After a year and a half in office, Seattle City Councilmember Cathy Moore announced today that she’s stepping down. Her resignation goes into effect July 7. PubliCola’s Erica C. Barnett first reported the news on Bluesky, and Moore confirmed in an interview with KOMO News.
“I've been having some health struggles,” Moore said in her KOMO interview. “I want to make sure that I pay attention to what my health needs are but also make sure that I'm not leaving District 5 in a lurch.”
“I came in fully intending to fill out my term,” she continued. “But at the end of the day, I think my constituents deserve to have a representative who can be fully present and be a continued, continuous advocate for them. If I cannot do that, then it's a disservice to them.”
The decision follows a pretty negative few weeks on the council, on top of a criticism-filled first year.
Last month, Moore introduced a bill to relax our city’s ethics code, allowing council members to vote on legislation, even if they could benefit from them financially (e.g. voting on landlord regulations when they’re a landlord.) Unsurprisingly, the public did not like this. Thousands of people wrote to the council opposing the bill, spoke at city council meetings, and protested at City Hall. The bill stoked the mounting distrust in government, especially under the Donald Trump regime. “Trump and his cronies are engaged in unprecedented corruption. We should be holding the line,” said Eddie Lin, a candidate for the District 2 council seat.
“We need to know that our city is with us and not against us,” said Austin Schey, a renter in District 7.
The bill made it out of committee two weeks ago (after half a dozen amendments), and the full council was supposed to vote on it tomorrow, but Moore withdrew the bill on Friday afternoon. “My conversations with colleagues have made it clear that we require more time to ensure we get this right,” Moore said in the announcement.
Other than that clusterfuck, Moore’s other most notable moment on council came last year when, in a rare moment of class solidarity, she proposed a city-wide capital gains tax. Her proposal, called a “baby” capital gains tax, would have placed a 2 percent tax on Seattle’s wealthiest residents and would have raised $16 million and $51 million. The proposal failed with a 6-3 vote against it.
Last year, she championed the revival of the SOAP zones, a loitering law for sex workers that repealed in 2020 for its disproportionate impact on communities of color. And at the top of this year, she told the mayor she didn't support new density in the Comp Plan, because "she's not prepared to sacrifice [her] neighborhood" for apartments.
Her resignation means council will appoint a successor to hold the seat until a special election is scheduled. (No one give Tanya Woo any ideas.) King County Elections and the Seattle City Clerk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
