The Buildergate scandal takes a new twist this morning as former Washington State Supreme Court Justices Faith Ireland and Robert Utter filed notice with Attorney General Rob McKenna of their intent to bring suit against Republican gubernatorial challenger Dino Rossi, alleging illegal campaign coordination with the Building Industry Association of Washingtion (BIAW) and its political committees. They also filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court claiming that the BIAW’s coordination with Rossi disqualify it from making “independent” expenditures in the 2008 gubernatorial.
These dramatic legal developments could have a huge impact on the gubernatorial race. The BIAW has already spent over $2 million on behalf of Rossi this year, mostly smearing Governor Chris Gregoire, and plans to spend an additional $700,000 during the final weeks of the campaign. The justices are asking that further “over limit” expenditures be barred by court order.
These suits are just the latest in a widening Buildergate scandal for which the BIAW is already being prosecuted, in a case stemming from Utter and Ireland’s original October, 2008 complaint. But while McKenna is pursuing the BIAW for numerous “egregious” campaign finance and reporting violations, he took no action on the assertion that the BIAW improperly coordinated its activities with Rossi, thus prompting Utter and Ireland to bring suit on their own.
In a joint statement, the two retired justices—both appointed to the bench by Republican governors—outline both the evidence behind their allegations, and their motivation for seeking enforcement.
The evidence upon which we base our legal action can be construed to show that Dino Rossi was not just a beneficiary of these illegal activities, but was a knowing and active participant. The evidence shows, moreover, that the attack ads of the BIAW are not really “independent” of their beneficiary Dino Rossi. This is because Dino Rossi helped the BIAW to amass the war chest for these attack ads.
This is an important issue for all races. Special interests are increasingly supporting candidates through “independent expenditures” that are not subject to contribution limits. These “independent” campaigns also tend to contain the most vicious and dubious negative attacks, since the benefitting candidate can say that they have no control over these messages. It is critical to enforce the law that prohibits candidates from providing fundraising assistance to or otherwise coordinating with “independent” committees.
The fact that Dino Rossi had not publicly declared his candidacy when this alleged coordination took place is not a defense. A person becomes a candidate when he helps a political committee to amass a war chest to support his candidacy. And the evidence suggests this is what happened here.
If this coordination took place, then the BIAW’s expenditures would not qualify as an independent expenditure, and would be legally limited to $2,800. The millions of dollars of attack ads that have blanketed our airwaves would be illegal, and further expenditures should be enjoined.
Washington campaign laws are in place to ensure our elections are fair, that all candidates know what they are facing from their opponents in terms of campaign financing. These rules are there to ensure that special interests cannot buy their way into a legislative process designed to serve and protect the interests of all citizens. Without enforcement our laws are meaningless.
When the Buildergate scandal broke last week, the Rossi campaign tried to dismiss it as frivolous, partisan electioneering, a sentiment that seemed to ooze into some of the press coverage (the Seattle Times, for their part, ignored the story entirely), but remember, these are two retired Supreme Court justices making the charges, and like their original complaint, for which the BIAW is now being prosecuted, their legal arguments seem to be fairly airtight.
In fact, Rossi has publicly admitted the action at the heart of this scandal, that he called board members of the Master Builders Association in May of 2007, when they were considering a request to contribute to the BIAW’s “fund for Rossi.” Rossi excuses his actions:
“I didn’t ask them to put money anywhere but it would have been perfectly OK for me to do that because I wasn’t even a candidate.”
But as Utter and Ireland point out in a FAQ posted to the website of attorney Knoll Lowney, Rossi’s claimed defense is little more than a distinction without a difference. State law and prior Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) advisories make it clear that a candidate does not have to ask for a specific dollar amount to be involved in fundraising, and the very act of participating in such activity, even on behalf of a so-called “independent” campaign, automatically makes one a candidate by definition.
Indeed, back in June of 2004, the BIAW asked the PDC for an opinion on this very issue, to which the commissioners replied without equivocation:
One of the most fundamental ways a candidate could encourage a person to purchase political advertising supporting that candidate is to help make sure that person has sufficient funds to undertake an effective advertising effort. Assisting a PAC in fundraising fosters that committee’s ability to make the political advertising expenditure benefiting the candidate. As such, the PAC expenditure is not sufficiently removed from the candidate to qualify as an independent expenditure.
…
That collaboration disqualifies any resulting expenditure from the definition of independent expenditure.
You really can’t get any clearer than that.
Buildergate is shaping up to be a classic political scandal, and like most such scandals, it’s the coverup that will eventually bring down the perpetrators, for had the BIAW properly reported its activities like it knew it should have, we may never have known about Rossi’s illegal coordination.
