(The Center Square) – The group behind several initiative campaigns in Washington state this year has filed complaints with the Public Disclosure Commission against Green Jobs PAC and the Service Employees International Union.
Let’s Go Washington alleges Green Jobs failed to disclose $1 million in expenditures against the initiatives and their use of sub-vendors, and that SEIU failed to disclose $500,000 in expenditures against the initiatives.
An email sent to The Center Square from LGW alleged that “Green Jobs PAC didn’t file a $1 million expenditure until November 13, 2024, which is a direct violation of the state’s campaign laws.”
The second part of the complaint addressed the fact that Green Jobs allegedly utilized sub-vendors without disclosing their individual information.
“Green Jobs PAC and the SEIU hid huge amounts of money from the public until after the election; it’s time they are held accountable for this illegal activity,” Brian Heywood, Let’s Go Washington founder, said. “Green Jobs PAC and the SEIU don’t get to play by a different set of rules, the public has a right to know how money is being spent in a timely fashion.”
LGW spokesperson Hallie Balch told The Center Square in a Tuesday phone interview that initiative opponents should be held to the same standard as any other campaign effort.
“Washington state campaign finance laws say you have to make all your campaign expenditures filed seven days before the election,” she said. “SEIU and Green Jobs PAC, which receives money directly from the CCA, in total spent $1.5 million and didn’t disclose that information until Nov. 13th, which was obviously illegal and outside the deadline.”
Balch said the PDC has yet to make an issue of the late filing.
“There’s no penalty for them, so we filed against them,” she explained. “One for Green Jobs PAC and one against SEIU and all we’re asking for is the same standard be applied to them as was applied to us.”
Balch was referring to the PDC finding against LGW for failing to report sub-vendors who collected signatures for the initiative campaigns.
As previously reported by The Center Square, Balch said, “PDC continuously moved the goalposts time and again, and LGW did its part to ensure that every penny received and spent was accounted for.”
The PDC ultimately found LGW was in violation of the rules and fined the organization $20,000.
“We always legitimately bent over backwards to fulfill their needs on the spot, and we were still fined $20,000 even without any evidence,” Balch said, noting LGW’s complaint points out their opponents should be held to the same standard.
She continued, “Green Jobs PAC, we can see they didn’t file correctly per the PDC’s new standards that they imposed on us. They did have sub-vendors that they didn’t file, and we didn’t have sub-vendors, but we were fined for that.”
LGW maintains political groups that campaigned against the initiatives used money that came from the Climate Commitment Act, which Initiative 2117 would have repealed had it passed.
“There are so many organizations that received money directly from taxpayers from the CCA and then turned around and used that money for canvassing efforts for anti-initiative campaigns,” Balch claimed. “It feels like it’s a web of lies.”
The Center Square reached out to the PDC, SEIU and Green Jobs for comment in response to LGW’s complaint but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
