Local Democratic activists used to reprimand candidates for coloring outside party lines (remember the scolding former city council member Peter Steinbrueck took for supporting Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader?) But now some Democratic districts are shunning Democrats in favor of a socialist.

With two local Democratic organizations bailing on the Democratic choices in the District Three city council race, which stars Socialist Alternative candidate and council incumbent Kshama Sawant, membership has sent a clear message that the party is more open than it used to be. The 43rd District Democrats and the 37th District Democrats—the two Democratic Party districts that overlap with Sawant's city council district—failed to endorse the other candidates, all Democrats. Non-Democrats, of course, aren’t eligible for endorsement per district bylaws, hence the exclusion of an affirmative Sawant endorsement. But the "no endorsement" votes looks like a conscious nod to the Socialist Alternative candidate who stands out in the one-party Democratic city of Seattle.

"The 'no consensus' vote in both the 37th and 43rd Districts was an organized effort among Sawant supporters in those respective Districts," said Jeanne Legault, a Sawant contributor, long time civic activist, and former board member with 37th District Democrats. 

The Sawant camp touted the no-endorsements as indications that their socialist candidate is gaining traction with Democrats. Putting the socialists’ spin aside, these "no endorsements" do raise a serious question: is Sawant causing the local Democratic party to fracture and welcome third party candidates into the fold?

Last Tuesday, at a 43rd District Democrats' meeting, more than 60 percent of the present membership voted for "no endorsement" over Democratic District Three candidate Rod Hearne, a leader in the 2012 fight for statewide same-sex marriage. This seconded a 43rd District vote in May, where two other Democrats lost out to "no endorsement"— urban league CEO Pamela Banks and women’s rights advocate Morgan Beach. Heading into the August 4 primary now, the 43rd has not endorsed a candidate in the Third District council race.

James Apa, Chair of the 43rd District Democrats, who has spent over 10 years in local Democratic party organizing, chalks up the vote to the specific circumstances of this year's District Three race.

“We're talking about a hyperlocal race with very local issues in a district race and it's a specific set of issues that are motivating our membership,” Apa told PubliCola. “The 43rd is the most progressive district in the state. Our members are going to be looking for progressive ideas and progressive solutions and candidates that are pushing that.”

He noted that just last year when Socialist Alternative candidate Jess Spear ran against long-standing 43rd District state representative  and current speaker of the house, Democrat Frank Chopp, she went down in flames.  Apa says the membership “saw through” the Socialist Alternative party’s attempt to paint Chopp as ineffective on housing issues. “District democrats are not monolith,” Apa said in reference to supporting socialist candidates.

Apa added that a candidate’s volunteer organizing capacity also affects endorsements, in terms of getting people to meetings that often run for hours on weeknights. At the May 43rd district Democrats endorsements meeting Sawant supporters were handing out “no-endorsement in District Three” buttons.

Another factor in play, according to Apa, was the number of candidates running in the District Three race, which makes it harder for any candidate to reach the 60 percent endorsement threshold.  "Just because many districts aren't doing endorsements now, it doesn't mean that by the end of the [election] cycle that there won't be [endorsements]," he said.

During the 43rd District Democrats Endorsement meeting in May, Banks walked away with 53.2 percent of the vote after making it to the second round of voting with 44.2 percent, while Beach got stumped at the first round with 25.4 percent. In rounds one and two the "no endorsement" vote netted 40.6 and 46.4 percent respectively. During the June meeting, Hearne, who wasn't considered in May, mustered only 32.69 percent while 67.31 percent went for "no endorsement."

Even though the 43rd went with no endorsement for the August primary, they will hold a second round of endorsements (like all other districts) for the November general election.

While the 37th also denied any Democrat the endorsement, they were more traditional than the 43rd; they wouldn't allow Sawant to attend the candidate forum. (Sawant participated in the 43rd forum, bringing out cheering fans.)

“We certainly have two arms of the party," said David Corrado, Chair of the 37th District Democrats. "We have the groups that really want [to support] someone who is really progressive that has our values even though she's not a Democrat. And then you have people that are like, ‘We need to maintain the brand, [that] we're capital D Democrats, we shouldn't back down from that.’”

