Non-profits used as political committees

Democrats say Rossi's nonprofit is really a campaign

By David Postman

Seattle Times chief political reporter

Many expect Dino Rossi to run for governor in 2008.

OLYMPIA — The state Public Disclosure Commission says it will review a complaint from state Democrats before deciding whether to investigate claims that Republican Dino Rossi's nonprofit foundation should be regulated as a campaign committee.

PDC spokeswoman Lori Anderson said the commission staff got a copy of the complaint late Monday, hours after the Democratic Party sent it to reporters.

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The state Democratic Party filed a complaint saying Rossi's Forward Washington Foundation is "functionally indistinguishable to that of a gubernatorial candidate."

Rossi, a former state senator, was the Republicans' 2004 candidate for governor.

The Democrats say fundraising and spending by his foundation should be subject to the same rules that regulate political campaigns.

"Similarly, the core activities of Forward Washington are akin to those of a campaign for public office," the complaint says. It quotes foundation documents that say the nonprofit group's activities include "speeches, statements to the media, forums, seminars and panel discussions, research into state government issues ... communications to state residents, occasional paid media advertising."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003762518_rossi26m.html

"The Backroom of the Permanent Campaign"

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The deafening silence on the role of exempt entities in election campaigns is doubly remarkable in light of the ferment surrounding elections since 2000. The legacy of this debacle has been almost surreal. In a country that has sat silently while the government launched an unprecedented assault on civil liberties, where the Justice Department devoted itself to denying minority voting rights through unfounded charges of fraud, where the Election Assistance Commission altered a report that had concluded that voter fraud was minimal, and where no one will ever know which candidate in fact was elected President in 2000, the major First Amendment issue has been the right of big donors to abuse exempt entities and the right of rouge exempt entities to traffic in their exemption in the interest of keeping campaign contributions secret from the voters but not, of course, from the candidates.

In this debate, most reformers and reform organizations have become not watchdogs but the functional equivalents of an inattentive board. The role of section 501(c)(3) public charities, of section 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, of section 501(c)(5) labor unions, and of section 501(c)(6) trade associations as financing intermediaries for candidates and parties has been willfully ignored. While reformers have overcome their initial reluctance to address issues related to the section 527 organizations that are still not treated as political committees under federal election law, few are willing to examine the activities of the section 501(c) organizations.

http://www.clcblog.org/blog_item-139.html