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Free and fair elections in Washington? Think again

By Lynn Harsh
Suppose you discovered that a large national organization secretly and illegally sent money and political operatives into our state to effect the outcome of one of our elections. Suppose most of their activities did not come to light until after the election was over. Imagine they, and their state affiliate, were caught, but the largest fine possible to levy against them was minuscule compared to what they had spent.

Suppose our state's court system decided the organization's behavior was acceptable because the amount of money spent did not amount to a major portion of its budget.

Last week, a State Supreme Court decision not to hear an appeal from Teachers for a Responsible Union (TRU) and the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF) put the final picture frame around this exact scenario.

In 1996, a group of teachers discovered that their parent union, the National Education Association (NEA), had developed a political plan and had sent a highly-paid, well-trained political operative to our state to help the Washington Education Association implement the plan, with the intention of affecting election results. By itself, this is not wrong. The political operative, however, repeatedly under-reported her six-figure earnings and repeatedly declined to reveal the identity of her employer.

NEA officials, in concert with officials from the WEA, conducted their political activities behind closed doors. They reported only a small part of these activities to the Public Disclosure Commission (PDC), as required by law.

The teachers and EFF investigated and uncovered more than $1 million in alleged unreported political activity by the giant teacher union. These campaign finance violations were brought to the attention of the PDC staff, who took the charges and investigated further.

PDC Commissioners agreed the evidence showed that the NEA's operative had indeed misled the state about who paid her and how much she was paid. The commission ordered her to pay a $2,500 fine.

But the bigger question that still needed to be addressed was what EFF had uncovered: a $1.5 million comprehensive election plan to alter our state elections-the plan the NEA strategist was sent to town to accomplish in the first place. The teachers who were compelled to finance part of the $1.5 million campaign through withholdings from their paychecks felt the $2,500 was a mere slap on the wrist and would not stop future illegal activities by the union.

On behalf of those teachers and taxpayers who deserve to know who is financing our elections, EFF took the case to Thurston County Court where a judge heard evidence for three long weeks. The court heard how, while operating in this state, the NEA operative helped coordinate a massive campaign drive which included phone banks, polling, printing and mailing material, political handouts, etc.

Union lawyers never agreed with EFF's allegations of more than a million dollars in expenditures, but they did admit that they had spent and not reported at least $700,000 on election-affecting activities.

What the court decided on this matter was stunning. The judge said spending $700,000 on politics was not "meaningful" relative to WEA's $24 million budget. Using that logic, Boeing Corporation could have spent $52 million on the election that year without their expenditure becoming "meaningful."

Furthermore, despite the earlier PDC "guilty" ruling, the judge decided that the public had no right to know of the election-affecting activities by the union's political operative. He decided she was not a person of "public interest" and ordered EFF to reimburse the cost of her defense.

While this drama was playing itself out in Thurston County Superior Court, both the NEA and WEA continued exemplifying their distaste for complying with state law. To date, they have paid more than a million dollars in fines and penalties for their illegal activity. Rather than mend their ways, union officials have often resorted to scare tactics in the form of negative advertisements, frivolous lawsuits and targeting supporters for harassment.

The recent Supreme Court decision establishes a disheartening precedent for other campaign finance watchdogs, for the public whose elections are being manipulated, and for employees whose money is forcibly taken from their paychecks to pay for politics. In essence, it says that large organizations and corporations can spend millions of dollars under cover to affect the outcome of an election, and the worst they will face is a $2,500 fine.

The right to cast a ballot in a fair election is what sets America apart from oppressive regimes around the globe. We enjoy the right to express our support for whomever we please, and we want and need to know who financially supports candidates and issues.

Think Washington state is safe from those who wish to subvert our most dearly beloved right? Think again.

Lynn Harsh is executive director of the Olympia-based Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a non-profit, free-market public policy research organization.

Evergreen Freedom Foundation P.O. Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507 Phone: (360) 956-3482, Fax: (360) 352-1874 Email: effwa@effwa.org