Washington’s campaign finance law enforcement agency has fined conservative groups $20,000 behind a series of initiatives that appeared on this November’s ballot.
The Disclosure Committee found that Let’s Go Washington failed to report spending on subcontractors used by companies it paid during the signature-gathering process last year that was successful in moving the initiative forward. did.
In a decision issued Wednesday, the watchdog found that the conservative political committee violated state law by failing to submit its books to the committee in a timely manner.
The decision follows more than a year of complaints about Let’s Go Washington’s campaign finances, which began in July 2023, after a complaint by a coalition of progressive advocacy groups organized under the banner “Save Washington.” This is the conclusion of an extensive investigation.
The charges were filed in September, and the commission held its final hearing on the matter last week.
Let’s Go Washington, founded by billionaire conservative hedge fund manager Brian Heywood, successfully gathered enough signatures to send six initiatives to Congress earlier this year, and lawmakers They chose to adopt half of them.
The remaining efforts will be up to voters in the Nov. 5 general election to end the state’s cap-and-trade program aimed at combating climate change, eliminate the capital gains tax, and connect the state’s long-term care program. We aim to create something that will Tax is optional.
The complaint and subsequent investigation and decision focused on signature-gathering efforts for these six initiatives and related spending.
The committee believes that Let’s Go Washington is not doing its due diligence in investigating and publicly reporting whether funds provided to contractors for signature efforts were subsequently passed on to subcontractors supporting that work. Because of its failure to evaluate, it found that Defend Washington’s claims of inadequate record-keeping were substantiated.
To highlight the commission’s shortcomings, the public commission added language in its agreement with Allstate Petition Management, one of the commission’s top contractors, regarding tracking amounts paid to subcontractors. It was cited that it was not included at all.
Let’s Go Washington has paid more than $1.8 million to APM to date, including about $10 million paid to four petition companies in 2023 and 2024, according to committee records. section is included.
Let’s Go Washington later requested information about subcontractor payments, but the company’s owner and operator, Roy Ruffino, refused, calling it “proprietary.” The Committee did not consider that to be a reason to dismiss the charges.
“Failure to question or follow up on a contractor’s non-response or refusal to provide information is not sufficient,” the ruling states. “If this were the norm, any committee could ignore this issue and claim they knew nothing about the contractor’s conduct and had nothing to report.”
During its investigation, the committee found that Let’s Go Washington reported spending and donations on petitions as a single trial rather than providing a report for each individual effort.
The committee later amended its report, and in May PDC was ordered to prepare its books to double-check that expenditures were correctly reported and “appropriately allocated to each initiative,” according to committee records. I asked for it. The PDC requires its books of accounts to be “available for audit or inspection by the PDC at any time upon request” for up to five years, as required by state law.
But Let’s Go Washington did not provide the books until forced to do so by court subpoena, after the agency made two formal requests in May and July.
According to commission records, the commission is responding to these requests because it is already pursuing other initiatives aimed at establishing natural gas use in the state, and that responding to the requests would be a “big deal.” “It will be a burden,” he said.
When the commission finally received the books in August, it found no record-keeping deficiencies aside from the lack of subcontractor reporting.
“Although the accounting books were incomplete and not prepared in a timely manner, they were not deleted or destroyed and remain available if needed,” the ruling said.
Let’s Go Washington will only have to pay half of the fine if it pays within 30 days of the decision, complies with the PDC for the next four years, and corrects missing information about its subcontractors.
In a written statement after the decision, Haywood touted the committee’s findings on parts of campaign finance law and criticized Let’s Go Washington’s critics.
He argues that if his committee is in violation by not reporting subcontractor spending, so are the progressive committees that oppose the effort.
“If investigating subcontractors is paramount, then the same investigative standards should apply to all entities involved in the 2024 election,” Haywood said.
Heywood said Let’s Go Washington has filed six complaints with the commission alleging violations found by his organization.
Two of the charges concern the activities of the Defend Washington and No On Initiative 2109 groups this campaign season, and the other concerns the progressive group’s activities in campaigns dating back to 2019.
