UPDATE: Pro-Rossi mailers could spell trouble for Republican Party

In a rare move the state’s Public Disclosure Commission on Thursday will take up a complaint filed a month ago charging the state Republican Party with illegally using exempt campaign funds to pay for mailers supporting Dino Rossi.

What’s rare about it is that the PDC investigation is not completed and no staff recommendation has been made. But the staff want to present its findings to the commission in case the panel wanted to step in now to put a stop to what may be illegal campaign activity.

The state party’s exempt account can accept unlimited contributions from donors. But that money can only be used to make limited contributions to candidates and otherwise is used to pay for things like fundraising activities, get out the vote campaigns, administrative overhead and the like.

According to a PDC staff report “the rules also state that with narrow exceptions (for sample ballots and slates of candidates), activities that promote or constitute political advertising for one or more clearly identified candidates do not qualify as exempt activities, and cannot be paid for with exempt funds.”

At issue are three mailers the PDC believes were paid for with exempt funds that criticized Gov. Chris Gregoire on the issues of taxes, spending and handling of felons. All three contained photos and quotes from Rossi and the statement “Vote for Dino Rossi and our entire State Republican Team in the August 19 Primary.”

According to the staff report the party was asked twice to respond to the complaint but had yet to do so by its Friday deadline.

The complaint was filed Aug. 18th, the same day I wrote about a get out the vote mailer produced by House Democrats' Harry Truman fund, also an exempt committee. The mailer encouraged voters to “Vote Democratic in 2008.”

It’s worth noting the next day the state Republican Party filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission against the Harry Truman fund arguing the mailer should require the caucus to file and report with the FEC because the mailer advocates for federal candidates.

The link between the two is that both complaints alleged that the accused promoted specific candidates in their mailers.

The difference? Only the Republican mailers named a candidate they sought to promote, Dino Rossi.

The last time PDC staff brought an issue to the commission so abruptly without having finished its investigation was in 2004 when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce set up the “Voters Education Committee” to levy attacks against Democratic Attorney General candidate Deborah Senn. At the time the committee was refusing to file as a political committee and report where it was getting its money.

The state Supreme Court later ruled the chamber had broken state campaign finance laws and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case on appeal.

UPDATE: The Republican Party did respond to the PDC as requested, just not in time to be reviewed before the agency sent its report to commissioners. In its letter from attorney John White the party asserts that the mailers amounted to "internal political communications" not subject to limitations. It further states that the mailers only went to members of the Republican Party as it defines them.

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: You can find a story I wrote for today’s paper on this subject here.

For more Olympia Dispatch see www.olympiadispatch.com

Stay updated with the Olympia Dispatch RSS feed: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/944/v-highlights/index.rss