The ACORN Candidate? « Northwest Digest

The ACORN Candidate?

By Evan at September 23rd, 2009.

Rob Holland, a candidate for the Seattle Port Commission, Position 3, gave remarks at an ACORN event last month in a video that was recently unearthed. At the event, he spoke about his ideas for an “agenda of shared prosperity” for the “15 billion dollars” in revenue that come through the Port.

Video below the jump…

Holland went on to talk about his background as a Democratic Party activist, chairing the 37th Legislative District that covers South Seattle. He also spoke about organizing for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Although he acknowledged that this is a non-partisan position, he wanted to give his leftist credentials to let the ACORN members know “where I come from.”

The Seattle Port Commission is a five member body that oversees the leadership of the Port. Organized Labor has formed a political action committee, named “Reform the Port” (found at portreform.org) to fund two of their candidates, Max Vekich and Rob Holland. King County government has had a problem with what you may have heard of as “gold-plated benefits” for county employees, which make budget decisions in a crunch very difficult. The Port has 1,700 governmental positions and labor has a huge stake in the outcome of this race as future contracts are negotiated.

In the last election filings, Holland’s campaign was in debt by $191. Unless Holland can fundraise beyond the $54,000 he had raised and already spent as of September 10th, his entire campaign operation will need to be funded by independent expenditures from organized labor through their Reform the Port PAC. Will outside groups fund Holland’s campaign in an effort to get a “yes-man” for organized labor and the interests of groups like ACORN? We’ll follow the money here on NW Digest. Stay tuned.

Tags: ACORN, Port of Seattle, Rob Holland