The Most Dangerous Woman in America
Kshama Sawant outside Seattle City Council chambers shortly before she was elected in November 2013. (AP / Ted S. Warren) 
SEATTLE—Kshama Sawant, the socialist on the City Council, is up for re-election this year. Since joining the council in January of 2014 she has helped push through a gradual raising of the minimum wage to $15 an hour in Seattle. She has expanded funding for social services and blocked, along with housing advocates, an attempt by the Seattle Housing Authority to allow a rent increase of up to 400 percent. She has successfully lobbied for city money to support tent encampments and is fighting for an excise tax on millionaires. And for this she has become the bĂȘte noire of the Establishment, especially the Democratic Party.
