Home Washington State Government Attorney General Democratic Dinner Committee pays over $6k for lawbreaking, promises to sin no...

Democratic Dinner Committee pays over $6k for lawbreaking, promises to sin no more

Glen Morgan

May 30, 2018

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ESD VIP Speakers — Bob Ferguson was a key speaker in 2017 to help them raise funds, presumably so they could afford to pay the fine his office was going to impose.

Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson spoke to the Eastside Democratic Dinner Committee while his office was suing them for campaign finance violations in 2017

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The Eastside Democratic Dinner Committee recently settled their campaign finance lawsuit from last year for a total settlement of $6925 (see settlement here) and another $1022 of attorney costs (see disclosure reports here, and here). The Eastside Democratic Dinner Committee, located in Eastern King County, has been structured as a political action committee (PAC) for many years now and has been an effective vehicle for raising campaign funds for local and state Democratic Party candidates. However, they were less effective at following Washington State’s campaign finance laws.

While the EDCC theme in 2017 was “Mission Possible,” this mainly referred to raising money, not following the law

This failure to follow the law was identified by this author who filed a complaint with the Public Disclosure Commission on April 21, 2017 (linked here). The Committee itself denied some of the allegations, but they recognized indeed violations of the law on numerous occasions had been committed as indicated in their response to the PDC a few days later (linked here).

At the time, the Washington State Attorney General’s office was still focused on enforcing the state’s campaign finance laws (The AG has largely stopped filing campaign finance cases like this against Democratic organizations since late 2017) , and upon further investigation, they agreed that violations had occurred. The AG filed a lawsuit against the Eastside Democratic Dinner Committee on June 19, 2017 (linked here). Most of these cases are filed in Thurston County Superior Court, but this one was filed in King County Superior Court. The AG even issued a press release when they filed this lawsuit last year (linked here). The lawsuit identified several significant violations including:

The Committee failed to timely disclose $7,660 in contributions on three 24 C-3 contribution reports a total of 91 days late. Many of these were not reported during the crucial 30 days before an election.
The Committee filed Expenditure reports a total of 352 days late including over $8,500 of expenditures.
Last year’s dinner was held at the Plateau Club in Sammamish

While the Eastside Democratic Dinner Committee initially attempted to fight the lawsuit (see their response here), it just made more economic sense to settle the lawsuit, and the AG has been very generous in their settlement terms with Democratic organizations like this. The AG, as has been their custom lately, no longer issues press releases if the settlements are made against Democratic organizations. As you can see from the final settlement (linked here). The Eastside Democratic Dinner Committee terms of settlement are as follows:

$2,785 fine (paid to the state) with $1,392 suspended for a period of 4 years contingent on no findings of violations of the law committed during these 4 years
$3,400 in attorney fees (paid to the AG); $500 in investigation costs, and $240 in court costs

With nominal reported attorney costs of $1,022 for their own attorney fees, according to expenditure reports, the Eastside Democratic Dinner Committee is free to go forth and fundraise, but cautioned to sin against the campaign finance laws no more. It appears likely that they will be a little less sloppy and maybe more transparent moving forward.

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