Failure to Report as a Political Action Committee

In the interest of free and fair elections, Washington state law requires organizations that operate as political committees to report contributions and expenditures. Political committees are defined as any person or entity having as one of their primary purposes the expectation of receiving contributions or making expenditures in support of, or opposition to, any candidate or any ballot proposition.

Although the Washington Education Association receives contributions and makes expenditures for candidates and ballot propositions, the WEA is not registered as a political committee. (The WEA has a political committee, WEA-PAC, which is independently funded.)

The problem is that the WEA dumps millions into state politics from its general fund, which comes from the mandatory dues of Washington state teachers.

In 1997, EFF brought a lawsuit against the WEA, arguing that the WEA is a political committee and should be required required to report as one, due to its extensive involvement in Washington elections. WEA officials admitted in a 1999 trial that they had spent at least $700,000 from the union's mandatory general fund to influence the outcome of the 1996 elections.
Thurston County Superior Court Judge W.T. McPhee ruled that the WEA is not required to comply with reporting requirements. McPhee stated that "the amount spent [by an organization on politics] is meaningful only in relation to the total expenditures of the organization," and that the WEA's political expenditures were not "meaningful" in relation to the WEA's $20 million annual expenditures.

The Washington State Court of Appeals affirmed this decision in 2002, ruling that the Washington Education Association does not have to report its general fund political expenditures under requirements that govern political committees. In 2003, the Washington State Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the case.

EFF strongly disagrees with the "meaningful percentage" analysis of the WEA's spending. The WEA's unreported political spending amounted to 50 percent more than the contributions of the state's largest registered political action committee. A company the size of Boeing could use the "meaningful percentage" analysis to pour $52 million dollars into state elections without triggering reporting requirements.

This decision undermines efforts to have a truly transparent election process. It also undermines the right of teachers to know how union officials are spending their mandatory dues.

Judge McPhee Decision

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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