Corrado said that things got personal in discussions surrounding whether or not to invite Sawant to the candidates’ forum in the 37th, when a member of the District’s executive board asked him to resign because of his openness to inviting Sawant. "People are questioning my [Democratic] credentials as chair of the 37th district democrats," said Corrado.

“So many people can thank the Democratic party for labor, for a 40 hour work week, for benefits,” he went on to say. “These people [party hardliners] don't want to give our stage, our game … over to a socialist or someone who is not a Democrat.”

This isn’t the first time Seattle Democrats have lashed out at one another for not toeing the party line. It feels like ages ago, but once upon a time during the 2000 presidential general election,  local Democrats feared that that Washington state might deliver its electoral votes to George W. Bush over Democratic nominee Al Gore thanks to Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. (Gore got close to 100,000 votes over Bush in Washington, despite Nader.)

But Nader still cost Gore the election in key states such as Florida, with the third-party candidate sucking up over 90,000 votes, which would have easily helped Gore erase the 537 vote margin in that state. The loss left Seattle Democrats bitter towards those who didn’t toe the party line, such as former Seattle city council member and later mayoral candidate Peter Steinbrueck, who had publicly endorsed the third party candidate at a Nader campaign rally at KeyArena.

“[I] just wasn't hugely inspired by Al Gore,” Steinbruck told Publicola recently, remembering the brouhaha. “I thought, 'well the policies and the goals [of Nader] were perfectly aligned with Democratic policies and goals,’” he said. Even though Steinbrueck never ended up actually voting for Nader, local Democrats didn’t forget about his flirtation with the Green Party. It haunted him through his years in Seattle politics. When he ran for Mayor in 2012, then Democratic state chairman Dwight Pelz chastised Steinbrueck in an email to Seattle democrats, calling him an enabler of the Bush presidency.

“Basically they [Seattle Democrats] sanctioned me. And some people wanted to strip me of my Democratic membership,” said Steinbrueck. “I had to go defend myself, in front of the 43rd District Democrats.”

While he doesn’t think Nader in 2000 and Sawant in the District Three race today are entirely analogous (third-party Sawant is not spoiling a high-stakes presidential race), he said his motivations for backing Nader mirror the sentiment of some current Democrats welcoming Sawant.

“She appeals to a lot of people who are Democrats, believe in Democratic values, but are frustrated and dissatisfied with the mainstream, and the status quo,” he said.

Legault, whose involvement in local Democratic party politics goes back decades,  is an outspoken Sawant supporter.

“Sawant has vigorously fought for and made progress on many of our [the 37th district’s] key issues, unlike most of the other ‘Democratic’ city council members who talk a good talk,” she told PubliCola via email. In reference to Sawant’s efforts behind Seattle’s new citywide $15 minimum wage, she said: “I strongly doubt that the mayor would have taken up the mantle on that issue without the brilliant organizing capability of Sawant and her pushing [it].”

Legault said that she (Legault) also received heat from 37th District party loyalists back in 2013 when Sawant was first running for city council against Democratic incumbent Richard Conlin. She added that in this election cycle they’ve backed off slightly. She attributes the diminished hostility to the “realization of what a strong and effective council member Sawant has been [for progressive values].”

Sawant has stacked up a formidable list of prominent Democratic endorsements from the likes of state senator Pramila Jayapal (D-37, Southeast Seattle), the former head of immigrant rights group OneAmerica,  longtime King County Council member Larry Gossett, along with a slew of labor unions. (The Capitol Hill Seattle Blog reported that Gossett was also vocally urging crowd members to vote “no endorsement” in the District 3 race at the May 43rd District Democrats endorsement meeting.)

Her recent reelection campaign kick-off rally at Town Hall drew over 800 attendees, a likely record for a local city council election event. 

“Kshama’s a brilliant organizer,” said Corrado. “She has a huge [amount of] support behind her.”

Mayor Ed Murray (and die-hard Democrat) certainly seemed a little worried about these political undercurrents at the 43rd District Democrats'  endorsement meeting in May where he briefly addressed members. After listing numerous Democratic party achievements in the state legislature and giving a shout out to Democratic council member Tim Burgess’s city preschool program, he told the crowd: “I believe this Democratic party is going to be hit from the far left and the extreme right.”

“The Democratic party should be paying attention and working harder on these kinds of issues [Sawant’s issues] or they'll start to lose their base,” Steinbrueck concluded.