In a press release on Monday, Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison characterized her decision to join other jurisdictions suing the Trump administration as an effort to “defend the people of Seattle.”
Don’t buy it. Political expediency, not protecting Seattle’s most vulnerable residents and its status as a sanctuary city, is a much likelier explanation for her decision to join the lawsuit. For one, the term “sanctuary city” appears nowhere in the press release. “Welcoming City” — a term adopted by many cities (including Seattle) instead of “sanctuary city” — appears instead.
More importantly, Davison did not join the lawsuit when it was originally filed on February 7. King County, however, did join, along with San Francisco, Santa Clara County, Portland, and New Haven. Her hesitation about whether to even involve Seattle in the lawsuit is a red flag, especially given that she became a Republican during Trump’s first term. Such hesitation is just one example of inaction in response to Trump’s reelection. When Boston challenged cuts to federal research funding, 43 other jurisdictions joined the effort, including Spokane and Olympia. But Seattle did not.
Now that Davison has joined the sanctuary cities lawsuit, her explanation for doing so is telling. Rather than criticize the deliberate cruelty of Donald Trump’s immigration policies or champion the importance of standing with those in our communities who are directly affected by them, Davison frames the issue as resource-driven: she is suing Trump because Seattle can’t afford to have its police co-opted by the federal government to enforce immigration laws.
In her own words: “This is an issue of federal overreach into areas of local control. The City of Seattle has adopted laws and dedicated significant resources to make our communities safer and to provide services for our residents who need them. This includes our diverse, vibrant, and invaluable immigrant communities. Seattle’s municipal government will not be co-opted to perform the federal government’s responsibilities to enforce federal immigration laws.”
As Ann Davison sees it, Donald Trump’s attack on sanctuary cities is a threat to Seattle because it could divert local police away from solving local crime. And in her view, the danger of that threat to immigrant communities is the same as anyone else: they would be less safe because local crime would go unsolved.
What about mass deportation? Family separation policies? Attacks on birthright citizenship? It is undeniable that Donald Trump’s effort to punish sanctuary cities is part of his assault on immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. While it is true that Seattle can’t afford to lose valuable local law enforcement resources, Davison’s framing of the issue strictly in these terms speaks volumes about her priorities. Her stated goal is for Seattle to maintain control over its police so they can “interview witnesses, collect evidence, care for victims, and build trust with the community.” She is not joining the lawsuit to protect immigrant communities from Donald Trump’s racist agenda.
Still, if protecting Seattle from federal overreach is her goal, why did Ann Davison hesitate in joining the lawsuit at all? In 2017, when Pete Holmes was City Attorney, Seattle led the nation in filing one of the first lawsuits against Trump’s attack on sanctuary cities. Yet now, when the second lawsuit was filed, the effort was led by San Francisco and Santa Clara with support from King County, not Seattle.
The fact that this is an election year and she is not a Democrat is the likeliest explanation for Davison’s decision to join the lawsuit after initially deciding not to. Davison became a Republican in 2020 to run for Lieutenant Governor and even participated in the Trump Campaign’s #WalkAway campaign featuring former Democrats who had left to become Republicans. While she has taken to calling herself an “Independent” lately, she is using Republican consultants on her campaign. Her treasurer is Jason Michaud, who has a long history of working with Republicans, and was the treasurer for Republican millionaire Brian Heywood’s Let’s Go Washington PAC last year which attempted to overturn the capital gains tax as well as the Climate Commitment Act.
This is not new territory for Republicans in Seattle politics. In 2018, former King County prosecutor, Dan Satterberg, left the Republican Party to become a Democrat during his bid for reelection. And Davison knows that her decision to become a Republican during Trump’s first term is deeply unpopular with Seattle voters.
This would certainly not be the first time politics has shaped Davison’s decisions about how to wield the legal authority of the City Attorney’s Office. Last year she filed charges against six nonviolent protesters at City Hall who were advocating for unhoused refugees. She also charged a nonviolent Stop the Sweeps protestor with obstruction, litigated the case all the way through trial, and lost when the jury refused to convict. Meanwhile, she declined to file any charges at all against former KOMO journalist Jonathan Choe — a supporter of Davison’s policies — after he was accused of assault twice in the same year. Plus, her office waged a year-long attack on an elected judge who formerly served as a public defender by disqualifying her from hearing any cases based on unsubstantiated claims about her rulings.
Nor would this be the first time Davison has cared more about scoring political points than securing results with the policies she pursues. When community members voiced legitimate concerns about gun violence, human trafficking, and felony drug sales, she resurrected failed SOAP and SODA zone policies — but then largely declined to enforce them.
Most remarkably perhaps, Davison was elected based on a platform of being tougher on crime than her predecessor, Pete Holmes—yet data from the City Attorney’s Office shows she dismisses a far higher percentage of cases that are set for trial (more than 50%!) than Holmes did, and that she declines to prosecute domestic violence charges at a higher rate than he did, despite receiving a higher number of referrals for these types of crimes. Rhetoric, not results, is the policy of Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison.
Seattle cannot afford to hesitate in standing up to Donald Trump. We need a decisive, proactive leader who will file lawsuits to protect our residents from hostile federal policies. We cannot afford to sit on the sidelines, leaving the most vulnerable among us to pay the cost. Seattle needs a City Attorney whose leadership is guided by results, not rhetoric.
Nathan Rouse (Guest Contributor)
Nathan Rouse is apublic defender, legal advocate, and fatherrunning to be Seattle’s nextCity Attorney. He has spent his public defender career standing up for people who have beenfailed by broken systems and fighting for fairness, accountability, and second chances. Nathan is running because our city needs ajustice system that works for everyone—not just the powerful.
