Here are three good changes to preserve Washington’s history of relatively clean ethical government.
THE phrase “legislative ethics” may strike cynical voters as ironic. But the fact is that Washington lawmakers have a relatively clean ethics history. The state’s Legislative Ethics Board has played a role in ensuring that legacy.
So it is odd that when that board holds its first public hearing in decades on Tuesday, it will focus on an obscure question: Can videos produced by a lawmaker’s state-funded office be embedded on their campaign Facebook page?
If the lawmaker who requested the hearing, Rep. Melanie Stambaugh, R-Puyallup, wins, she’ll be able to keep embedding her videos. If she loses, she’ll have to cut-and-paste a link. This is not Watergate.
The board’s time might be better spent on other changes the Legislature should make to preserve Washington’s relatively clean reputation. Here are the top three:
End the Legislature’s self-serving exemption from the Public Records Act.”
• End the Legislature’s self-serving exemption from the Public Records Act.
Unlike state agencies and just about every other lawmaking entity in the state, state lawmakers get to keep their emails and calendars private. Want to see that email in which a lobbyist is sweet-talking your legislator to give a tax break? No chance.
The exemption also applies to open public meetings, which is why budget deals are cut in private. The Legislature often doesn’t even post a copy of the proposed budget so the public can know what’s in it before a hearing.
With fewer reporters in Olympia, far more lobbyists, and billions of taxpayer dollars at stake, the Legislature should finally waive this self-serving privilege.
• Stop shielding “dark money” campaign spending.
Washington requires top donors of campaign ads to be listed at the end of commercials. But the list of political-action committees often reads like a parody of disclosure. Who really are the “New Directions” or “Community Progress” PACs? It takes forensic sleuthing to dig through nesting-doll campaign funds to get to the real donors.
The Legislature was on the verge of daylighting that type of spending in 2015, but the Senate Republican caucus, led by Sen. Mark Schoesler of Ritzville, killed the bill. Sen. Andy Billig, D-Spokane, pledges to reintroduce the legislation in January.
• Feed the campaign-finance watchdog.
The Public Disclosure Commission is the watchdog for keeping Washington’s elections clean and legal, but it is perpetually hobbled by a lack of funding. It barely has staff to quickly respond to complaints, let alone perform random audits of campaigns, and it badly needs a new computer system.
Here’s a simple solution: tax the lobbyists. Lobbying was a $35 million business in Olympia in 2016, and this wasn’t even a big budget-writing year. The Legislature has considered for years adding a lobbyist registration fee, but — surprise! — the lobbyists won, and the fee idea died.
Stambaugh’s hearing before the ethics board poses a fairly academic question about the prohibition against using public resources for campaigns in the age of social media. If lawmakers are actually interested in serving the public interest by keeping clean governance at the forefront, there are much better questions to be asking.