Gregoire-Rossi Redux Heats Up

Unions and lawyers love Democrats. Big business and developers prefer Republicans. That may be a well-worn stereotype, but lists of endorsements and major campaign spenders for Gov. Christine Gregoire and Dino Rossi illustrate the basic truths behind the cliché.

According to the lists of contributors in the campaigns’ filings with the Public Disclosure Commission (PDC), Rossi’s top-tier donors are heavy with contractors and builders, including the Master Builders Associations of King and Snohomish counties. Gregoire has a lot of venture capitalists and lawyers among those listed as giving the maximum $1,600 amount for individual contributors.

On the all-important television-ad battlefront, most of the fighting is being waged by so-called “Section 527 independent expenditure groups,” which exist outside the scope of Federal Election Commission laws. Though technically independent, these third-party groups often mask the usual political suspects.

One of these 527 groups, called Evergreen Progress, has raised a total $2.4 million to help get Gregoire re-elected. According to a PDC filing in August, the Democratic Governors Association is responsible for $1 million of that total, while the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) put up $495,000. A variety of other unions and labor councils contributed the remaining $985,000. At press time, Evergreen had spent $1.44 million on a series of anti-Rossi ads over the summer.

In the pro-Dino camp, other 527 groups such as It’s Time for a Change (ITFC) and Changepac have hammered Gregoire about the state’s high taxes. Via the 527 route, the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) spent nearly $1.4 million in opposition ads aimed at Gregoire as of Aug. 8. Working under its own name and through ITFC, the BIAW also spent $284,000 on pro-Rossi ads and activities, helping make up for a nearly 25 percent advantage in direct fundraising by the Gregoire campaign ($8.6 million vs. $6.7 million).

Not surprisingly, however, the campaigns both claim broad business group support.

Debra Carnes, the Gregoire campaign’s communications director, points to the governor’s record of cutting red tape for small business, making Washington “the third best place for businesses” in the nation and producing 220,000 new jobs during her tenure.

Carnes’ counterpart in the Rossi campaign, Jill Strait, pointed to endorsements from the Washington Restaurant Association, Washington Association of Realtors and the Farm Bureau as showing wide support for Rossi across the business community. BIAW public relations director Erin Shannon says her organization prefers Rossi because of his “long history of supporting small business.”

Meanwhile, charges of corruption and illegal campaign contributions have been flying on both sides. Rossi is attacking Gov. Gregoire for allegedly cutting a sweetheart deal with casino-operating Indian tribes, which gave $600,000 in soft money to the state Democratic Party; the party, in turn, contributed $550,000 to the Gregoire campaign.

“[Gregoire] stopped the largest expansion of gambling in state history,” says Carnes, “and she had bipartisan support to do that.” Carnes says the implication of a political deal to forego state revenues from the tribal casinos in exchange for contributions is “absurd.”

In a court filing and a letter to Attorney General Rob McKenna, Seattle attorneys Knoll Lowney and Mike Withey claim that BIAW illegally solicited donations from groups and individuals to raise $3.5 million to defeat Gregoire and other Democrats.

With a month to go, it looks like “Gregoire-Rossi Redux” will be no less interesting than it was four years ago.

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