Pursuit of campaign-spending violations breaks the budget

The agency seeks $900K to pay legal bills arising from cases against Eyman and others.

OLYMPIA — Enforcing Washington’s campaign finance laws is proving more expensive than expected.

The Public Disclosure Commission is in need of hundreds of thousands of additional dollars to cover the tab of lawsuits against Tim Eyman and others accused of being political scofflaws.

Commissioners will ask the governor and state lawmakers for $889,000 in the 2019 supplemental budget to pay legal bills from the Office of the Attorney General, which handles complex cases at the request of the commission.

And the citizen commission is seeking $1.97 million in the next two-year state budget for services of Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s staff. The amount is more than double what the agency received in the current budget.

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