Tim Eyman broke the law with ad campaign against Democratic legislators, PDC confirms

Ini­tia­tive prof­i­teer Tim Eyman has once against been bust­ed for seri­ous vio­la­tions of Wash­ing­ton State’s pub­lic dis­clo­sure laws.

Staff at the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion — Wash­ing­ton’s equiv­a­lent of the Fed­er­al Elec­tions Com­mis­sion — have fin­ished inves­ti­gat­ing a com­plaint filed by NPI part­ner Wash­ing­to­ni­ans For Eth­i­cal Gov­ern­ment sev­er­al weeks ago which alleges that Eyman and his asso­ciates vio­lat­ed RCW 42.17A when they launched a series of ads against the major­i­ty of Wash­ing­ton State’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers in April.

Their ver­dict? Eyman and his asso­ciates broke the law. Again.

RCW Chap­ter 42.17A requires that any per­son or enti­ty that inde­pen­dent­ly spends at least $1,000 sup­port­ing or oppos­ing any can­di­date for state/local office report the expen­di­ture to the PDC, and iden­ti­fy its tar­get. Inde­pen­dent expen­di­ture adver­tis­ing must also con­tain cer­tain dis­clo­sures, includ­ing the state­ment, “No can­di­date autho­rized this ad. It is paid for by (name, city, state)”.

When Eyman decid­ed to launch an ad cam­paign attack­ing the Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers who defied his demands for a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to sab­o­tage our state’s major­i­ty vote require­ment for leg­is­la­tion, he failed to fol­low the rules, once again demon­strat­ing his con­tempt for our cit­i­zen-cre­at­ed cam­paign finance laws.

The ads col­lec­tive­ly cost $45,318, and appear to have financed prin­ci­pal­ly by Eyman’s wealthy bene­fac­tors Clyde Hol­land and Ken­neth Fish­er, who each donat­ed $22,500 to the Eyman-con­trolled PAC that paid for the ads to be produced.

A few weeks fol­low­ing the launch of the ads, after Eyman had failed to take any cor­rec­tive action, Wash­ing­to­ni­ans For Eth­i­cal Gov­ern­ment (which I sit on the board of) noti­fied Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son and King Coun­ty Pros­e­cut­ing Attor­ney Dan Sat­ter­berg of its intent to bring a law­suit against Eyman on behalf of the state if they did not com­mence action against Eyman with­in fifty-five days.

Fer­gu­son’s office referred the mat­ter to the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion and the PDC opened an inves­ti­ga­tion. Around the same time, Eyman took down the ads and their accom­pa­ny­ing web­site. Now it appears the PDC will be send­ing the mat­ter back to Fer­gu­son with a request to pros­e­cute. Here’s the PDC staff’s find­ings:

Inves­tiga­tive Find­ings and Conclusion

Based on the fac­tors iden­ti­fied in the inves­ti­ga­tion, staff found and con­clud­ed as follows:

Bring Back Our $30 Car Tabs – VMWC – 2016 filed a C‑4 Sum­ma­ry, Full Report of Receipts and Expen­di­tures on April 11, 2016, dis­clos­ing more than $45,000 in expen­di­tures paid in March of 2016 to spon­sor 21 Web videos that opposed 49 can­di­dates for state leg­isla­tive office. The ini­tial C‑4 did not dis­close that the pur­pose of the expen­di­tures was to oppose a can­di­date for office, as required by RCW 42.17A.240(6) and WAC 390–16-037(1), and did not describe the expens­es as inde­pen­dent expen­di­tures. That pur­pose and descrip­tion was first dis­closed 44 days late, on an amend­ed C‑4 report filed on May 25, 2016.

Based on the pro-rat­ed val­ue of these com­mu­ni­ca­tions per can­di­date, it appears that ten of the 21 videos at issue met the statu­to­ry def­i­n­i­tion of “inde­pen­dent expen­di­ture.” Per RCW 42.17A.320(4) these ten videos were required to include the “No can­di­date autho­rized this ad” dis­claimer; the sponsor’s name, city and state; and accu­rate “Top 5 con­trib­u­tors” information.

The spon­sor ID state­ment in the videos con­tained an abbre­vi­at­ed ver­sion of the sponsor’s name (“Vot­ers Want More Choic­es”) but did not con­tain the committee’s city or state. The videos also did not include the state­ment “No can­di­date autho­rized this ad.” Final­ly, the videos list­ed incor­rect “Top 5 Con­trib­u­tors” information.

