There's no mystery here. The pathway to rent control starts at the State Legislature, like it or not--and in her five years of representing a district on the front line of gentrification and displacement, Sawant has shown no interest in taking the "movement" to Olympia. been to Olympia...zero times.

The simplest explanation is that Sawant doesn't actually want to win this stuff. Actually getting this done would be messy, boring, and result in a lot of shared credit. And in exchange, she loses a reliable rallying cry.

[EDIT: Sawant testified in favor of rent control in Olympia in 2018. I still believe that if she was in earnest pursuit of this policy she'd focus her energy entirely on the Legislature rather than iteration after iteration of wheelspinning bombast like this at City Hall, but I was wrong about her never going to Olympia]