In this city council race – every politician is breaking the law

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In many cities and counties across Washington State, primary elections are in process as voters complete and mail in their ballots.  In the City of Port Angeles there are two contested primary races for city council.  However, in one of the council races, every politician running for office is breaking Washington State’s fair campaign practices act (RCW 42.17A).  Some are not even trying to comply with the law.  When every politician breaks the law, how can a voter decide which one is best to represent them? 

Washington State’s all-mail in ballots were sent to every registered voter (in a jurisdiction with a contested race on the primary ballot) last week.  The ballots are already trickling back into the 39 different county auditor’s ballot boxes around the state with the first scheduled announcement of election results 8pm on election night, Tuesday, August 6, 2019.  Washington State law allows ballots which are postmarked before 6pm that day to count towards the final election results (as opposed to having the ballots in-hand by that date and time), so the final election results are not known in many close races often for several weeks as the later ballots trickle in from throughout the state, and sometimes local auditor offices (typically King County, but they are not alone) suddenly find “missing” ballots in car trunks and back rooms. 

In the Northwest corner of Washington State, in Clallam County– the City of Port Angeles has two primary races for city council seats.  A total of four seats are up for election in 2019 (out of a council of seven including the mayor).  Of these, two races have more than two people who have filed to run, which is why Council position no.7 and position no. 5 are on the Primary election ballot. 

These candidates need to file with their local county auditor in order to legally run for office, but they are also required by Washington State Law (RCW 42.17A) to register with the Public Disclosure Commission in order to ensure that their campaign contributions, expenditures, and other information about the candidates are open, transparent, and available to review for all voters, media, and interested citizens.  Unfortunately for the voters in the City of Port Angeles, most of the politicians are running “stealth” campaigns, ignoring the law, and generally blundering through the process under the belief there are no consequences for violating the law.

Whether there are consequences or not is yet to be determined, but it is worth ferreting out just who these people are and which laws they are refusing to follow in their political campaigns.  It might be worth considering that the very people who will be writing laws (which presumably they expect local citizens to follow), don’t seem to place a high value on following the law themselves.  Let’s look at some specifics.

Port Angeles City Council Seat #5 – Ghost Campaigns on Full Stealth Mode

Of the three candidates running for council seat number 5, not one of them appears to have much interest in following campaign finance laws, or even recognize these laws exist.  There are three listed candidates for this race in the online voters guide (see here).  The first listed candidate is Richard W. Robinson.  Mr. Robinson failed to register his campaign with the PDC (Violation of RCW 42.17A.205),  he failed to file any financial disclosure documents (Violation of RCW 42.17A.700), and of course, he didn’t bother to report any expenditures or contributors to his campaign (Violation of RCW 42.17A.235).  This author filed a helpful complaint with the PDC against Mr. Robinson’s stealth campaign (linked here). Not only did Robinson choose to keep his campaign secret from the public, he also decided to go super stealth mode by not submitting a voter’s guide statement or photo to the Clallam County Auditor’s office (which is not illegal, just weird).  Perhaps this guy plans to survive based on local word of mouth and the strength of his community reputation.

The second candidate for this office is Artur Wojnowski, who at least submitted a photo and an abbreviated voter’s guide statement (see here).  Wojnowski is an experienced local political candidate, having attempted and failed in a 2017 election effort for City Council position #3 with a strong showing of 29% voter support.  In 2017, Wojnowski appears to have mostly followed the campaign finance laws (RCW 42.17A).   This time, he appears to believe he can improve his numbers by going stealth mode and “ghost”  his political campaign by ignoring the campaign finance laws.  Too much bother, apparently.  He failed to register his campaign (Violation of RCW  42.17A.205).  He hid his personal financial affairs by not filing his F1 (Violation RCW 42.17A.700), and of course, he has hidden all information about how his campaign is funded or how they spend these funds (Violation of RCW 42.17A.235). 

While I tend to support Wojnowski’s anti-forced flouride in public water campaign in Port Angeles (mainly because of the hostility of the local bureaucracy and political leadership to the will of the local citizenry), it is unfortunate that a young candidate like this can’t at least attempt to follow the law.  In an effort to reduce the lawbreaking, a helpful complaint was filed with the PDC on this candidate as well (linked here).

The final stealth mode, law-breaking candidate in this secret political campaign trinity running for office is Charlie McCaughan, who had also failed to register his campaign (Violation of RCW 42.17A.205).  After this author filed a complaint with the PDC (linked here), and he was notified of this fact, he wisely changed his ways and registered.  It was unfortunate it took so much effort and energy to get this politician to follow the law, but better late than never.  Unlike the other two candidates for office,  he gets bonus points for actually filing his personal financial affairs document on time.

Regardless of  which candidates survive the primary election next week, the voters of Port Angeles were ill-served by the lack of public disclosure or transparency in this race.  Perhaps future candidates for office can learn some lessons from the failures of this crew. One of these guys is going to be responsible for legislating laws for the people in Port Angeles (presumably with the expectation that people are supposed to follow the law). Maybe it is time for the people planning to write the laws to learn how to follow the law themselves.

If you want to find out if your local candidates are also running secretive, off-the books, stealth political campaigns – go to the Public Disclosure Commission website (linked here) and search for yourself.  Let me know if you find others who are not following the law.  We’re always happy to help remind them.

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Background articles and documents:

Public Disclosure Commission Complaint #54972 – Richard Robinson, Port Angeles City Council candidate

Public Disclosure Commission Complaint #54823 – Artur Wojnowski, Port Angeles City Council candidate

Public Disclosure Commission Complaint #54826 – Charlie McCaughan, Port Angeles City Council candidate

Clallam County 2019 Primary Election Voters Guide – Port Angeles

The City of Port Angeles