Constantine’s Treasurer, Consultant Become Issue

By Evan at September 10th, 2009.

The public’s right to know about the financing of political activity in Washington State is embodied in our state’s strict campaign finance laws. The intent of the law as written is to assure that candidates operate campaigns in an open and honest way.

A local blogger in King County has done some interesting leg work that implicates the Dow Constantine for King County Executive campaign in a tangled we of relationships, that likely violate Washington’s campaign finance laws.

The blogger, Angie Vogt, suggests Constantine sharing a treasurer and consultant with groups spending big bucks to “independently” attack his opponents (first in the primary, and now in the general election), is likely a violation of our state’s campaign finance laws:

Leafing through campaign finance documents available to the public from theWashington State Public Disclosure Commission (PDC), Seattle Times Reporter, Keith Ervin, reported in an August 5th story that an independent, “non-partisan” political action committee (PAC) calling itself “Citizens to Uphold the Constitution,” had an interesting link to the Dow Constantine campaign: they share the same treasurer, Jason Bennett. Surprisingly, that was the end of Ervin’s interest in the matter.

According to their expenditures report filed to the PDC, Citizens to Uphold the Constitution, paid $11,300.25 to Washington, D.C.-based vendor, “The Clinton Group,” to perform robocalls attacking Susan Hutchison. The sponsor of the group who purchased the vendor services is named as Jason Bennett, who, according to the Seattle Times article, is also Dow Constantine’s treasurer.

The situation appears to be a violation of RCW 42.17.020 and WAC 390-05-210. The RCW, in section 28, defines independent expenditure, which forbids collaboration between a candidate (the candidate’s campaign staff or any agent of that campaign) and a group or person purchasing advertising for that candidate or against the candidate’s opponent.

…

So, just to review: it is illegal for a candidate’s campaign to coordinate with independent groups who finance attack ads against opponents or who fund campaign activities in support of said candidate. Jason Bennett, the treasurer for Dow Constantine, owns his own political consulting firm and is listed as the sponsor for the group that purchased attack robocalls against Susan Hutchison (an opponent of Dow Constantine).

If the allegations are true, one would think the local media would already be busy applying the antiseptic qualities of “sunshine,” that is, they’d be all over this.

To be fair, it was a Seattle Times reporter who first uncovered the Constantine campaign and the attack groups were sharing a treasurer.

Perhaps the more appropriate question then, is when will the paper follow up on its own political reporting?!

Could it be that Seattle’s only remaining paper doesn’t want to strike Constantine’s campaign anything resembling a heavy blow, and in the process, hand his opponent, who is leading in the polls (and who they openly mock and loathe) a major campaign issue?

Given the non-partisan reform message that Susan Hutchison is delivering with some success, and the negative public attitude towards dirty or illegal campaigning (read: corruption that’s par for the course of local Democratic politics), the above allegations, if true, could severely damage Constantine.

Stay tuned.

[H/T: Sound Politics]

Tags: Dow Constantine, featured, King County, Susan Hutchison