Spin Control: Will Seattle, match Spokane for a one-term mayor streak?

For much of the last half century, Seattle political types looked askance at Spokane’s tendency to bounce its mayors out of office after a single term. Or in some cases, less than a full term.

Now, it seems dissatisfaction with one’s mayor has crossed the Cascades and become ensconced in the Seattle City Hall political zeitgeist. Incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell, a former council president and well-established political figure, lost his re-election bid to progressive newcomer Katie Wilson.

Harrell becomes the fifth Seattle mayor in a row to survive one term or less. The last Seattle mayor to win re-election was Greg Nickels, from 2002 to 2010. One, like Harrell, lost a re-election bid, two decided they’d had enough and did not run again and one other was forced to resign over allegations of sexual misconduct.

But before this revolving door was installed in their mayor’s office, Seattle voters tended to keep their mayors around. Charlie Royer served three terms; Wes Uhlman and Norm Rice served two. Since the late 1960s through the beginning of this century, only Paul Schell, who held the office between Rice and Nickels, lost a re-election bid.

Spokane has Seattle beat all hollow – to borrow an old phrase that doesn’t get much use any more – when it comes to getting rid of mayors. Ron Bair was elected Spokane mayor in 1977, the same year Royer was first elected. He was followed by Jim Chase and Vicky McNeill, who, like Bair, chose not to seek a second term.

Sheri Barnard was elected in 1989, lost to Jack Geraghty in 1993, who lost to John Talbott in 1997, who lost to John Powers in 2000 when the city changed to a strong mayor system.

Powers lost to Jim West in 2003, who was recalled by voters in 2005, and replaced by Council President Dennis Hession. He lost to Mary Verner in 2007, who lost to David Condon in 2011. Condon became the first Spokane mayor since 1973 to win re-election in 2015.

Condon couldn’t seek a third term because the city charter limits terms for mayors and councilmembers to two.

Nadine Woodward followed Condon, but lost her 2023 re-election bid to current Mayor Lisa Brown.

Some people have attributed Spokane’s one-term streak of mayors to the “Gypsy Curse,” which was placed on the city after police raided the homes of Grover and Jimmy Marks in 1986. But Spokane was already dumping its mayors before that, and if a cursee is relieved of the curse after the death of the cursor, it can’t be blamed for many of more recent as Grover died in 1997 and Jimmy died in 2007.

Plus Jimmy Marks was inclined to claim the curse was responsible for everything that ever went wrong in Spokane, including a B-52 crashing at Fairchild Air Force Base in 1994.

It’s more likely that the streak of one-termites is a result of controversies to which the incumbent mishandled while in office, organized and well-funded support for an opponent, and bad execution in the re-election campaign.

If Seattle’s string continues, that would probably be the reason, too.

Bad reference

Several times in the past two weeks, talking heads on television have described President Donald Trump’s decision to host a fancy party based on “The Great Gatsby” while food stamps were about to be cut off for millions of Americans as either a “Marie Antoinette” or a “Let them eat cake” moment.

English majors might be happy to explain that partying in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel was definitely a sign of plutocratic excess ending badly. But history majors would have a bone to pick with anyone who connects Marie Antoinette with cake munching.

First, the French queen probably never said anything of the kind. The phrase was included in an essay by Jean Jacques Rousseau, written 24 years before the French Revolution, and when Marie Antoinette was 9 years old and not yet in France.

Second, the correct translation of Rousseau’s sentence is “Let them eat brioche.” The setup is that someone is telling the prince that the peasants had no large loaves of bread to eat. The princess suggests that then they should just eat brioche, which are little loaves or buns.

While it demonstrates that Rousseau’s princess – who may have been apocryphal – was out of touch with the problems of the common people, it’s not quite as bad as it sounds in English. And it’s definitely not why Marie Antoinette lost her head.

Years ago, when a GOP political gathering was scheduled for the Davenport Hotel’s Marie Antoinette Ballroom, a Democratic operative made “let them eat cake” cracks about the people attending. He didn’t stop even when the fallacy of that line of attack was pointed out, arguing that even if not true, the line was too good to pass up.