Homelessness/Housing Crisis
What would you do differently, if anything, to address the housing crisis, including homelessness, than the approach the current council and administration have taken?
Follow-up question:
What is your plan to address the need for deeply affordable housing and permanent supportive housing
Privacy & Surveillance
More and more government agencies are adopting some form of artificial intelligence to make decisions that impact people’s lives, from how they are policed, paroled, or sentenced, to whether they get jobs, housing, or public benefits, and even whether the state intervenes to take their children away. These AI systems are rarely subject to public approval, many agencies cannot explain how they work, and a growing body of research shows that they often contain biases that people of color and people of non-dominant religions. Do you believe there should be systems for public approval of these kinds of AI decision systems before they are implemented, and what other policy frameworks do you think should apply to their use?
Drug Policy
This February the Washington Supreme Court struck down the state’s main drug possession crime in a case called State v. Blake. The ruling meant there was no state law making simple possession of drugs a crime unless the legislature recriminalized it, which it has now done via passage of ESB 5476. However, the criminal changes, making possession crimes misdemeanors with mandatory diversion to services for at least the first two occasions, are only in effect until July 1, 2023. This means the policy landscape for this issue is unsettled. Why do you think the legislature recriminalized drug possession and what law would you like to see on the books for your city/county?
