As Washington state approaches its primary next Tuesday, Sept. 19, voters are being subjected to an unprecedented barrage of negative television ads for judicial races.
This Andrew Garber article in the Seattle Times this morning highlights the wads of campaign cash flowing into Washinton state as far-right astro-turf groups seek to elect pliant judges to the state Supreme Court:
OLYMPIA -- An unprecedented amount of money is flowing into this year's state Supreme Court races, much of it financing attack ads by conservative and liberal factions fighting over the ideological bent of the court.
The Garber article does a good job detailing the flurry of activity in the Supreme Court races, two of which will be decided for certain on Tuesday. For the sake of brevity, I won't excerpt anymore of Garber's work.
But there is growing evidence that attempts by conservatives to grab control of the state Supreme Court involve the scummy conservative tactic of astro-turfing. To unravel the story, we start with a complaint made to the Washington Public Disclosure Commission, which enforces campaign finance laws.
Brad Shannon at The Olympian covers the complaint, which involves five political action committess and, according to Shannon's article, accuses them of creating "shell" PACs.
We're going to investigate the complaint," PDC spokeswoman Lori Anderson said in an e-mail Wednesday. "We won't be finished with the investigation before the primary election, but we are expediting the investigation because of the seriousness of the allegations."
The Building Industry Association of Washington, which is a major contributor to the pro-Groen, anti-Alexander ads, called the complaint "bogus." The BIAW-financed ads have drawn fire from Alexander's campaign because they depict him as either too old to do his job or giving his support to Justice Bobbe Bridge after her drunken-driving arrest in 2003.
The PDC complaint was filed by Steve Zemke of Majority Rules yesterday. Zemke and Goldy at Horse's Ass are encouraging Washington residents to add their names to the complaint. For more details on the complaint, visit Majority Rules.
In a previous post, Zemke details who might be behind the Virginia based "Americans Tired of Lawsuit Abuse," which is funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into Washington state to help a conservative judicial candidate.
One of the astro-turf groups calls itself "Americans Tired of Lawsuit Abuse," which is funded at least partially by the American Tort Reform Association, or ATRA.
A little googling reveals that ATRA itself was the creation of a large public relations firm called APCO Worldwide, previously known as APCO & Associates. This from a 1996 article on the web site Multi-National Monitor.
APCO's most successful effort is its role in creating the Washington, D.C.-based American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), which is leading the nationwide campaign for "reform" of products liability law, the set of principles which make manufacturers strictly liable for injuries caused by their products.
ATRA has an ignoble history as a front group for big tobacco. In the 1990's, ATRA was heavily funded by the tobacco companies as they sought to stave off settlements.
But back to the Brad Shannon article in The Olympian. The industry group representing builders in Washington state, the Building Industry Association of Washington, or BIAW, is also heavily involved.
Despite the BIAW's heavy contributions, the ads say only that "ChangePAC" is the political committee contributing money. BIAW Executive Vice President Tom McCabe says his group uses the multiple PACs because it is easier to list one donor on 30-
second ads than to spend 13 seconds listing five different donors.
The BIAW is the top donor to ChangePAC, giving $512,750.
Washington residents may recall that BIAW is so relentlessly partisan that McCabe, their executive vice-president, put all BIAW's employees to work trying to find evidence of "felon fraud" during the bitter gubernatorial recount involving Chris Gregoire and Dino Rossi.
So there you have it. Washingtonians are being assaulted on the airwaves thanks to out of state front groups working in tandem with an incredibly powerful and very conservative interest group here.
Unfortunately, it is impossible for the PDC, the regulatory agency in charge of campaign financing, to do much of anything before the election. It's important that this story gets out there to as many Washingtonians as possible.
For more information about the um, actual races themselves, you can visit Voting For Judges, which is run by various bar associations and such around the state. You can also visit the coalition formed to stop the rightist astro-turf assault, Citizens to Uphold the Constitution.