C‑1pc Polit­i­cal Com­mit­tee Reg­is­tra­tions cur­rent­ly on file for Bring Back Our $30 Car Tabs – VMWC – 2016 indi­cate the committee’s sole pur­pose is to sup­port Ini­tia­tive 1421 in the 2016 gen­er­al elec­tion. The committee’s C‑1pc reg­is­tra­tions do not iden­ti­fy any can­di­date that the com­mit­tee will sup­port or oppose.

Although the issue was not raised in the Cit­i­zen Action Notice, with­in ten days of spon­sor­ing the committee’s March 28, 2016 expen­di­tures to oppose a can­di­date, or to sup­port a bal­lot propo­si­tion oth­er than I‑1421, Bring Back Our $30 Car Tabs – VMWC – 2016 was required under RCW 42.17A.205(4) to file an amend­ed C‑1pc indi­cat­ing the committee’s updat­ed pur­pose. This amend­ment, due no lat­er than April 7, 2016, is 89 days late as of the date of this exec­u­tive summary.

Final­ly, in their Cit­i­zen Action Notice, the com­plainants did not make a spe­cif­ic alle­ga­tion con­cern­ing any alleged fail­ure by Bring Back Our $30 Car Tabs – VMWC – 2016 to file C‑6 Inde­pen­dent Expen­di­ture reports. Nev­er­the­less, PDC staff reviewed a pos­si­ble C‑6 fil­ing require­ment for the polit­i­cal com­mit­tee, and found no such require­ment under any of the rel­e­vant statu­to­ry pro­vi­sions: RCW 42.17A.255, RCW 42.17A.260, and RCW 42.17A.305.

Recommendation

For the rea­sons described above, staff rec­om­mends that the Com­mis­sion find mul­ti­ple appar­ent vio­la­tions of RCW 42.17A.205, RCW 42.17A.240, and RCW 42.17A.320, and rec­om­mend to the Wash­ing­ton Attor­ney Gen­er­al that that office take appro­pri­ate action con­cern­ing the appar­ent fail­ure of Bring Back Our $30 Car Tabs – VWMC – 2016 and its offi­cers Tim Eyman, Jack Fagan, Mike Fagan, and Bar­bara Smith to sup­ple­ment the committee’s polit­i­cal com­mit­tee reg­is­tra­tion by dis­clos­ing updat­ed infor­ma­tion, its fail­ure to dis­close expens­es incurred to oppose can­di­dates for leg­isla­tive office in a com­plete and time­ly man­ner, and its fail­ure to include com­plete and accu­rate spon­sor iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and con­trib­u­tor infor­ma­tion in the committee’s inde­pen­dent expen­di­ture polit­i­cal advertising.

The Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion is slat­ed to hear the above-excerpt­ed staff report at a meet­ing this Fri­day, where it will like­ly vote to accept the rec­om­men­da­tion to send the mat­ter to Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son for fur­ther action.

Fer­gu­son’s office is already inves­ti­gat­ing Eyman for seri­ous vio­la­tions of RCW 42.17A com­mit­ted dur­ing the last pres­i­den­tial elec­tion cycle in 2012, and attempt­ing to ascer­tain if the law was vio­lat­ed dur­ing oth­er time peri­ods. Judges in Sno­homish and Thurston Supe­ri­or Courts have signed off on orders request­ed by the Attor­ney Gen­er­al to enforce sub­poe­nas issued months ago as part of that inves­ti­ga­tion, which Tim Eyman and his asso­ciates were refus­ing to com­ply with.

Eyman and com­pa­ny have until next Wednes­day to turn over the doc­u­ments the Attor­ney Gen­er­al wants. If they don’t, they could be held in con­tempt of court.

With­in a few days, it looks like the AG will have a sec­ond set of Chap­ter 42.17A vio­la­tions com­mit­ted by Eyman to pros­e­cute. And there could be more on the way.

Eyman is in unques­tion­ably in a world of legal trou­ble — and deserved­ly so.

For far too long, Eyman has oper­at­ed as though the law sim­ply does­n’t apply to him. He has been active in Wash­ing­ton pol­i­tics for about two decades now, and he should know what the rules are and how to fol­low them. He also has the mon­ey to afford a first-rate trea­sur­er. Yet his pat­tern of incom­plete report­ing, delin­quent fil­ing, con­ceal­ment, and slop­py record­keep­ing has con­tin­ued unabated.

Eyman’s con­tempt for our pub­lic dis­clo­sure laws can­not be tol­er­at­ed. It’s time for Eyman and his asso­ciates to be held account­able and to pay a steep price for their law­break­ing. We com­mend the staff of the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion for swift­ly wrap­ping up this inves­ti­ga­tion and for rec­om­mend­ing this mat­ter be referred to Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son for fur­ther action.