Tag Archives: campaign contribution limits

Judge Rules Money Trumps Fair Campaigns

Posted on September 8th, 2010 | Comments Off on Judge Rules Money Trumps Fair Campaigns

A Federal Judge in Tacoma has ruled that the unfettered flow of money is equivalent to free speech in elections. The problem is that corporations and wealthy individuals have more money than average citizens and hence can buy more “free speech”.

The ruling throws out a Washington State law that limited individual contributions to campaigns to a maximum of $5000 per contribution in the last three weeks. The intent was to limit the influx of huge amounts of money right before an election that could put out false statements that opponents did not have the ability to respond to effectively.

Why this ruling is absurd is that both sides in an initiative for example had to comply with the same rules. It was not like one side was getting special treatment. Unfortunately now corporations and special interests can dump in huge amounts of money at the last minute without the ability of the opposing side or the media to respond to what can be false or erroneous statements. That is why the law was put in place.

The argument that the ability to spend any amount of money one wants in initiative campaigns is exercising free speech is absurd. Money buys paid speech. The Seattle Times article notes that already some $32.5 million has been spent on 6 initiatives this year.

The lawsuit was brought by Family PAC which opposed Referendum 71 last year. Referendum 71 passed 53% to 47% and expanded rights for domestic partners. It was opposed by conservative groups.

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Seattle School Board Candidates Mostly Low Profile and Low Fundraising.

Posted on August 6th, 2009 | 1 comment

Three Seattle School Board seats are up for election this year and two seats have Primary Elections. The School District has an odd hybrid electoral system where candidates run in a district in the Primary and city wide in the General Election.

Seattle School Board President Michael DeBell is running unopposed and will not be on the Primary ballot. In the second seat up, incumbent Mary Bass is opposed by 3 other candidates, Joanna Cullen, Andre Helmsletter and Kay Blum-Smith. The third seat is that being vacated by Cheryl Chow and has three candidates running. Wilson Chin, Charlie Mas and Betty Patu.

Despite the fact that the Seattle School District is in Seattle and of obvious interest to Seattle residents, campaign finance information for the candidates is not posted on the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission website. This is something that the city should include, especially considering how often candidates running for Seattle City Council or Mayor seem to mention the issues of our schools.

Also conspicuously absent is the fact that there are no campaign contribution limits for those running for Seattle School Board. While candidates for city office are limited to accepting a maximum of $700 per person per election cycle, no such limits exist for Seattle School Board. Two years ago this allowed some large contributions by a few individuals to influence the outcome of the races to a significant degree.

The following information is taken from the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission’s website.

One candidate this year for School Board, Wilson Chin, has received 4 contributions over the limit for other city offices. Two were for $2500 and two were for $1500. All told Chin has raised only $9,938 but it is the most in his race for Position #7 in South Seattle. Betty Patu has raised $1,035 and Charlie Mas has reported no contributions to date.

In Position 5, Mary Bass the incumbent, has raised some $6,142 , including a loan of $3,000. One contribution from Nadean Bass was for $1,000. Kay Smith-Blum has raised $26,165 and spent $19,710 to date. Her fundraising includes some $10,720 from 86 contributors; a $7,200 loan and $7,000 of her personal funds. Her largest individual contribution was for $400. The other two candidates, Joanna Cullen and Andre Helmsletter reported no campaign contributions.

Two years ago the races for Seattle School District saw huge amounts of money spent, much of it coming after the primary and in contributions much larger than the $700 limit for Seattle City Council and Mayoral races. The money was a coordinated effort to put more “congenial” people on the Board who didn’t ask as many questions. It worked if that was what you wanted.

Sherry Carr raised $149,130 with 31 contributions over $700 totaling some $105,700.

Peter Maier raised some $167,000 with 30 contributions over $700 totaling some $101,500.

Stephen Sundquist raised some $116,775 with 35 contributions over $700 totaling some $61,000.

The goal of this extraordinary amount of money was to defeat candidates like Darlene Flynn and Sally Soriano who disturbed the powers to be by asking too many questions and not taking the word of school administrators all the time.

Those who replaced them brought different results. You got people, for example, who did not question an administrative decision still ongoing to build in a rare plant habitat at Ingraham High School. They also were the votes that picked the fuzzy math approach for new textbooks. As the Seattle Times wrote about the math textbook vote:

“The other side, however, did not make a case for the reform text.

They argued instead that the “Discovering” books had been recommended by a committee, and that the board should respect the committee. Board member Steve Sundquist said, “I should probably not be telling educators how to teach.”

They argued that textbooks aren’t that important anyway. Board member Peter Maier said the books “allow a variety of teaching methods.”

They argued that textbook adoption was too important to waste any more time. “How many classes are we willing to graduate while we disagree over textbooks?” said board member Sherry Carr.

So the dominant paradigm — and reform math is that — continues. Dominance has its privileges. The supporters of reform math did not have to define their terms or label themselves. They did not have to make a logical argument or show any data.

They engaged in what you might call a cooperative group activity, and led themselves to discover the books that were wanted.”

