Late GOP contributions stir up prosecutor race

Excerpts from his blog, Postman on Politics

The state Republican Party has made a huge, last-minute donation to help acting prosecutor Dan Satterberg keep the office in GOP hands. The county prosecutor has been a Republican for six decades, and Satterberg is the last Republican to hold a countywide position in King County.

The party gave Satterberg $81,015 Friday. In total, the state party has given the campaign $126,621.

Satterberg's Democratic opponent, Bill Sherman, has been worrying about such a last-minute contribution since large donations were made to the party by people connected to Satterberg. In part, Sherman's campaign has pointed to the party donations as evidence that Satterberg is not as nonpartisan as he claims. (Satterberg has said he would work to make the office officially nonpartisan if elected to a full term Tuesday.)

Recent donations to the state party included $10,000 from Nelson Lee, a deputy county prosecutor. His wife, a cousin and the cousin's business also gave money directly to Satterberg's campaign.

In addition, last month John Hennessy, president and CEO of the construction company Nuprecon, gave the state party $5,000. In 1994, the county prosecutor's office dropped charges against Nuprecon and another construction company for alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. The companies had originally been charged after it was alleged that asbestos was blown through the ventilation system at Valley Medical Center. The Puget Sound Air Pollution Control Agency had said employees of the companies knew they were breaking the law.

But Satterberg was quoted at the time as saying there was not clear evidence that the workers knew that there was asbestos in the building. He repeated that Saturday.

Late last month, Satterberg returned $770 in contributions from Republican activist Lori Sotelo. Satterberg's office had reviewed possible charges against Sotelo in relation to a voting-registration challenge she filed, but decided against it. Satterberg said he did not ever want it to look like someone who was not charged later rewarded him.

Satterberg told me on Saturday he had no concerns about the state party donations. He said he didn't know whether the $5,000 contribution from Hennessy was fueled by the asbestos case. Satterberg said he talked with Hennessy, who told him he's livid that Sherman brings the case up as an example of the prosecutor's office being soft on environmental crime.

Hennessy also called Sherman to ask him to stop raising the case in the campaign. Sherman spokesman Sandeep Kaushik said Sherman refused to stop talking about the asbestos case, "but if Hennessy had more information that would put the situation in a different light, Bill would be happy to take a look at it. Hennessy never followed up or sent him anything."

Hennessy said last night that after talking to Sherman and reviewing the case, the whole thing made him so upset he didn't try to convince Sherman further.

"This whole thing is an example of a prosecutor out of control," Hennessy said. He said the case was built on a whistle-blower who said a Nuprecon worker, in an area where a different firm was working, was seen sweeping up a tiny bit of asbestos and throwing it in a Dumpster.

The Nuprecon case was initially filed by deputy prosecutor Lynn Prunhuber. She has since left the office and has donated $1,400 to Sherman's campaign.

The Sherman campaign sent me a statement saying they "believe this was a well-planned scheme to earmark money for the Satterberg campaign in violation of campaign finance limits." Sherman says Satterberg, with the help of the Republican Party, "duped the press and public" by claiming to be nonpartisan while counting on GOP money in the final days of the campaign.

Donors cannot earmark party donations for a specific candidate. And state Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser said there were no strings attached to any donations.

Hennessy said if he had wanted to help Satterberg, he and his wife could have given maximum donations directly to the candidate. He said he won't be sorry if Sherman loses, but that he made no effort to tell the Republican Party how his donation should be spent.

Satterberg said his acceptance of the party money will have no effect on his efforts to make the office nonpartisan.

"It is ironic that I'm getting help from the Republican Party even though they are well aware of my desire to make the office nonpartisan. I do expect they would rather have me running a nonpartisan office than Mr. Sherman running a partisan office."

This material has been edited for print publication.

David Postman is The Seattle Times' chief political reporter. Reach him at 360-236-8267 or at dpostman@seattletimes.com