Category: Campaign

Last year, just before the November general election, Thurston County’s race for County Board of Commissioners (District 1) was rocked by a series of dramatic news stories. First, the Olympian reported that a political committee or “PAC” conducted a series of robocalls including attack messaging against candidate Jim Cooper. The name of the PAC was “Friends of Jimmy,” which was reportedly sponsored by another PAC called “We Want to Be Friends of Jimmy Too.” The article reflects that Cooper and his opponent, John Hutchings, both denied any connection to the PAC. But wait; why did Cooper even need to be asked whether he sponsored the robocalls that attacked his own candidacy? Perhaps because his candidate authorized committee, “Friends of Jim Cooper,” sounded so similar to the PACs that sponsored the robocalls against him. But more on that below.

Later, the Olympian would go on to report that a person who managed the PACs and their robocall campaign had, unfortunately, received a death threat, and had been sued by private citizens over the unwanted robocalls. After the election, the same person began filing a series of campaign finance complaints that were followed by state government lawsuits against not only Jim Cooper but many other Democratic candidates and party organizations as well. He was even quoted in the newspaper as saying that “everybody is in violation” of Washington’s campaign finance laws.

Today, Smith & Dietrich Law Offices notified state officials that Glen Morgan, manager of the PACs that attacked Jim Cooper, and filer of numerous campaign finance complaints starting in late 2016, apparently violated Washington’s campaign finance law prohibiting concealment of political expenditures and contributions. Our notice was based entirely on information in the public domain accessible to anyone with an internet connection. The violation was, in short, that he created two PACs ahead of the 2016 general election which were deceptively named as though they supported the opponent against which they would operate: Jim Cooper. He then used one of the PACs to obtain political contributions from various donors, sent that money to the second PAC, and used it to sponsor robocall attack ads. Doing this allowed him to effectively hide the individual contributors to the second PAC from the public; only a diligent researcher who located the first PAC would be able to piece together that they had funded the calls. This allowed the funders of his negative robocalling campaign to hide from the full public airing of their sponsorship required by law. A copy of our citizen action notice is here (and you can view the attachments here).

The notice we filed today follows a similar complaint filed by another member of the public with the Public Disclosure Commission before election day. No known action has occurred to date to remedy Mr. Morgan and his two PACs’ violations of the campaign finance laws; apparently, the complaint was returned with no action days ago. Now, state authorities have a statutory deadline of September 18, 2017 to investigate the allegations. The irony of this situation is likely lost on no one: the same activist who stated that “everybody is in violation” has himself been caught in an intentional violation of the same law he has so vigorously used against others. We will provide an update concerning the notice once the position of the Attorney General’s Office is clear.

At Smith & Dietrich Law Offices, we believe that the campaign finance laws should be used as they were intended, to improve public understanding of the funding of political contests. If you are involved in a political campaign or committee and would like to discuss reporting or compliance duties under Washington law, allegations of campaign finance violations, or how to respond to a complaint or citizen action notice, contact us here.

We are living in an age of great scrutiny of campaign finance issues. This is true both at the federal level (with organizations like Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington [CREW] bringing cases like the emoluments clause lawsuits against the President of the United States), and in the City of Olympia, our own backyard. Much of the activity in Washington state is due to a law originally adopted by initiative in 1973, which allows Washington citizens to sue on behalf of the state to enforce campaign finance laws if state authorities will not bring the cases themselves.

This recent Seattle Times article explains that the number of formal notices starting off a state campaign finance enforcement case has shot up from 4 per year in 2012 to 79 in the first five months of 2017 alone. This continues a surge in notices that began in 2016. Nearly all of the recent notices were filed by a single individual against Democratic Party candidates and party organizations, left-of-center political committees, and related groups. Resulting in part from that increase in the volume of notices, in the past year, an historic number of campaign finance enforcement lawsuits have been filed by the Attorney General’s Office.

If you are aware of violations of Washington’s campaign finance disclosure law, codified at chapter 42.17A of the Revised Code of Washington, or its implementing regulations (see Title 390 of the Washington Administrative Code), you may file a complaint with the Public Disclosure Commission, or provide a citizen action notice to the relevant county prosecuting attorney(s) and the Attorney General in Olympia. Unlike complaints filed with the PDC, citizen action notices trigger deadlines for the government to investigate or file suit on the allegations; if no suit is filed once the notice requirements are satisfied, the citizen may bring an enforcement action in the name of the state. And if the citizen suing in the name of the state prevails, he or she may recover reasonable attorney’s fees and costs for prosecuting the action. If the defendant prevails, then he or she may recover fees and costs; where a court finds the lawsuit was filed without reasonable cause, these may be charged to the citizen who filed it.

Why do campaign finance complaints matter? Notices and complaints filed by the public can lead to campaign finance litigation or administrative penalties. Legal actions over campaign finance violations require time and resources to defend against and are significant issues in the minds of the voting public. Justice would be best served by all political players being held to the same standard of compliance with campaign finance laws. But state law leaves it in large part to private citizens to initiate enforcement actions.

To get a sense of the work our firm can do in this area, you can view an example complaint we filed last month with the Public Disclosure Commission here (this complaint was provided to the county prosecuting attorneys and the Attorney General in a modified form, and the 45-day deadline for initial review of that notice will expire September 7, 2017, so stay tuned for the next developments). All of the information we cited in this filing is in the public domain, and is freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection. The allegations in our notice are closely similar to many of the complaints filed with the Public Disclosure Commission in the past year, like failures to file expenditure and contribution reporting on time, and failures to properly report debts, orders, obligations, and loans. Several lawsuits have been filed by the state Attorney General’s Office on allegations like those in our notice.

State law gives significant responsibility to the citizens of Washington to make sure that political players play by the rules. Our firm is dedicated to doing justice in campaign finance cases by filing complaints against violators and assisting with responses to allegations of non-compliance. We are also available to review campaign practices and records and advise concerning compliance options before a complaint or citizen action notice arrives. If you would like to discuss campaign finance compliance issues under Washington law, contact us to discuss the next steps.