Open Housing Law
After joining the city council, Smith continued to campaign for open housing. Black civil rights organizations in the city like the NAACP and Congress of Racial Equality had been advocating for these laws for years, and city councilmember Wing Luke had championed these laws against an opposed city council and mayor. Rather than pass a law, the city created a Citizen's Advisory Committee, then a Human Rights Commission, and Black civil rights groups staged protests against these delay tactics.:87-88 The council decided in 1963 to write the law but exclude an emergency clause, meaning that it could be sent to Seattle voters for approval. Seattle's real estate community, many homeowners, and some city councilmembers advertised against the law, while religious and civil rights organizations continued to campaign for it. In 1964 the measure was defeated by a large margin. Luke died in 1965, so when Smith entered the council, he became the architect of the city's open housing law. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination sparked violence throughout the country, including in Seattle's Central District, and helped pressure legislators into supporting civil rights action.113:114
In 1968, Smith spearheaded the municipal Open Housing Law, which prohibited discrimination in housing, and it passed the council unanimously. It was passed three weeks after King's assassination, and this time as an emergency measure, which protected it from being subject to a public referendum. The act banned discrimination based on race, color, religion, ancestry, or national origin in the rental or sale of homes. It directed people who were discriminated against to file a complaint with the city's Human Rights Commission, and could fine offenders up to $500. Many in the city proclaimed this a major victory for civil rights, but the law did not stop other avenues of real estate discrimination, and it put the onus on victims to contest discrimination. The effectiveness of this law was called into question by local civil rights groups like the Seattle Urban League. Still, the law was expanded over the following decades to ban discrimination on the basis of other characteristics like sex, marital status, sexual orientation, politics, age, parental status, disability, and gender identity.113:114