With most of the BIAW’s warchest already spent, there may not be time for the courts to impose any meaningful sanctions, so the only question remaining is whether Rossi will suffer the consequences of his unethical and illegal behavior before the election, or after? I await to see if our local media will fulfill their obligations as public watchdogs, or merely resort to the kind of half-hearted stenography on this scandal we’ve seen thus far.
I can’t help but wonder if any of the present-day BIAW potentates used to be among the little punks Robert Utter used to deal with when he was a Juvenile Court judge.
I’m afraid that it may be too little, too late. From the TV ads I’m seeing, it looks like Rossi and the BIAW are out-spending Gregoire by about three to one. And Gregoire still needs to come out with an ad that calls Rossi on the carpet for the deceptive “deficit” ads. The Gregoire campaign didn’t start hitting the airwaves with any anti-Rossi ads to speak of until last week.
So the pattern continues. Republicans break the law. Then they stonewal the investigation. After the election, they write off the fines as a cost of buying an election.
The BIAW no longer has a link to their newsletter on their site. A political calculation, no doubt. Their newsletter was used to inspire hatred amongst their members by labeling anybody who even hints at opposition to the BIAW as a “builder-haters” and commie-fascist eco-terrorists.
We don’t need the BIAW running this state. The ultra-right BIAW and their lacky, Dino Rossi, must be defeated in November.
It’s clear from these allegations that BIAW is an alleged racketeering organization. Instead of filing lawsuits they should send in S.W.A.T. teams to free the L & I tax dollars being held hostage in the basement where Mr. Cynical keeps his washing machine. Hey Cynical! I want to know how your machine works! How does a $100 bill go in as L & I taxes and come out as Rossi slush funds?
This is just the latest in a long history of Dino Rossi involvement in conspiracy, purgery and fraud to make money and earn votes by ANY means. He is a crook with the protection of a crooks organization.
Some will say “but but Dino has not been convicted of anything…” and to them I would say:
“So your point is that folks should vote for Dino Rossi since he has proven himself a skilled crooked politician and crooked businessman”
THIS IS NOT THE CHANGE I SEEK.
“but but Dino has not been convicted of anything…”
Neither was Nixon. Nor Hitler, for that matter…
Rossi and BIAW are as mad as hatters. Their lust for power has taken them right over the edge.
By the way, an article on AOL says Safeway grocery store chain is at risk during the current rescession – it’s profit margin is ridiculously at low, and it’s carrying a lot of debt and it’s cash reserves aren’t very big. Add to that competition from the big box store discounters such as Costco and Wal-Mart, to whom buyers turn when the economy gets really nasty. We may be seeing a lot of local fallout from the economy over the next year beyond Safeco and WAMU.
KFC is fighting back with their $10.00 family meals, trying to lure back families who are buying eight pieces of fried chicken at Albertsons for about six bucks. KFC is even advertising that the ingredients cost more at the local store than the $10.00 bargain meal.
But the way things are heading, you might see them trying to compete with Chicken Ramen cups as a meal.
And yes, I did refer to it as the “current rescession, for a couple of reasons. First of all, the Dept. of Commerce was playing fast and loose with the numbers for second quarter 2008 to make it appear that the GDP was in positive territory. Real economists just laughed at the numbers. Secondly, by the official definition it isn’t officially a rescession until there are two successive quarters of negative economic growth. Since the Commerce Dept. spends two months after the end of the second quarter getting the numbers, that means you are actually in a rescession for eight months before the government acknowledges that fact. But just because the government hasn’t acknowledged it, doesn’t make it less so.
Oops, I meant to post the previous one under another topic.
Safeway? That would be shocking. I shop at Albertson’s because the prices seem 5% less than Safeway, for the stuff I buy.
I have no way of knowing if this guy Chick Edwards belongs to the BIAW, of if he’s a Republican, but considering he is a property developer, and he’s from Kennewick, I figure the odds are pretty good.
The developer is also claiming that Jensen can’t rent the property out, even though his pregant wife moved back east to be with her family while Jensen is away serving his country.
If there’s a Jerk of the Year Award, I’d like to nominate Chick Edwards.
Source:Kennewick reservist faces threats over landscaping
@ 11
Looks like a great candidate for Olberman’s Worst Person in the World.
Google “democrat fundraising penalties” turns
out 706,000. “republican fundraising penalties”
120,000. Wonder where republicans learned how?
You guys suck BIGTIME.
I think an investigation into former Justices
going after nothing would turn up some cash
in their freezers straight from Gregoires
freezer. Fucking pigs. Rossi is gonna win this time.
