Article by Erik Smith. Published on Tuesday, July 12, 2011 EST.
New Public Disclosure Reports Show Big Money Flowing to Initiatives, Governor’s Race
Supporters of SEIU’s Initiative 1163 drop off petitions at the state elections office Friday.
See also: Liquor, highway-toll and SEIU initiatives seem sure bets for ballot.
UPDATE, 7 a.m., July 13: Story updated to reflect discrepancy in PDC records.
By Erik Smith
Staff writer/ Washington State Wire
OLYMPIA, July 12.—There’s a whole political coalition backing this year’s liquor initiative, but to read the latest campaign-finance reports you might get a different idea.
Costco Wholesale put up virtually every dime of the $1.8 million that it took to get the measure to the state elections office on Friday. And that’s just what shows up in the records so far – you can bet that number’s going to go higher. It’s one of the most striking details that shows up in the latest batch of campaign-finance reports, which were due at the state Public Disclosure Commission on July 10.
The campaign paperwork shows that all three initiative campaigns have already topped the million-dollar mark. And the just-started race for governor in 2012 is attracting plenty of interest from the fat-wallet folk, as expected.
But the biggest question about this year’s campaigns is only partially answered by the latest filings. The liquor-privatization measure, I-1183, faced the tightest deadline in state history to gather the 241,000 signatures it needed for a place on the ballot. And it looks like it made it. Last Friday, the 21st day after a Thurston County judge approved the ballot title and gave the green light, the measure’s supporters backed up a truck at the state elections office and carried boxes inside that contained petitions with 354,398 names. That’s more than enough to qualify.
It wasn’t that anyone really doubted they could do it. Last year the soda-pop industry made the deadline for its I-1107 in an only-slightly-less daunting 29 days. And the same company, Winner & Mandabach of Santa Monica, Calif., was overseeing this drive.
But if they were going to set a record for signature gathering, would they set a record for spending, too?
Not Final Answer
Actually, we still don’t know the answer to that one. The latest reports only show bills paid through the end of June, and odds are the figures don’t reflect the entire tab. So we won’t have a final answer until the Aug. 10 reports are filed.
But right now it looks like it comes pretty close to last year’s soda-pop campaign. That one spent a total $2.5 million to get to the ballot and an astonishing total of $16 million to get voters to say yes.
So far the reports filed by the liquor campaign indicate that it has raised and spent a little over $1.8 million. About $16,000 came from the Washington Restaurant Association and the Northwest Grocery Association. Other backers are the Washington Retail Association and the Washington Food Industry Association, but they haven’t put up any money so far. All the rest comes from Issaquah-based Costco, which has been seeking to rewrite Washington’s liquor laws for years – in the Legislature, in court, and finally at the ballot box.
Not all of that money went to actual signature-gathering, of course. Expenses include polling, political consulting, research and a myriad other tasks. One item worth noting is an “in-kind” contribution of $315,000 for Costco staff time. The chain gathered some 150,000 signatures from customers who came to the store.
Don’t worry, you’re going to see a lot more by the time this one is done – and Costco won’t be the only one behind it, said spokesman Mark Funk. “We’ve heard our opponents say they’re going to match us dollar for dollar, and we know we have to have a significant campaign war-chest.”
Money for the Guv
Two big-name candidates have launched campaigns for governor in the last month, and where the money race is concerned it looks like Republican Rob McKenna is ahead. McKenna has raised $667,920 since he launched his campaign June 8.
Democrat Jay Inslee isn’t far behind. He launched June 27 and has $513,033.
Keep in mind that this isn’t their year. They still have 16 months to go. There aren’t many candidates on the ballot this time around – just a couple of legislative races and a few local ones. So this is really what things look like at the starting gate.
The only appreciable fund-raising in any other race is for the attorney general position McKenna will vacate to make his bid for governor. Two Democrats have been in the running for months. John Ladenburg has raised $57,220 and King County Councilman Robert Ferguson has $204,528. But catching up fast is Republican Reagan Dunn, who jumped into the race last month a few days after McKenna launched. Already he has $151,077.
SEIU Spends Big Money
Looks like the Service Employees International Union spent $1.16 million to get to the ballot. It is backing I-1163, a measure that would reinstate a home-care training measure that was passed by voters in 2008. Voters approved the costly training program by a huge margin, 73 percent, but lawmakers balked because the initiative provided no money at a time when the state was in its worst budget crisis ever. Cost of the program in its first two years is $55 million for state employees alone; private health care agencies and workers would have to pay from their own pocket.
The report shows that SEIU Local 775, which represents the state’s 40,000 home-care workers, is the only contributor to the campaign. It has put a total $1.36 million into the kitty.
There’s more where that’s coming from. SEIU 775 asked its members to vote for a dues surcharge, and it announced over the weekend that they said yes by an 85-15 margin. The “emergency fund” surcharge – $5 a month for five months – will raise $1 million for the initiative campaign and for a lawsuit against the Department of Social and Health Services that challenges cuts to home care hours. A public-education campaign also is contemplated.
Highway Toll Measure Gets Bellevue Dough
The numbers on the PDC regarding Initiative 1125 are a little confusing. On the official website, the totals for the highway-toll measure indicate that it has raised $681,521 and spent some $594,811 so far. But three big contributions during the month of June from Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman showed up on the PDC website sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, and those are not reflected in the totals.
So if you look at the detailed reports, not the totals, you can see that the campaign has raised $1.3 million, and $1,093,000 came from Freeman. Because the agency doesn’t appear to have updated the totals, we’ll have to go with Eyman’s accounting – he says a hair over $1 million was spent on the signature drive.
The measure would place restrictions on highway tolling and is a direct hit on plans to toll the I-90 bridge across Lake Washington to help pay for a new Highway 520 bridge further north. The measure would require that tolls collected on a given stretch of highway be spent on that specific project. Freeman’s interests are obvious: He sees the tolls as a threat to his Bellevue Square mall and other downtown Bellevue interests, because they would discourage the flow of traffic across the lake from Seattle. In a statement released late Tuesday by Eyman’s campaign, Freeman said:
“Citizens are rightly suspicious of tolls because of a valid concern that Olympia will raid such revenues during ’emergencies.’ That’s why I-1125’s policies requiring accountability and transparency are so necessary. Tolls aren’t taxes and I-1125 keeps it that way.”
Not Much Action on ‘No’ Side
There’s not much opposition activity yet. There are two “no” campaigns, against the liquor and toll measures, but the fund-raising numbers are in the low five digits. That stands to reason. Until the state elections office gives a thumbs-up, opponents usually don’t start raising money. On the third initiative, dealing with the home-care training rules, home-care agencies and adult family homes are forming an opposition campaign, but they haven’t filed paperwork yet.
The fund-raising reports tell one other tale – about a half-million-dollar signature drive that was tossed into the wastebasket, but still might have been money well spent. The national Humane Society blew big bucks to get I-1130 to the ballot, and supporters claim it had more than enough – but the supporters never bothered to turn them in. The measure would have required big changes to the conditions under which egg-laying hens are caged, and most likely would have passed easily. Washington voters have approved animal-rights measures twice, and a similar measure passed in California in 2008.
As the Washington deadline approached, the egg farmers’ national association bargained with the activists in D.C. One day before the deadline, they announced they would compromise and seek national legislation from Congress. The Washington measure was yanked, as well as an initiative filed in Oregon for 2012.
The reports show the animal rights-activists had raised $584,276 and spent all but $9,000 of it. Most of it was from the national Humane Society. Meanwhile, the egg farmers won’t have to spend the $420,157 they had set aside, and even though they’d already spent a little, they’ll get most of it back.
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