On Friday, Washington state attorney general Bob Ferguson filed a complaint against the Freedom Foundation, a local free-market advocacy group, for allegedly failing to disclose $2,000 in independent expenditures during its quest to defeat Ballot Initiative I-1501, known absurdly as the “Seniors and Vulnerable Individuals’ Safety and Financial Crimes Prevention Act.”
Certainly the undisclosed funds should be investigated; that, after all, is Ferguson’s job. But it is troubling that Ferguson is giving the Freedom Foundation expenditures such scrupulous attention while simultaneously acquiescing to the Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) blatant misuse of the statewide initiative process. As I wrote on the homepage last week, I-1501 should not even be on the statewide ballot:
To look into the facts is to discover that I-1501’s intent has nothing to do with protecting citizens, and everything to do with altering the Public Records Act to prevent the Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank, from obtaining the membership list of the SEIU – and, specifically, from obtaining the names of members who serve as home care providers and informing them of their constitutional right to opt out of paying union fees.
Given that Ferguson seems to be such a stickler for the rules, it is a little odd that he wouldn’t investigate SEIU’s role in this sham initiative.
