By an unanimous vote, Joy Hollingsworth has been elected by her peers as Seattle’s newest City Council president. She is both the first Black woman and openly Queer woman to serve in the role. 

Hollingsworth will take over the role from former District 9 councilmember Sara Nelson, who lost dramatically to Dionne Foster in the most recent election. Dan Strauss has been the interim president since November. Hollingsworth will now serve in the role until 2027.

As council president, Hollingsworth now has the ability to both establish new committees and select people to lead or join any existing committees. She is now responsible for setting the City Council agenda and calling meetings into order. The flow of a council meeting generally goes through the council president. 

During her tenure, Nelson routinely inspired concerns about how she managed council meetings, and was criticized as undemocratic. Her decisions to shorten public comment periods and clear the council chambers often led to moments of conflict, such as the arrest of six refugee asylum seekers. Hollingsworth hasn’t spoken directly about how Nelson ran public comment. However, when she had to shorten a committee’s public comment period due to weather concerns last February, she put out an official statement on the matter. 

“I want to reassure our constituents who did not have the opportunity to provide comments but were signed up that they will have more opportunities to speak at future public hearings,” she wrote. “Your feedback matters and is critical to the process.” 

The council president also serves as the city government’s designated survivor. If Mayor Wilson were to resign or be incapacitated in any way, then it would be Hollingsworth who would temporarily step in to fill her role, until the City Council elected an interim president. 

That’s exactly what happened to our previous mayor, Bruce Harrell: back in 2017, he actually served as mayor for a five-day stint, after then-mayor Ed Murray resigned in disgrace over allegations of sexual abuse against children. 

Harrell’s short term wasn’t solely performative. During his five days, he instructed the City to submit a bid for Amazon’s second headquarters, and ordered more trash removal in public spaces. It wasn’t much, but those were real policy changes. 

For now, however, Hollingsworth is downplaying the importance of her new presidency, in favor of sharing the love among her fellow councilmembers.

“My vote weighs the same as you all. One and one,” said Hollingsworth. “My role is to facilitate the work of this council, not to override it.”