BIAW: Democratic group's reports faulty

By Brad Shannon | The Olympian • Published July 24, 2008

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The conservative Building Industry Association of Washington took aim at a rival Evergreen Progress political action committee Wednesday, filing a complaint with state campaign regulators over the Democratic group's faulty financial reports.

But it appears that Evergreen Progress, which is largely funded by the Service Employees International Union and Democratic Governors Association, fixed those documents and filed them the same day.

The newly filed papers list television and radio stations around the state where Evergreen already spent $955,377 on ads blasting Republican candidate for governor Dino Rossi.

The latest ads this week highlight Rossi's work as a state senator in 2003 that helped suspend two citizen initiatives for education, including pay raises for experienced teachers.

Former Democratic Gov. Gary Locke actually proposed both moves, but Rossi copied them into his budget plans while putting back some pay increases for beginning teachers.

"I'm not sure if there will be any enforcement action as a result of the complaint or not," Lori Anderson of the state Public Disclosure Commission said late Wednesday. "We'll have to take a look at what wasn't reported and see if there was some information that was critical for the public and how much time had gone by since we asked them to do it."

BIAW has run hard-hitting ads against Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire's record on foster care, public safety and approval of a tribal gambling expansion while tribes donated to her campaign and state Democratic coffers. It also is hitting her on gasoline taxes, which she helped to raise.

But the complaint is the first time the independent groups appear to have gone after each other.

The BIAW suggested in its complaint that the PDC was treating it differently than Evergreen. Where BIAW responded within two days to itemize its ad-buys, the PDC had let a week go by on Evergreen, the builders asserted.

"We see no reason why It's Time for a Change and Evergreen Progress should be treated differently when it comes to enforcement of reporting rules," BIAW political director Elliot Swaney wrote to the PDC.

"Whenever It's Time for a Change fails to cross a t or dot an i on a report, a PDC complaint is filed, and the PDC launches an exhaustive, months-long 'investigation.' … Evergreen should be held to the same standard to which BIAW is subjected," Swaney said in the news release.

Anderson said BIAW started running ads first and was questioned about them. After BIAW let the PDC know Evergreen's reports for June and July also were faulty, Anderson said she let the group know last week.

"We do our best to make sure reports filed are done properly. We contacted both parties and treated them the same," Anderson said.

Evergreen's chairman, Rick Desimone, said his group has done what it can to follow rules and responded quickly after getting notice Friday from the PDC about its flawed filings.

"... We think politics is meant to have a lot of voices adding to the debate, but we understand the state of Washington has implemented rules around how debate can occur and we take those rules seriously. We've done everything we can to comply with those rules," he said.