Today Council President Sara Nelson (Position 9) announced that she is proposing new ethics rules for consultants who contract with the City of Seattle. This is an effort to boost transparency and avoid potential conflicts of interest. The bill, which builds upon similar regulations in Portland and San Francisco, amends the ethics code by establishing reporting and disclosure requirements for political consultants, bans working on political campaigns and city consulting at the same time, and requires a one-year “cooling off” period between consulting work and political campaign services.

“This is about repairing public trust in local government — that’s the foundation of good governance,” said Council President Nelson. “My proposed legislation puts clear, new rules in place to reduce the potential influence of consultants’ political or financial interests on public policy.”

The proposed bill will:

• Create reporting and disclosure requirements for political consultants contracted with elected officials or election campaigns, similar to lobbyists.
• Prohibit consultants from working on city projects while concurrently providing services for an election campaign for city office or ballot measure.
• Establish a one year “cooling off” period after termination of a city consulting contract before the consultant can provide political consulting services.

Next steps

The legislation will be published on Thursday’s Introduction and Referral Calendar and is scheduled to be heard at the next meeting of the special Governance, Accountability & Economic Development Committee on December 4 at 2 p.m.

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