Political Committee Sponsor

Definition 

A sponsor is any person to whom any of the following applies:

• the committee receives 80% of more of its contributions from the person or from the person's members, officers, employees, or shareholders, or
• the person collects contributions for the committee by use of payroll deductions or dues from its members, officers, or employees.

RCW 42.17A.005(39)  "Person" includes an individual, partnership, joint venture, public or private corporation, association, federal, state, or local governmental entity or agency however constituted, candidate, committee, political committee, political party, executive committee thereof, or any other organization or group of persons, however organized.

It is possible that a political committee will have one sponsor, multiple sponsors, or no sponsor.  It is also possible that a contributor who is a sponsor under the 80% threshold described will not be a sponsor for the entire campaign.

Sponsor Restrictions

A person may sponsor only one political committee for the same elected office or same ballot measure per election cycle.  In other words, two committees who have the same sponsor may not contribute to the same candidate or ballot measure committee.  Once one of the committees contributes to a particular candidate, the other committee may not make independent expenditures or electioneering communications benefitting the candidate or who received contributions from the sponsor's other committee. The same restriction would apply if one of the committees had contributed to a ballot measure committee another committee with the same sponsor would not be able to make independent expenditures benefitting the ballot measure.