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It's official: Complaint dismissed against incoming schools chief Dorn

• Published December 06, 2008

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The state Public Disclosure Commission formally dismissed a campaign-season complaint against incoming state schools superintendent Randy Dorn and urged the Attorney General to drop another.

Staffers at the commission had recommended the dismissal after investigating the issues. The five-member citizen commission made that dismissal formal on Thursday in a meeting in Olympia. Here’s a recap of the case I wrote earlier this week and posted.

Among the issues were whether the Service Employees International Union’s donations to an independent expenditure committee were earmarked to help Dorn. Another was whether Dorn could, as president of the Public School Employees union, receive third-party support from a political committee funded by his union’s parent union, the SEIU.

The apparent answers were no and yes.

Here is the staff report that recommended the dismissal. It also asks the Attorney General’s Office to drop action on a related complaint filed on behalf of incumbent schools chief Terry Bergeson by lawyer Judith Lonnquist.

Here's a story on Lonnquist’s 45-day letter that put the AG on notice in October she might sue over the issue. Here's a story on her original complaint to the PDC in August.

And here's Tacoma News Tribune columnist Peter Callaghan's take on the legal issues for Dorn and the Service Employees International Union, which funded the independent political action committee, Citizens for Washington, which spent heavily on Dorn’s behalf.

I guess we wait to see if any lawsuit is filed.