Complaint filed in race to lead schools

By Brad Shannon | The Olympian • Published August 12, 2008

• Comments (0)

Backers of state schools superintendent Terry Bergeson filed a final-week campaign-finance complaint against the campaign of top rival Randy Dorn, accusing him Monday of violating state election laws.

The complaint, prepared by Bergeson treasurer Judith Lonn-quist, was filed at the state Public Disclosure Commission.

The PDC, a campaign-finance watchdog, will not be able to determine the validity of the complaint before the Aug. 19 primary, spokeswoman Lori Anderson said.

Bergeson or Dorn could win the election outright Aug. 19 if either receives 50 percent or more of the vote, according to rules for statewide nonpartisan races.

The complaint says Dorn's campaign has coordinated its ad purchases with a political action committee, Citizens for Washington. The PAC is financed by $182,500 from Washington, D.C.-based Service Employees International Union-PEA International and $10,000 from SEIU 925 in Seattle.

"This massive dump of out-of-state money is a clear effort to buy Dorn a victory in the primary election," Lonnquist, a lawyer, said in a news release.

SEIU practices

Adam Glickman, a spokesman for SEIU 775 Northwest in Seattle, said the union has been careful not to violate any rules.

SEIU has a "firewall" to ensure that any of its people involved in independent expenditures do not communicate with people on SEIU staffs who are in contact with campaigns, Glickman said.

He accused the Bergeson campaign of trying to change the subject of the campaign from Bergeson being a strong advocate of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning test given to students as a condition of graduation, while Dorn wants to replace the WASL with different testing.

The union got involved to the tune of $192,000 because it has many low-income members who are ill-served by Washington's schools amid "rising dropout rates" and "failing schools" and it believes a change is needed, Glickman said. He noted that Dorn also is executive director of Public School Employees, a union affiliated with SEIU, and has a background as a legislator that would help him make changes.