October 03, 2024
Enforcement cases delayed until October
Two enforcement cases with high-profile respondents were originally scheduled to come before the Commission in September but have been continued to meetings scheduled in October.
The first case, against Let’s Go Washington, was originally scheduled for a special meeting on Sept. 19. That matter will now be heard in a special meeting on Oct. 3. A second case, against the Washington State Republican Party, was originally scheduled to be held during the Sept. 26 regular meeting, but will now be heard at the Oct. 24 regular meeting.
In both cases, the respondents asked to delay the hearings.
Commissioner Nancy Isserlis said she the case against the Republican party was moved at the last minute, and expressed concern about how close that hearing now falls to the November general election.
“I think if the Commission wants to be relevant and timely especially as important matters come up before an election … we need to take that into consideration,” she said. “I think we have a responsibility to the voters of this state to handle matters timely.”
The commissioners all committed to being available for special meetings to handle compliance cases in a timely manner.
Project to identify filers missing mandatory reports and send reminders shows promise
A project launched in advance of this year’s primary election to identify filers missing mandatory expenditure reports has resulted in improved compliance in filing those reports, PDC staff reported.
The project, launched in cooperation with the PDC’s customer service and IT teams, identified filers who owed mandatory 21- and 7-day pre-election and post-election expenditure reports. Staff then sent reminders before the reports were due, and overdue notices to filers who had not met the deadline.
For the 21-day report, staff sent 462 reminders and 102 overdue notices, for the 7-day report 458 reminders and 78 overdue notices, and for the post-election report, 383 reminders and 62 overdue notices, showing that compliance was improving throughout the process.
As of Sept. 25, the overall compliance rate for the 21-day report was 96 percent, 96 percent for the 7-day report and 92 percent for the post-election report.
“This is an experiment that worked really really well,” Commission Chair Allen Hayward said.
PDC Chief Information Officer James Gutholm commented on how fast PDC staff were able to deploy this project, when the norm in government seems to be for projects to drag out for months or longer.
“We do things very differently here and we’re able to do that because of the support of the management team and the Commission in understanding that we get much more benefit out of having expertise in house that understand the PDC and our processes and all have a shared goal toward the mission of the agency and that is ultimately serving the public,” Gutholm said.
Hayward said he’d like for state law to move toward having more fixed dates for mandatory reports, rather than having most expenditure report filing deadlines be dependent on activity as they are now. That shift would make it easier to expand the current project to include more filing dates.
Commission dismisses request asking for exemption from contribution limits
The Commission denied a petition for a declaratory order that was withdrawn by the requester prior to the hearing.
The petition for the declaratory order from the Clean Water Accountability Coalition asked for relief from the contribution limit requirements in RCW. 42.17A.405, which apply to committees that are organized to support a recall election effort. The group is seeking to recall Spokane County Commissioner Al French, and opposes his election in November. The race is contested.
The petition relies on two prior PDC decisions to grant such relief, based on the legal case Farris V. Seabrook, which held that contribution limits are unconstitutional for a recall committee if there is no evidence that the recall committee had any connection to a candidate for the office that was the subject of the recall.
The group argued that it met the same conditions. However, the recall is going on at the same time as the contested race for the office, for which French is a candidate.
“The problem is of course the intertwining of the recall with an actual contested election in which it allows you to beat the whole campaign limit (system) if you can dump all your money into the recall campaign and do it that way,” said Commissioner Doug North.
Commission Chair Hayward agreed with that assessment.
PDC General Counsel Sean Flynn prepared a memo for the Commission recommending that the petition be denied, because the facts presented by the Coalition did not support that claim.
The Coalition withdrew its petition shortly before the Sept. 26 Commission meeting.
Commissioner Nancy Isserlis noted that the Legislature has not updated the statute to reflect the Farris decision.
“I spent as I’m sure my fellow commissioners did quite a bit of time over the weekend and as recently as yesterday reviewing this matter,” Isserlis said. She said some of the information provided by the group was incorrect, and said organizations requesting a declaratory order like this should “get the facts right in the letter requesting it.”
“The time commissioners spend is one thing. I’m concerned this caused staff to spend an awful lot of time responding to this,” she said.
PDC finds violations, orders thousands of dollars in fines for officials who haven’t filed financial affairs statements
The Public Disclosure Commission found that Jean Dillenburg, an elected hospital commissioner for Grant County Hospital District 4, failed to file a Personal Financial Affairs Statement, or F-1 report, for calendar year 2023.
Elected and some appointed officials in Washington are required to file the F-1 annually. The report is designed to reveal potential conflicts of interest and includes information about a candidate or official’s personal financial interests.
Dillenburg has two prior violations for failing to file an F-1, in 2021 and 2022. The Commission found that Dillenburg violated the law and imposed a penalty of $2,000 with $1,000 suspended provided all reports are filed and the fine is paid within 30 days of the order.
The Commission also found that Sativah Jones, a commissioner for the Student Achievement Council, failed to file a Personal Financial Affairs statement for calendar year 2023. Jones has two prior violations for failing to file the F-1 report, in 2023 and 2022. The commission imposed a fine of $2,000 with $1,000 suspended provided the fine is paid and reports filed within 30 days of the order.
Enforcement update
Between Aug. 15 and Sept. 18, the Public Disclosure Commission received 168 new complaints. As of Sept. 18, it had 295 active cases.
Of those 295 active cases, 112 are under initial review (meaning that they are within 90 days of being filed), 176 have had initial hearings and are now under formal investigation, five are scheduled to go to a brief enforcement hearing and two are scheduled for full hearings with the Commission.
During that same time period, 36 cases were closed, including two closed with no evidence of a violation, one reminder, two remediable errors, nine technical corrections, 18 warnings and four statements of understanding.
The PDC has recently been getting batches of complaints regarding reports that were filed late, but that were filed late as a result of compliance investigations by PDC staff.
“There’s kind of two types of those complaints... a complaint was filed, we opened the case, (and) we’re in the process of working with that respondent … and then there comes another report due and they don’t file that one too so there’s another complaint,” said Deputy Director Kim Bradford. “There’s also the kind of case where it maybe spans a year of reporting and they’ve clearly had some problems being timely so we’re working with them to get everything into order, and while that investigation is going on they’re filing reports at our direction and complaints are being filed about those reports because they’re late.”
PDC staff are working to determine when complaints are duplicative of issues already under review.