The decision by the state’s campaign finance watchdog comes on the heels of several candidates declaring a run for state office up and down the ballot

Brett Davis
The Center Square Washington

The Washington State Public Disclosure Commission has unanimously voted to issue new guidance related to the transfer of surplus funds from previous campaigns to new campaigns, making such funds subject to disclosure and contribution limits in political races.

The decision by the state’s campaign finance watchdog comes on the heels of several candidates declaring a run for state office up and down the ballot following Gov. Jay Inslee’s May 1 announcement that he would not be seeking an unprecedented fourth term.

“I think there’s a general sense that transparency wins,” PDC Chair Fred Jarrett said during Thursday morning’s special meeting, noting public comments skewed heavily in favor of Option 2, which requires candidates attribute funds transferred from a previous campaign to their original sources and count them toward the contributor’s limit for the new campaign.

The other choice, Option 1, would have allowed candidates, with permission from donors, to continue transferring contributions left over from a previously completed election campaign to a new campaign for a different office without attributing the funds to their sources or counting them toward the contributor’s limit for the new campaign.

The issue came to light when politically active Seattle attorney Tallman Trask asked for clarification on the rules governing surplus accounts.

“Voters cannot access accurate information about the actual source of transferred surplus funds, and those funds are maybe effectively exempted from the otherwise applicable contribution limits,” he told the commission during the meeting. “In that the transferred surplus funds act a lot like a shell contribution. The only record voters can access do not reflect the true contributor and the hidden contributor may be able to sidestep contribution limits.”

King County Council Vice Chair Reagan Dunn, a Republican, also weighed in on the issue, making it clear he was speaking in his capacity as a private citizen.

He noted the more time-consuming process for changing the rule – as opposed to the PDC issuing new guidance – might be a better way to go at a time when several campaigns are already under way in a state where Democrats dominate.

“A substantial and fast rule change now hurst minority party members who have done the work and followed the rules to this point who might be looking at offices like lands commissioner or secretary of state or others down ballot,” he told the commission. “And so I’m not suggesting that a rule change perhaps isn’t appropriate, but it needs to be done in the right timescale. Rulemaking process under the administrative procedures act that take some time make sense. A rule change that would go into effect after the 2024 cycle might make sense.”

Thursday’s decision, however, could have the most immediate impact on Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson, whose campaign moved approximately one-third of a $3.8 million surplus account into his gubernatorial campaign, according to PDC records, before the commission’s vote on Thursday.

A day after Inslee said he would not be running for reelection, Ferguson announced that he had launched an exploratory bid for governor.

Earlier this week, Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz, also a Democrat, announced she was running for governor, and state Sen. Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond, announced she is running for state attorney general in the 2024 election.

This report was first published by The Center Square Washington.