So far contributions this year seem much more subdued but we could see a repeat. It would be unfortunate if once again large contributions influenced the races and produced more yes votes toeing the line of the Seattle School Administration without asking the tough questions.

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Legislature Should Act to Limit Special Interest Money in Elections

Posted on February 14th, 2009 | Comments Off on Legislature Should Act to Limit Special Interest Money in Elections

Representative Sharon Nelson is the prime sponsor of HB 1289. HB1289 would limit campaign contributions to candidates for public lands commissioner in Washington State from persons or entities that are regulated by, contract with, lease to or sell commodities to the public lands commissioner.

They could not “directly or indirectly pay or use, or offer or consent, or agree to pay or use any money or thing of value for or in aid of any candidate for the office of public lands commissioner: nor for reimbursement or indemnification of any person for money or property so used.”

The bill is patterned after a similar law limiting insurance companies from spending money for the State Insurance Commissioner race.

HB 1289 is proposed because a big loophole exists in Washington State’s campaign finance laws. They make a mockery of the supposed intent to limit special interest money in elections. This was evident in the 2008 race to elect the Washington State Public Lands Commissioner this last November.

Our current state law limits campaign contributions to a statewide candidate to $1600 for the Primary and $1600 for the General election. And on first look that appears to be what happened. If you check the contributions given to Republican incumbent Doug Sutherland’s campaign and to Democrat challenger Peter Goldmark’s campaign from individuals and corporations everything appears fine. None exceed $3200 total. Everyone seems to have an equal limit in their contributing money to try to influence the outcome of the election.

There is however no limit in Washington State on the amount of money that can be contributed to so called independent PAC’s supporting a candidate. And companies and individuals who benefited from contracts with the Department of Natural Resources repeated what they did 4 years previously in helping to get Sutherland re-elected then.

According to the Washington Public Disclosure reports they contributed lavishly to a PAC called the Committee for Balanced Stewardship. which spent some $573,000 on mailings to voters across the State urging them to re-elect Sutherland. The PAC was funded by contributions of a few special interests that benefited by receiving contracts from the DNR for timber harvest and other resource extraction like gravel. Their contributions greatly exceeded the $3200 they could have given if they contributed it directly to Sutherland. The companies that exceeded the $3200 limit are listed below:

Weyerhauser, Federal Way $100,000
Rayonier, Jacksonville, FL $75,000
Hampton Affiliates, Portland, OR $75,000
Glacier Northwest, Seattle, WA $50,000
Sierra Pacific Industries, Redding, CA $25,000
Green Diamond Resource Company, Shelton, WA $25,000
Longview Timber Company, Longview, WA $25,000
Green Crow, Port Angeles, WA $25,000
Murray Pacific, Tacoma, WA $20,000
Stimson Lumber Company, Portland, OR $20,000
Port Blakely Tree Farms, $20,000
Olympic Resource Management, Poulsbo, WA $15,000
Green Diamond Resource Company, Shelton, WA $12,500
Simpson, Tacoma, WA $12,500
M&R Services, Inc $5000
Vaughn Brothers, Colville, WA $5000

According to Brad Shanon of the Olympian, business interests objected to HB1289 at a recent hearing before the Legislature. No surprise there since they were the ones working the loophole to their advantage.

“It is an affront to the speech and participation rights of Washington businesses in the political process,” Kris Tefft of the Association of Washington Business said of the proposed bill. “It imposes content restrictions on one side of a political debate while leaving free rein on the other side.” …
The Washington Forest Protection Association and Washington Aggregates and Concrete Association also weighed in against the bill.”

The business conflict of interest was obvious in Sutherland’s granting Glacier Northwest the right to remove gravel from Maury Island in a marine protected area and his granting of geoduck rights to a company that used public tidelands that it hadn’t leased originally.

On Feb 10, 2009 Goldmark announced that he was going to review the lease granted to Glacier Northwest just before Sutherland left office. As noted by the Tacoma News Tribune:

“Goldmark said his staff will review whether the 30-year lease signed by Doug Sutherland with a subsidiary of Glacier Northwest is consistent with the long-term sustainability and health of Puget Sound.

“I have concerns about how this dock will impact the long-term sustainability and cleanup of Puget Sound,” Goldmark said. “When these leases are signed, Washingtonians expect due diligence, and we must review this deal to make sure it is in lockstep with the Puget Sound Partnership’s Action Plan.”

The lease allows the company to build a barge-loading pier on state aquatic lands in the Maury Island Aquatic Reserve.”

Washington state has at least several ways it can try to reduce the influence of independent special interest money in elections. HB 1289 of course is one approach to deal with a specific office. But independent expenditures by special interests are not limited to the Public Lands Commissioner race.

The BIAW (Building Industry Association of Washington) has spent enormous amounts of money trying to influence the outcome of specific elections, like the Washington State Supreme Court races, Governor, Attorney General and other races.

