But Hinkle’s ire is pure partisanship and likely will go nowhere during this special legislative session dedicated to solving the budget imbalance.
This state has a long history when it comes to well-regulated campaign finances. When 72 percent of the voters approved Initiative 276 in 1972, it set a powerful tone of accountability. That grassroots effort created one of the strongest campaign finance laws in the nation.
Candidates were forced to disclose their sources of family income. And when in campaign mode, they had to disclose who their contributors were and how they were spending their campaign cash.
Lobbyists also were brought under the spotlight of public disclosure. They had to disclose contributions and gifts to public officials.
The creation of the State Public Disclosure Commission under I-276 was a huge advancement – one copied by many other states. We take campaign disclosure for granted in this state because the law has been on the books for nearly 40 years, but had it not been for a strong coalition of good government advocates pushing Initiative 276 back in the 1970s, we might not be as lucky.
Disclosure laws have been amended over the years and today’s electronic retrieval system is a drastic improvement over the days when reporters and members of the public had to go through PDC microfiche to find out who gave, who got and how much. Today, voters can sit at the family computer and research the campaign finance records of any candidate – from the local city council to the governor.
In 1992 voters, with a 73 percent majority, passed another campaign finance measure – Initiative 134. The ballot title that year asked, “Shall campaign contributions be limited; public funding of state and local campaigns be prohibited; and campaign related activities be restricted?”
Key to that reform, pushed by former Republican state lawmaker and later Congresswoman Linda Smith of Vancouver, was a so-called “freeze” on campaign fundraising. The law said, in effect, that it’s unseemly for lawmakers to be accepting campaign contributions from lobbyists or anyone else at the same time they are voting on legislation that could benefit those lobbyists or individuals.
The law prohibits lawmakers and statewide officials from accepting campaign contributions during a period extending from 30 days before the start of a legislative session until adjournment. Lawmakers also can’t raise money during special legislative sessions.
The law says that when in Olympia, legislators should be focused on legislative duties, not on raising campaign cash. The freeze on fundraising is appropriate, and one put in place by a lopsided majority of the voters.
The ban on fundraising applies equally to lawmakers and statewide elected officials who often push their priority bills through the Legislature. Thus, Republican Attorney General McKenna can’t accept campaign contributions from now (the special session) until the close of the 2012 legislative session scheduled to end the second week in March.
As a federal official, Democrat Inslee is not subjected to the state law. He can continue to raise money to add to his $1.7 million gubernatorial war chest, while McKenna is essentially frozen at about $1.5 million, his cash on hand at the end of October.
That’s unfair, says Republican Hinkle. He has proposed a “Campaign Financing Fairness Act” that would require federal officials running for statewide office to be subject to the same fundraising freeze.
“The same reason we don’t let lawmakers raise money during session should apply to the guy in federal office as well,” Hinkle says.
His effort smacks of hypocrisy.
As Jaime Smith, spokeswoman for the Inslee campaign, asked, “Will the bill include a retroactive clause for any nonstatewide officeholder who ran in the past? McKenna didn’t have a problem raising money for his statewide race in ’06 during the freeze, and Republicans didn’t seem to mind (Dino) Rossi raising money during the freeze in ’08 (when he was running for governor a second time).”
The fact is, Inslee is running under the rules set for national office holders. McKenna and his supporters knew they were going to be at a fundraising disadvantage when McKenna announced his candidacy. Changing the rules in the middle of the game is not right. It’s simply partisanship.
And partisanship is likely to bring a quick end to Hinkle’s proposed legislation because it will go to a committee chaired by Democrat Sam Hunt of Olympia. Hunt is right when he says the focus of the session should be on fixing the state’s $2 billion budget deficit.
If Hinkle is sincere about changing state law, he should raise the issue in a non-election year, then lawmakers can debate whether to extend the fundraising freeze.
