This election cycle is a celebration of disclosure

THE OLYMPIAN | • Published November 03, 2009

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Today is Election Day. Voters must make certain that their ballots carry today's postmark. Ballot drop boxes that are scattered across the county will be open until 8 p.m. when Auditor Kim Wyman and her election staff plan to release the initial election results. (Look for the latest results at www.theolympian.com).

There are important local races on today’s ballot and two statewide ballot propositions. Initiative 1033 would limit property tax collections by state and local governments and Referendum 71 grants same-sex couples and elderly heterosexual couples the same rights of married couples.

Thanks to a recent judicial decision, voters know who is financing the campaigns for and against Referendum 71.

Score a victory for the public’s right to know.

Opponents of Referendum 71 have been ordered to abide by the state’s campaign finance laws and fully report receipts and expenditures. The opponents hope to get finance laws declared unconstitutional, but U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton called for full campaign disclosure until the constitutional issues can be heard in court and resolved.

It’s a terrific decision because it upholds the public’s right to know who is contributing to the anti-71 campaign and how those dollars are being spent.

The lawsuit was filed by a new political action committee — the Family Policy Institute of Washington. The lawsuit argues that two state campaign finance laws violate constitutional rights of free speech. They claim the ban on donations above $5,000 in the three weeks before Election Day is unconstitutional, as is the requirement that campaigns list the names of every person who contributes more than $25.

Just days before the election, Family PAC lawyers asked Judge Leighton to suspend disclosure laws. They argued that their supporters’ free speech rights would be irreparably harmed if the ban and disclosure requirements remained in place for the campaign’s final week.

Judge Leighton rejected the claim, saying Family PAC had not shown strong enough evidence to justify such an intrusion.

“I do not believe it is in the public interest for court, the week before an election, to intervene and change the rules of the game at the last minute,” he said.

Good for Judge Leighton.

When Washington adopted its campaign finance rules more than three decades ago, they were some of the most stringent reporting rules in the nation.

The clear intent of Initiative 276 in 1972 was to force candidates, lobbyists and office holders to be fully transparent in their financial affairs. The transparency and disclosure requirements had broad public support with the initiative passing by a nearly 3-to-1 margin.

We don’t believe voter support for full disclosure has waned. Residents want to know who is contributing to individual campaigns and whether those donations are influencing public policy decisions. The public wants to know what lobbyists are spending to wine and dine state lawmakers, and they want to know the source of income for elected office holders and their immediate family members. All that information is available on the state Public Disclosure Commission’s Web site, thanks in large part to strong campaign finance disclosure laws. Caving in to Family PAC would have jeopardized those laws.

Family PAC was created Oct. 21, after the legal deadline for large campaign contributions had passed. Attorney Scott Bieniek argued that because the political action committee was formed so late, it kept individuals who might want to contribute large amounts of money from doing so, thus denying them from their constitutional right to participate in the political process.

The requirement to identify all but the smallest donors, with that information readily available to the public, also frustrates some people’s right to speak their political mind, since a donation could draw retribution from others, Bieniek argued.

But Linda Dalton, a senior assistant state attorney general, said Family PAC’s request to suspend the campaign finance laws was based on hypothetical scenarios — not actual, ongoing threats that free speech rights would be irreparably violated.

All the other candidates and committees involved in the election have abided by the state’s campaign finance rules, Dalton noted.

Why should Family PAC be treated differently than other political action committees working for passage or defeat of ballot measures? They should not, and Judge Leighton saw through the rhetoric and ruled for disclosure.

Judge Leighton said the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s campaign disclosure laws will continue — at a later date. But he refused to change the disclosure rules in the final days of the campaign.

That’s a good thing for transparency in the electoral process and the public’s right to know.