Commission meeting highlights: April 2025

AARP PAC agrees to $5,000 fine for late reporting of more than $400,000 in contributions

The Washington Public Disclosure Commission today approved a $5,000 fine to settle a case against a 2024 ballot measure committee that admitted reporting contributions valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars late.

AARP No on I 2124 Sponsored by AARP Washington State had reached a settlement with PDC staff in which the committee agreed that it had violated state law and would pay a penalty. 

The Commission voted in favor of the settlement at its April 24 meeting. Under the terms, the AARP committee is subject to a penalty of $5,000, with $2,500 suspended, provided the committee pays the fine within 30 days of the order and remains in compliance with PDC reporting requirements.   

In August 2024, PDC staff opened a case against the committee after receiving a complaint that the PAC had failed to timely and accurately report contributions and expenditures, and had failed to provide complete description of in-kind contributions. 

In-kind contributions are non-monetary contributions. For example, an in-kind contribution could involve a professional graphic designer donating their services to a campaign, or a contributor donating office supplies. Campaigns must report these contributions and provide descriptions of them on campaign expenditure reports (C-4 reports). 

After a PDC investigation, the committee stipulated to violations of RCW 42.17A.235 and 42.17A.240 for failing to timely report in-kind contributions totaling $443,561 from its sponsor, AARP Washington State. The majority of that amount, more than $433,000, was reported three days after the November election. The contributions identified were reported between 10 and 111 days late. 

Three of the four members of the Public Disclosure Commission disclosed at the beginning of the hearing that they were dues-paying members of AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons. Neither attorneys for AARP nor the Office of the Attorney General, representing the PDC, objected to the commissioners conducting the hearing. 

The committee also stipulated to violations of RCW 42.17A.240 and WAC 390-16-037 for initially failing to adequately describe the contributions in reports. The committee worked with PDC staff to file amended reports correcting this issue, which was listed as one of the mitigating factors involved in the case. Other mitigating factors involved the committee treasurer’s unfamiliarity with PDC filing requirements, and that PDC staff found no evidence of intentional concealment. The treasurer stated she was not aware of the need to file an expenditure report seven days before the election, which resulted in significant expenditures being reported after the election.

While some members of the Commissioners expressed concern that the penalty should be higher, given aggravating factors that included the high amount of late-reported contributions, the board voted unanimously to accept the agreed penalty. 

Commission considers plan to increase most penalties for violations of disclosure law

The Washington Public Disclosure Commission is considering increasing penalty ranges for violations of the state’s political disclosure laws, with potential adoption by December 2025. 

The current penalty schedules used for stipulations (WAC 390-37-062), brief adjudicatory proceedings (WAC 390-37-143), and full commission hearings (WAC 390-37-182) were created in 2018. Public Disclosure Commissioners have expressed interest in updating the penalty schedules several times over the past year, and PDC staff initiated the formal rulemaking process in October 2024. 

PDC staff has proposed increases of $500 to $1,000 for most penalties. The changes are intended to give the Commission more flexibility in imposing penalties for violations. State law caps the Commission’s authority to impose penalties at $10,000 per violation. How the Commission determines penalties within that limit is up to the Commission’s discretion.

Staff plan to continue work on the proposed rules over the next month, and bring them back to the commission at a future meeting. The rules will be open for public comment and will be the subject of a public hearing before they are adopted. 

PDC staff continue to work on proposal to simplify expenditure reporting dates

After taking comments from the public and hosting an engagement session with stakeholders, PDC staff presented an updated proposal intended to standardize the campaign expenditure reporting calendar. 

Currently, campaign expenditure reports, known as C-4 reports, have due dates that depend on the amount of a candidate or committee’s financial activity and their election participation. For that reason, a committee participating in the 2025 general election has different C-4 due dates than a committee participating in the April 2025 special election. 

The current reporting schedule also doesn’t reflect the move to mail voting, with the bulk of expenditure reporting happening on the eve of ballots going out when voters may have little time to digest the information. 

Based on feedback from an engagement session with campaign treasurers, staff offered a schedule in which campaigns would file monthly expenditure reports from January to June and in November, regardless of the amount of their financial activity. The campaigns also would file two expenditure reports each in July, August, September, October and December. 

PDC staff presented the Commission with the revised plan at the April meeting, which also included suggestions for the timing of reporting during the months before an election. 

The Commission also heard a presentation from PDC legal extern Jessie Post about how other states handle political expenditure reporting in the period before an election.  

Commission votes to begin rulemaking process to allow parties to promote ballot measures alongside candidates on slate cards

The Public Disclosure Commission will begin a rulemaking process to consider adding language to WAC 390 to allow party committees to show their position on ballot measures on slate cards.  The Washington State Democratic Party submitted a petition in March asking the Commission to consider the change. 

Bona fide state party committees are allowed to have two kinds of accounts: Exempt and non-exempt. These committees can accept unlimited contributions from any contributor for exempt funds, but are restricted to using those funds to promote voter registration, get-out-the-vote campaigns, sample ballots, slate cards and some other uses. 

Currently, parties are allowed to use their exempt funds to create “slate cards” or sample ballots that include the party’s preferred candidates. The cards are allowed under the more restrictive rules for use of exempt funds because they don’t include advocacy statements or promote individual candidates, or candidates’ positions on issues or platforms. If a slate card does include that kind of information, it could be determined to be subject to contribution limits, and therefore not qualify for an exempt fund expenditure.

A slate card also does not constitute a contribution to a candidate’s campaign if it follows these restrictions. 

The Democratic Party argued in its proposal that allowing a party’s position on a ballot measure on a sample ballot would serve the public interest at a time when ballot propositions are increasingly partisan.

The Commission voted unanimously to begin the rulemaking process to address the Party’s proposal. In order for the changes to be in effect for the 2025 election cycle, they would have to be in place by June 30. 

PDC General Counsel Sean Flynn said the timeline was very short to complete the full rulemaking process required by law, which includes a public comment period and public hearing, but that it could potentially be accomplished with an expedited rulemaking process. The PDC used this process to enact temporary political advertising sponsor identification rule changes before the 2024 election. The Commission later went through a public hearing process to make the rules permanent.

Enforcement update

As of April 16, 2025, the PDC has 228 open enforcement cases, including 81 under assessment of facts, 118 under formal investigation, 28 scheduled for a brief hearing and one that was scheduled for a formal hearing. That case was heard at the April 24 regular meeting. 

Twenty-seven new complaints were submitted between March 16 and April 15. 

During that same time, 47 cases were resolved, including four with reminder letters, 10 with written warnings, 13 that were dismissed by the executive director and 20 resolved through statements of understanding.