A complaint has been filed with the Public Disclosure Commission into what Susan Hutchison’s campaign—in a press release this afternoon—called possible “illegal coordination” between her opponent Dow Constantine’s campaign and a liberal political committee, FAIRPAC.
Hutchison’s campaign did not file the complaint. (It was filed by someone named Judy Brown from Seattle. Brown did not respond to our call.)
The Hutchison campaign says:
“It has been brought to our attention that Dow Constantine and his campaign appear to have engaged in illegal coordination with an independent expenditure committee during the primary, and yesterday a formal complaint was filed against his campaign. The PDC confirmed this morning it will begin a review early next week—a process that precedes a full investigation.”
It is against ethics rules for political committees to coordinate independent expenditures (e.g., campaign ads) with candidates they support. FAIRPAC did a round of ads against Hutchison in August connecting her to anti-choice politicians like Mike Huckabee.
As the Seattle Times reported last month, FAIRPAC’s treasurer, Jason Bennett, is also Constantine’s treasurer.
State law does actually allow a campaign with overlapping staff to do an independent expenditure if the staffer is only doing “ministerial” tasks, such as filing reports and “just doing what people tell you to do, not exercising judgment,” according to Lori Anderson at the Public Disclosure Commission.
That actually describes Bennett’s role at both campaigns. And, according to Anderson, Bennett called her when he first learned about FAIRPAC’s $25,000 anti-Hutchison phone call and mail campaign to make it clear he wasn’t involved in the campaign decision—learning about it, Bennett told her, “after the fact” when FAIRPAC sent him the paperwork to account for the expenditure.
Bennett filed an August 14 letter (screen shot below the fold) with the PDC explaining that he was only doing ministerial duties.
The reason Bennett filed the letter is because when FAIRPAC registered with the PDC, Bennett checked the box that said his role was not limited to ministerial duties, Anderson says.
Anderson tells PubliCola, “We do have a complaint that’s filed against Dow Constantine,” adding, “we haven’t reviewed it yet, and we will decide what to do with it in the very near future.”
Constantine’s campaign spokesman Sandeep Kaushik (who, full disclosure, co-founded PubliCola with me last January) says: “It’s a frivolous complaint, and it will be dismissed. It’s an obvious attempt to insinuate a violation that does not exist.”
Kaushik adds: “Jason Bennett has never come to a campaign meeting nor has he had any involvement in formulating our campaign strategy. His role is to do our [campaign finance] compliance work, filing our forms with the Public Disclosure Commission.”
Bennett is a veteran political consultant. He has hosted fundraisers on behalf of Constantine. He is listed as a member of their campaign team on survey’s Constantine has filled out.
This is a serious problem for Dow.
@1: By your definition, one person donating to multiple campaigns would constitute coordination.
The repubs at Sound Politics were crowing about this a couple of days ago, and were baiting “someone” to file a compailnt. I would not be surpsied is that outfit is where the compliant originated, given their history of other frivolous activity.
@3
The trolls over at Horsesass have been squawking about this for weeks now. I believe the idea is if they create enough smoke people will start wondering where the fire is.
According to Bennett’s letter to the PDC, Lisa MacLean Collins of Moxie Media is the “authorizer of expenditures and makes the decisions regarding the plans of the [FAIRPAC] committee.”
Ah, so the IE that sponsored $25K worth of anti-Hutchison mailers and calls is actually run by Collins?
That seems a little cozy, especially since I read somewhere that Moxie Media shares an office with Christian Sinderman’s Northwest Passage Consulting (Dow’s strategist).
@5,
Re: Your handle … sncc …
Really?
As in Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee?
Are you a girl? I might be in love. Can we hold hands and listen to records?
All the idiot right-wing trolls that have been trying to make something of this are going to be sorely disappointed when this is dismissed next week.
How does co-hosting count as being “involved”? I am one of many co-hosts for an upcoming fundraiser. As usually happens, I was asked by a friend involved with the campaign. I will give a suggested donation, have my name on a web page, and invite my friends. This is not high-level involvement.
As to listing on questionnaires, it is normal to list the Treasurer, even if they do nothing but file reports and input data. When I have worked on campaigns, I have listed Treasurers that I saw for 10 minutes once a week. They were in a bookeeping capacity only, but still were listed since the signed reports
Jason Bennett is a political operative, not a guy simply known for keeping campaigns on track with the PDC by keeping their books. It’s a ligitimate suspicion and — if nothing else — looks bad. This should be subject to the same sort of scrutiny we gave the BIAW and its hanky-panky. If indeed there is evidence that Bennett handled more than ministerial duties then it’s a serious violation.
@9: Jason Bennett is one of just a few people who currently contract with campaigns to do their treasurer work (Philip Lloyd being the only other one I can think of), so your first statement is completely inaccurate.
In order to get treasurer gigs, you have to function as an outside auditor, not as a part of the campaign team.
@10 I accept your first point but “completely inaccurate” is pure hyperbole.
@11: Good point. Jason did many different political consulting gigs before recently getting into the treasurer biz. I stand corrected.
@3
The trolls over at Horsesass have been squawking about this for weeks now. I believe the idea is if they create enough smoke people will start wondering where the fire is.