@13 “You guys suck BIGTIME”
You guys suck in PUBLIC TOILETS!
http://www.republicanoffenders.com/Lewd.html
@14 “Fucking pigs”
What happened to the goat??
http://buttons.cafepress.com/i...../209341556
@11 If you weren’t so busy talking about things you know nothing about you would find that the BIAW guys would probably go help
the family landscape the yard given the
situation. That particular developer sounds more like a building inspector. If you
really knew the guys at BIAW, you would be so embarrassed for listening to Goldy.
Mark @ 14 said: “I think….”
I believe you started that entire sentence with an oxymoron, thereby negating the remainder of the sentence.
In the words of the great Latin scholars:
Morologus es!
@17 “If you
really knew the guys at BIAW, you would be so embarrassed for listening to Goldy”
We can get to know the BIAW by reading the March issue of the BIAW Building Insight newsletter:
“I explored the actual connection between environmental extremism and Hitler’s Nazi party.”
“What environmentalists offer today, instead of the racist German National Socialism that defined the Nazi party, is an international environmental socialism, an almagam of Nazism and communism – an international environmental socialism with a centralized planning scheme.”
“So, much like Stalin and Hitler were divided on how to best go about their socialistic schemes, environmentalists are also divided over how to best go socialistic scheme of controlling human development – either by burning houses down with Molotov cocktails, or slowly squeezing the life out of it through extensive, Soviet-esque micromanagment. Homebuilders are thus caught between militant ecofascism (radical enviromentalists like ELF) and communistic bureaucracy (DOE).”
The BIAW’s Brad Spears throws in, “The older folks in the mainstream enviro groups silently applaud this new and novel approach: If you build it, we will burn it. It’s the next natural step in the environmental movement.”
Vote for Gregoire. We don’t need the BIAW America-haters and their lackey, Dino Rossi, running this state.
Alright Mark, I will grant you this much.
In the same sense that I hope folks around the world do not hate me for the crimes and lies of GW Bush, I can accept that the members of the BIAW join for many reasons and politics is low on their list. Even so, every member has some responsibility for their lack of involvement in effecting the corrupt leadership of the BIAW org itself.
More to the point though, since the board and BIAW employees have the freedom to do the things they have done, from breaking laws to running false campaigns and fighting good solid regulations, it is entirely correct to vilify them as the scum they are.
The general public should be cautious in thinking of a member builder who perhaps did a good job remodeling their home and thus thinking that BIAW is any less corrupt than they have shown.
Oh and it is no shock to me that dirtbags like Dino Rossi get along great with the likes of John Day and the others on the BIAW board and paid staff. These are the locusts in our society they feed on others just like crack dealers.
Dino and these folks in no way offer folks the change they seek.
@20 So you will vote for Rossi anyways? Thank you.
No Mark, I would never do anything so ignorant.
Our state has much to gain from the continued skilled leadership of Governor Gregiore and from now US Senator Obama as president.
Republicans suck:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/.....038;page=1
Voter suppression, it’s one of the few tricks they have left up their sleeve.
Republicans – party before country.
“Kill him!”
http://voices.washingtonpost.c....._roug.html
speaking of Dino Bushi, do you all know his mentor in his early career in real estate was convicted fraudster Melvin Heide, whom Dino followed from job to job (1984-1992) at failing real estate agencies, until running for public office…ever wonder where Dino learned his dirty tricks??? This was his early business experience he is so proud of…
This coming from a supporter of the party that has mastered the graveyard ballot…
In the event that you somehow missed the memo, it’s the Democrat Party that makes the news for questionable voter registration practices and it’s largely districts run by the Democrat Party that are called into question whenever the legitimacy of voters’ registration is called into question.
As I recall, in 1960 the vote in Illinois was close enough that the Chicago vote alone swayed the presidency to JFK, and it’s a widely held belief that Nixon could have won the presidency had he but not refrained from taking the Illinois vote counts into the court system. That was the Daley machine that mastered the art of voter fraud, and the Commucrats have been at it ever since.
I’d rather relinquish my vote to keep all of the unregistered voters and non-citizens from swinging an election to the handout party.
@ 26
This coming from a supporter of the party that has mastered the graveyard ballot…
There was a trial back in 2004. The one dead person who voted? Republican.
But don’t let little facts get in the way of a good diatribe.
According to Google Phonebook, Chick Edwards has two listings:
Chick Edwards (509) 582-5679 32220 S Oak St,Kennewick, WA 99337
and
Chick Edwards (541) 566-2992 Weston, OR 97886
The two locations are about 15 minutes apart, which probably means one is his home and the other is his business. FYI.
So when are the law-abiding citizens of Washington state going to mount an initiative to repeal the sweetheart worker compensation refund kickback scheme that fuels the perennial BIAW violations of electoral finance laws?