Mayor who received $10k from parents to help with campaign is fined by ethics commission
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Newly elected Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson was forced to pay a $250 fine by the citywide ethics commission after she failed to adequately disclose more than $10,000 in campaign contributions made by Wilson’s parents.
After his election victory in November, Wilson defended taking money from his parents to help with his mayoral bid, saying in an interview with CNN that it made him more “relatable” to voters. The money, Wilson said, went to help her pay for the children.
The City of Seattle’s Ethics and Elections Commission found last month that the money Wilson received from his parents were “campaign contributions” and indicated that corrective measures were necessary to avoid creating a way for candidates to circumvent campaign finance laws. In the letter, Jessica Pisane, stated that the fine was only $250 because what happened was a “new issue” that had never been seen before the commission.
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“This is the first time it has come up in the City election campaign,” Pisane noted, adding that Wilson also returned money to his parents that exceeded the limits that Wilson was expected to abide by.
Fox News Digital reached out to Wilson’s team for comment but did not receive a response.
“Campaigning for office is stressful,” Wilson said following his election victory amid questions about his parents’ contributions. “Seattle is one of the most expensive cities in the country, our child care is expensive and, honestly, I think a lot of people of my generation, young and old, find it very relatable that during this stressful campaign my parents stepped in to help pay for their grandchild’s child care costs.”
Wilson said in her campaign that child care costs about $2,200 a month for her and her husband, who was reportedly unemployed.
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Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson (right) beat incumbent Bruce Harrell to become the next Mayor. (Katie Wilson from Seattle)
Before moving to Seattle in 2004, Wilson lived in upstate New York. After graduating from high school in Binghamton, Wilson studied physics and philosophy at Oxford University, thanks to the financial support of his parents who live in New York as well. Wilson left Oxford debt-free, which he gave to his parents. However, he also left without a degree, dropping out six weeks before graduating.
Before earning his new mayoral salary, Wilson was paid by the nonprofit he founded in 2011, the Transit Riders Union. He started collecting checks from the team in 2019. Before that, Wilson worked a series of odd jobs, including barista, boatyard worker, apartment manager, lab technician, baker, construction worker and paralegal.
Tax records show Wilson brought in $72,669 in 2022 as president of the Transit Riders Union. There are no records of Wilson’s salary for 2023 or 2024, reportedly because the nonprofit recently changed tax preparers, according to PubliCola. The IRS does not require nonprofit organizations to disclose the salaries of employees making less than $100,000 a year.
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Meanwhile, in a financial statement filed with the city when he announced his mayoral candidacy, Wilson reported making between $60,000 and $99,000. He also reported income of “less than $30,000” from PubliCola, The Urbanist and The Stranger, respectively, for work as a “columnist” for left-leaning online news.
As mayor of Seattle, Wilson will make well into six figures, according to past mayors’ pay records. Wilson has been compared to playwright Zohran Mamdani, campaigning for policy proposals similar to those of the self-proclaimed Socialist mayor of New York City. These include, with his support for a “Unity Budget” that would have cut Seattle’s police force by 50 percent and other cuts to police positions, Wilson has been forced to back down from supporting state-owned grocery stores, calls for taxing the rich, and a proposal to “Trump proof” the city of Seattle.
Seattle has chosen Katie Wilson, who has been compared to Zohran Mamdani, as its next mayor. (Getty Images)
Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
