Now that it looks very likely that Washington Governor Christine Gregoire will sign the Local Choice/Local Option bill into law and allow municipalities to pursue public financing options for their elections, members of the Seattle City Council are weighing a proposal to create a Clean Elections public financing program to cover their elections.

Washington State is in the process of considering a number of bills that would provide public financing for elections - everything from Governor Christine Gregoire's bill to provide full public financing in the Clean Elections model to judicial candidates, to state Rep. Joe McDermott's (D) bill to make counties and municipalities eligible to set up similar public financing systems.