress. I will work with addiction and mental health providers to bring real compassion and collaboration to our city and region. Only by fixing this critical link of public health and safety, will we begin to see improvement in the livability of our city.
With your vote, we can create a safer, more compassionate city for all of us.
Endorsements: Seattle Times; Governor Dan Evans (former); Chris Bayley, King County Prosecuting Attorney (former); Ed McKenna, Seattle Municipal Presiding Judge (retired) ; Pastor Harvey Drake; community leaders Victoria Beach and James Fuda. More at www.neighborsforann.com/endorsements.
Contact Elections
Email: elections@kingcounty.gov
Phone: 206-296-VOTE (8683)
TTY: Relay 711
Sign up for email or text notifications