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Originally published January 2, 2012 at 4:00 PM | Page modified January 2, 2012 at 6:01 PM
Washington's campaign-finance disclosures rightly upheld
The Seattle Times editorial board welcomes the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding Washington state's strong rules for public disclosure of campaign finances.
Seattle Times Editorial
THE 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has made a good ruling in Family PAC v. McKenna, a case on Washington's law of initiative and referendum. The ruling keeps our state's strong rules for public disclosure of campaign finances.
The rule at issue is that anyone giving more than $25 to support or oppose a ballot measure must disclose his name and address, and if giving more than $100, occupation and employer. Family PAC, the group originally formed to oppose passage of the same-sex unions law in 2009, argued that the disclosure rule interfered with its freedom of speech under the First Amendment.
In the opinion by Judge Raymond Fisher, the three-judge court said the disclosure rule is "only a modest deterrent" to political advocacy and that it is "substantially related to an important governmental interest in informing the electorate." The court also said the rule is "narrowly tailored" to achieve that interest.
Informing voters is certainly a strong interest. Whether the cutoff for giving one's name should be as low as $25 is debatable, but better that it be too low than too high.
In its decision, the court threw out the rule that prohibits a campaign from accepting more than $5,000 from any donor within 21 days of an election. Under that rule, Costco Wholesale held off until Oct. 17 — 22 days before last November's election — to drop $8,929,810 into the fight over the state liquor stores, giving their opponents no time to counter.
The purpose of the $5,000 rule was to make sure bigger contributions were disclosed to voters before Election Day. But that was set in pre-Internet days, and the state now mandates reporting of donations of $1,000 or more within 24 hours. The court declared the 21-day rule no longer "narrowly tailored."
That makes sense. But opening the gates to last-minute dumps of dollars may not matter much because of another change. Balloting is now all-mail. Dumping millions into a race in the last week risks wasting it, because too many people will have already voted.