Other states limit such independent contributions to PACs. Here are some examples:

Alaska $500 per individual; corporations and unions prohibited
Connecticut $500/calendar year per individual, corporation or union
Massachusetts $500/calendar year; corporations and unions prohibited
Rhode Island $1000/calendar year; corporations and unions prohibited
South Carolina $3500/calendar year per individual, corporation, or union
Vermont $2000/2 year/election cycle per individual, corporation or union
West Virginia $1000/election; corporations and unions prohibited

You can check out the complete list of limitations on contributions to PACs by going to the National Conference of State Legislatures webpage .

Another way to try to limit the influence of independent contributions by PACs is to look at public financing of campaigns. See Washington Public Campaigns. They are pushing a bill this year in the Washington State legislature for public financing of Washington State Supreme Court races, arguing that” justice should not be for sale.”

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Peter Goldmark is New Public Lands Commissioner

Posted on November 7th, 2008 | Comments Off on Peter Goldmark is New Public Lands Commissioner

The race for Public Lands Commissioner in Washington State is over. Democrat Peter Goldmark has been declared the winner by the Associated Press. He ousted 8 year incumbent Republican Doug Sutherland.

The latest returns on the Secretary of State’s election site posted at 10:16 AM today show the race still tight. Goldmark leads with 1,059,007 votes (50.85%) to Sutherland’s 1,023,553 votes (49.15%). The difference is some 35,454 votes.

Goldmark out raised his opponent $1,055,464 to $601,351. However special interests like Weyerhauser gave money to the so-called independent PAC- the Committee for Balanced Stewardship to raise an additional $573,000 to support Sutherland.

This allowed Weyerhauser to skirt normal campaign contribution limits of $1600 per election for a candidate for statewide offices and contribute $100,000 to support Sutherland’s candidacy.

In addition the independent PAC – Realtor’s Quality of Life spent $28,780 to support Sutherland.

Contributions directly to a candidate’s committee are limited to $1600 per election or a total of $3200 for both the primary and general election. This is supposedly to reduce the influence of large money in campaigns but the loophole of unlimited contributions to independent PAC’s show how easy it is to skirt this limit.

The Washington Governor’s race also saw huge spending by so called independent PACs. The BIAW through it’s PACs contributed over $7 million to unsuccessfully try to defeat Democratic Governor Gregoire.

Both the Governor’s race and Public Lands Commissioner race were wins for Democrats being hit with huge amounts of special interest money. There is a real question that if Barack Obama had not been on the ballot as to whether or not these Democrats would still have won. The closeness of the two races raises the issue, particularly since some analysts are saying national issues affected many local races this year and that this may be a trend. Certainly the uniqueness and turnout of the Presidential race was a factor.

The idea of trying to limit the influence of huge amounts of special interest money going to PACs in Washington State is a legitimate issue to raise. The diluting by unlimited special interest contributions of the voice of those who abide by campaign spending limits is something that needs to be addressed in Washington State.

The National Conference of State Legislatures has done an analysis of state limitations on contributions to political action committees and the result is interesting. Here are some of the limits for individuals giving to PACs:

Alaska $500/yr, Arkansas $5000/yr, California $6000/election, Colorado $500/2 year cycle, Connecticut, $2000/yr, Florida $500/election, Hawaii $1000 election, Kentucky $1500/yr, Louisiana $100,000/4 yr cycle, Maryland, $4000/4 yr cycle, Massachusetts $500/year, New Hampshire $5000/election, New Jersey $7200/yr, North Carolina $4000/election, Ohio $10,670/yr, Oklahoma $5000 yr, Rhode Island $1000/yr, South Carolina $3500/yr, Vermont $2000/2 yr cycle

Meanwhile Washington State allows unlimited money from an individual to go to a PAC. Our only limit is that during the last 21 days before an election, no contributor may donate more than $5000 to a candidate or political committee.

The other limit some states impose on contributions to PACs is to limit corporate and union contributions. These include:

Alabama $500/election, Arkansas $5000/calender yr, California $6000/election, Connecticut $2000/calendar year, Florida $500/election, Hawaii $1000/election, Indiana $5000 state candidates, Louisiana $100,000 4 yr cycle, Maryland $4000/4 yr cycle, Mississippi $1000/calendar year, New Hampshire $5000/election, New Jersey $7200/yr, New York $5000 total/yr, South Carolina $3500/calendar yr, and Vermont $2000//2 yr cycle.

Meanwhile Washington State allows unlimited corporate and union contributions to PACs with the 21 day rule exception above limiting contributions to no more than $5000 in the last 21 days before an election.

Going even further, a number of states ban all corporate and union contributions to PACs including Alaska, Arizona, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

We can do things differently in Washington State. While the US Supreme Court has overturned strict spending limits, they have agreed that reasonable limits on contributions are acceptable.

Equalizing corporate and union and individual contributions to PACs to be the same limits as those to candidate campaign committees seems a reasonable way to reduce the influence of special interests with huge bankrolls from overwhelming the voice of individual voters.

A limit of $1600 to contributions to candidate campaign committees and independent PACs per election would help stop the flood of special interest contributions trying to outshout the voices of individual citizens engaging in the electoral process.

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