For Immediate Release
August 27, 1999

Big Labor, Big Business, Big Loophole
Judge's ruling allows big organizations to spend millions on politics without complying with election laws.

OLYMPIA-On Thursday, August 26, Thurston County Superior Court Judge W. T. McPhee rendered his decision in Evergreen Freedom Foundation's case against the Washington Education Association.* In his 22-page decision, the judge ruled that the WEA was not a PAC (political action committee), stating that "the amount spent [by an organization on politics] is meaningful only in relation to the total expenditures of the organization." The judge found that participation in politics is a standard activity of a public sector union, and that reporting union political activities is unnecessary.

In reaction to the decision, EFF president Bob Williams said, "This is a green light for big special interests. The judge's ruling creates a huge loophole for big labor and big business to avoid public disclosure of political activities. This decision means Boeing with an estimated $58 billion in sales could spend $2.3 billion for politics without triggering election laws. The political power-brokers beat the citizens in this round, but we believe the principles of free and fair elections will ultimately be upheld in a higher court."

When the campaign finance reform initiative 134 was proposed, WEA fought it among the voters and before the Supreme Court. What the voters and the Supreme Court denied the WEA, Judge McPhee gave them this week. The judge's ruling interpreting I-134, an initiative designed to limit the influence of big business and big labor, is a primer for large organizations on how to conduct political activities with no public accountability. It says to them:

• Unions can influence elections, work to defeat or pass initiatives, defeat or pass levies, and work to defend the "status quo," without telling the public, as long as its election activities further its mission statement.
• Unions can take member dues and spend the money on politics as leaders choose, as long as the employees don't know their paychecks are being raided for politics.
• Unions can re-engineer their operations to be totally political and can run campaigns right from union headquarters, as long as their actions include informing and involving members.

Among the elements that the Judge declined to find significant were admitted expenditures of nearly $700,000 on politics-most of it unreported. (The WEA actually spent far more.) Other activities the Judge acknowledged and dismissed were:

• Candidate tracking and coordination
• Voter tracking
• Participation in the Democratic Coordinated Campaign
• Voter polling
• Levy campaign support
• Voter ID
• Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) activities and phone banks
• Research by school district on citizen voting history
• Staff support to WEA-PAC
• Ongoing political communications to 65,000 members
• Volunteer recruitment for campaign activities
• Provision of yard signs & campaign paraphernalia to members
• Assignment of 11 "field organizers" to organize volunteers for the campaign

This ruling says to large special interests, "Don't bother merely contributing to campaigns-BE the campaign."

EFF's work has already resulted in a $430,000 fine in the suit brought by the Attorney General, as well as fines against the executive director of the WEA and its top political operative. The Attorney General has also been fined for not turning over the documents it obtained in its suit, and the WEA has been fined $15,000 for not turning over the political plan Judge McPhee initially described as a "smoking gun."

Consider this: the WEA spent 50 percent more than the largest PAC in the 1996 elections. But the day before the election, public records indicated that the WEA had spent merely $208,500; after the elections, more than $900,000 in campaign donations turned up in lobbyist reports.

If WEA is not a PAC, no organization is a PAC. Judge McPhee's decision means the public will have very little idea of who is contributing to elections, who is receiving contributions, and in the end, who impacts our elections.

* State of Washington ex rel. Evergreen Freedom Foundation, et al. v. Washington Education Association, et al., Case No. 97-2-01419-8

Read the decision here: http://effwa.org/tppreport/McPhee%20Decision.pdf

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

Quotables:

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson

"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind." - John Stuart Mill