Last week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing corporations and unions to spend freely on independent expenditures did not change the rules governing local races in Washington state. Our rules are already lax when it comes to corporate and union dollars.
First of all, the slightly hysterical reporting at the national level was a bit oblique and never clearly explained what the ruling actually did.
Here’s what it did: Before the ruling, corporations were not allowed to spend money from their bank accounts on independent expenditures (ie, ads and campaigns executed separately from the candidate’s official campaign) in the run-up to election—30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general. The Supreme Court knocked down that rule. In so doing, they went a step further, ruling that corporations can now spend their own money on IEs whenever they want without limit.
Corporations and unions are still barred from directly contributing to candidate campaigns and PACs. (Corporations can still set up PACs to raise money. PACs can contribute to candidates, with limits—$2,400 to a single candidate.)
In Washington state, corporations were already free to directly spend money on IEs at anytime. Washington is one of 26 states that was not affected by the ruling.
Moreover, Washington state does not prohibit corporations from giving directly to PACs or candidates. In short, last week’s ruling creates a federal landscape that is still more stringent when it comes to governing corporate donations.
Certainly, the corporations as people thing is creepy and the logic of the federal ruling is likely to support future challenges to the ban on direct corporate spending to candidates at the federal level. But again, that’s already the status quo in Washington state.
Says Doug Ellis, Assistant Director at the state Public Disclosure Commission, “The state never had a prohibition on corporate spending. We didn’t have restrictions similar to the federal laws.”
Ellis explains that corporations and unions can give directly to candidates and PACs in Washington state, “with full disclosure.”
Before Democrats condemn the ruling as a blessing for the GOP, they should note that free corporate rein in Washington state has given us a Democratic governor, and Democratic control of both state houses.
