When it rains it pours. I've discussed the two lawsuit filed by the Attorney General's office against the Master Builders Association of King County and Snohomish County and against the BIAW subsidiary. These suits related to allegedly illegal campaign contributions to Republican causes and recently there has been some discussion linking Dino Rossi to these events.

The State Republican Party (remember them, the ones who in their platform propose to disregard with the 14th amendment) has also recently suffered at the hands of the Public Disclosure Commission regarding campaign contributions. On September 25 the Commission heard a case entitle Washington State Republican Party, Case # 09-015.

The case relates to three letters sent out by the party during the primary season, scurrilously attacking Gregoire and recommending Rossi. The cost of these mass mailings was not reported by the party in the manner required by the law according to the Commission.

The Washington State Republican Party claimed that the communications were exempt, which seems like quite a stretch. The argument seems to be based on RCW 42.17.640(b) which exempts internal communications not associated with an individual candidate.

There were two big problems: it is hard to imagine how mass mailings are "internal" and the letters clearly favored Dino Rossi.

The party argued that the mailings went out to Republicans only, which is a problem since Republicans do not register here. There was difficulty arguing that the mailings were not associated with Rossi. Assuming that the party knew the law (which may be a significant assumption), my impression was that its behavior was based on not getting caught rather than having a solid legal justification for its actions.

The Commission had no problem finding that the party had violated the law, voting 4-1 to send the matter to the Attorney General to review commencing a lawsuit. The decision is reported here.

What interested me was the lone dissenting vote, cast by Jim Clements, a former Republican legislator. He said that he did not dispute the Commission's conclusion but that these things are "sometimes more political than substance," so he voted that there had been no violation of the law.

I hope there was an error in reporting because that is complete nonsense. He agrees with the majority but votes against it for purely political reasons based on speculation. His job is to enforce the law and he apparently would give a pass to illegal campaigning until after elections?

I hope that Rob McKenna recuses himself for a conflict of interest on this one. He declined to do so in the lawsuits previously mentioned. Here the conflict of interest seems so strong it could not be ignored.