Mayor Ed Murray enjoys yet another progressive victory at The Comet Tavern in Capitol Hill. Photo by Kyu Han

“It’s kind of anticlimactic,” said one political junky sitting at the Comet Tavern bar, looking for a good time on election night. “I wish they were showing some national results, but they seem to only be doing local.”

That yahoo obviously didn’t get the memo in the run-up to last night’s election. With the national election a bleeding eyesore for liberals and progressives, the attention for Seattle left-leaners had turned to local politics. The message resounded at the Capitol Hill watering hole where reporters, sycophants, and activists remained drunkenly oblivious to the Republican drubbing of the hapless Democrats on the federal ballot, while expecting to celebrate a victory for Seattle’s Proposition 1, which would exact a $60 car tab fee for Seattle residents to help pay for an expansion of Metro bus service.

As the returns came in, the whoop went up as Prop 1 showed a 60 percent “yes” vote with about two-thirds of all ballots counted. That’s just about when Mayor Ed Murray walked in, surrounded by an entourage of suited, nervous-looking men and women, to receive his public.

“Congratulations, Mr. Mayor,” said someone who understood that this victory was a triumph for the mayor, for it was he who personally placed the proposition on the ballot after April’s King County proposition to fund Metro Transit went down in suburbia-stoked flames. As the mayor strode to the center of the crowded bar, one of the nervous-looking men whispered to a colleague.

“He’s super pissed,” the man said. “Super pissed.”

After an introduction from Rob Johnson, the executive director of Transportation Choices Coalition, the mayor stepped up onto a seat, without a microphone or a prepared speech, which one imagines inspired his wrath.

Transportation Choices Coalition Executive Director Rob Johnson warms up the room for the Mayor. Photo by Kyu Han

“They gave me a speech and I can’t read it, so bear with me,” he started, showing no signs of agitation as the sycophantic crush laughed. “First of all, tonight Seattle said ‘yes’ when the rest of the nation said no. Seattle said, ‘yes,’ that progressives can come together, can be united and show another vision about how government and the people of this country can work together. That’s what tonight’s vote is about.”

The throng cheered.

“It’s not just a message about more bus service,” he continued. “It’s a message about progressive values and progressive values winning and a progressive city willing to stand up and take a risk when others had said no.”

A few minutes later Murray strode out, followed by nervous men and women who we’ll just have to trust were somehow enjoying the win as well. As he crossed the street, he shook the hand of City Councilmember Tim Burgess, who like most of the council was bouncing around 10th and Pine like a club kid on a Saturday night. Together, they headed a half-block away to Sole Repair for a celebration of Prop 1B, the preschool measure that the mayor backed, and where he delivered another speech proclaiming the great progressive power of his city.

Dow Constantine outside the Prop 1 party. Photo by Kyu Han

Back at the Comet, the news teams circled out front, waiting for a moment from King County Executive Dow Constantine, while Comet co-owner and political gadfly David Meinert entertained roving reporters and bloggers.

Seattle City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen was there too, taking questions. As chair of the transportation committee, he seems to have some answers. I go for the buzzkill.

So, Tom, some Internet commenters have fears that this Seattle proposition will allow the county to supplant funds that are currently intended for city routes in order to beef up routes outside the city. What’s with that?“That won’t happen. We’re going to have a contract with the county and that contract will include a requirement that there is no substitution of Seattle dollars with what would be county dollars.”

And will that contract be drafted?“Contract discussions are under way, so I would hope that we could complete those by the end of the year.”

All right, but this is a band-aid solution, right? It only funds metro through the next six years, and also it’s kind of a regressive tax. How do we get something more sustainable?“Well, we’ll have to go to the legislature to try and get a transportation package passed that includes more equitable measures for funding transportation, like the vehicle licensing fee that’s based on the value of your car versus a flat fee that we have now.”

Alright. When you look at the results coming in for the state legislature, what do you think the chances are that we are going to see a state transportation bill that address those issues?“It’s going to require strong leadership from progressive Republicans to get a transportation package passed.”Good luck with that.

Searching for someone with perhaps a firmer grasp on reality, I found Rob Johnson. Johnson’s baby face and wide-eyed look of wonderment—accompanied, following the Prop 1 win, by an infectious grin—belies eight years spent in the trenches, battling to get the legislature to invest in transit. I try to tarnish his shine.

This is a great celebration, but isn’t the future of transit in the city actually being won and loss in the state legislative races right now?“For us, we’ve been focused on a city solution because of the failure of Olympia to give us revenue tools to solve these problems at a King County level and at a Sound Transit level. We’ve been pushing for local funding options for the county and the city for nearly ten years now, and they’ve been rebuffed in Olympia every legislative session. So it should come as no surprise that cities like Seattle are taking matters into their own hands to find more money to build bus service.”(Translation: Cities rule, states drool.)

So, what do you do after this victory?“We start fighting hard for accountability mechanisms in the agreement between the city and the county to make sure that these things happen in the way that the campaign has promised, we introduce legislation in Olympia in 2015 to give the county and Sound Transit more options to go back to voters in future years to create a sustainable system both county-wide and in the Sound Transit district and then we keep pushin’. Our whole goal is to try and get light rail back on the ballot in 2016, so we’ve got a short window to try and make that happen. We’re not gonna stop.”

mbaumgarten@seattleweekly.com