Washblog

King Co. Attorney Race: Satterberg Accepts Huge Sums of Dirty GOP Money

[Note: Also see later stories: Should the election of Dan Satterberg be Voided? and PDC Complaint on Republican Cash Transfers to Satterberg]

Dan Satterberg, the Republican candidate for King County Prosecuting Attorney is a deep disappointment.  

Big, last-minute sums of cash -- in apparent violation of state law -- have flowed through the state Republican Party and into his campaign.  Some of these donations, for example, one for $10,000 from a county deputy prosecuting attorney, are from people Satterberg pledged he would not accept funds from: employees of the office that he seeks election to.  One of them, for $5,000, is from the CEO of a construction company that Satterberg "helped" back in the 1990s by dismissing criminal charges against that company -- over the protests of the prosecutor in his office who believed she could get convictions. The alleged crimes? Intentionally allowing asbestos dust to blow through the vents of a hospital maternity ward.  I wrote about that sorry episode here: Breathing Rights, Voting Rights and the King Co Prosecuting Attorney Race.  See over the fold for Democratic candidate Bill Sherman's response.

From the Bill Sherman Campaign:
Massive Cash Transfers from Republican Party to Dan Satterberg Violate Campaign Contribution Limits and Expose Satterberg's Partisan Ties
Seattle (November 3) - On Friday night, the Washington State Republican Party made a massive cash transfer of $81,015 to the campaign of Republican King County prosecutorial candidate Dan Satterberg. This comes on top of some $70,000 more in cash and in kind contributions made to Satterberg by the Republican Party in recent days. Much of the money moving into Satterberg's account appears to have been earmarked for this race - in violation of campaign finance limits - and was moved in way meant to minimize the chance that the public would learn of these ties before voting.

In response to these developments, Bill Sherman, the Democratic candidate for King County prosecutor, released the following statement:

"As this massive last minute flow of money from the Republican Party to Dan Satterberg has come to light, it has become increasingly obvious Satterberg and his Republican Party have deliberately duped the press and public and made a mockery of our campaign finance laws.

"In recent weeks the Washington State Republican Party has collected huge checks from high dollar Republican donors as well as people with direct ties to Satterberg. We believe this was a well planned scheme to earmark money for the Satterberg campaign in violation of campaign contribution  limits.

"A deputy prosecutor in the office who had never before made a political contribution larger than $200 suddenly cut a check for $10,000 to the Washington State Republicans, after family members and his family company had already made maximum contributions to Satterberg. The CEO of a construction company that was accused of negligently allowing asbestos dust to blow through the vents of a hospital maternity ward - charges that were personally dismissed by Dan Satterberg over the vehement objections of the prosecutor assigned to the case - contributed another $5,000 to the Republican Party. Other big donors gave as much as $50,000 each.

"Now, at the last minute, after more than a 125,000 people have already cast their ballots, more than $125,000 of that money has been transferred directly into Dan Satterberg's account. That includes an $81,015 transfer on the Friday night before the last weekend of voting - clearly in the hopes that the public would not find out until too late. A complaint will be filed with the Public Disclosure Commission on Monday leveling charges that Dan Satterberg and the Washington State Republican Party have willfully violated the laws of the state of Washington .

"Dan Satterberg has now revealed his true stripes. In his 22 years in the prosecutor's office he never once raised the possibility of making the office a non-partisan one, trumpeting this issue only in the campaign's final weeks. For much of that time we believe he has been fully aware that huge cash infusions from the party would be made in the last days of the campaign to throw the election in his favor, and has made spending decisions accordingly.

"Will he exhibit this same sort of duplicitous behavior if he takes office? If he was willing to mislead the public throughout this campaign about his close Republican Party ties, and to accept huge contributions from underlings and those who received favorable treatment from the Prosecuting Attorney's Office, can Dan Satterberg really be trusted to serve as the chief criminal justice officer of King County?"

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George Skip Rowley (Rowley enterprises) for all intents, invented the idea of laundering cash through the GOP to his chosen candidates. He has been the in the top 5 GOP contributors year to year since 91. In Rossi's first race for Senate, Rowley gave him free office space and then, even though their were no limits, he gave $5,000 to the KCGOP and on the same day they gave Rossi $5,000, just to mask the source.
In the 96 race Rowley was limited in how much he could legally give Rossi, so he formed one of the states first PACs Mobility 21 gave it 99% of its money and spent it all for Rossi.
After Rossi was elected property owned by Rowley received millions in state funds to move a Salmon stream from the center of his property to the side property line and enlarging culverts under I-90. Rowley kicked in $500,000 and his property value went up several million.

Rowley has run most of his money to candidates through the KCGOP since they always delivered as he intended. In 05 he provided between $8,000 and $10,000 to each of his chosen Issaquah city council candidates all C/O the KCGOP. Issaquah was a city of 12,000 at the time and these candidates raised only between $50 and $500 each in their races, aside from what Rowley dumped in. The county who has never before or since taken anywhere near the interest it took that year in small city politics, ran robo calls and mailers at a cost within $500 of the $45,000 or so Rowley dumped in.

I could go on about Nupricon and Hennissy but Rowley is the key. Kemper and Rowley and Jennifer Dunn all went to Bellevue High together. Now with Esser as party chair, it looks like Rowley has high trust in the StateGOP that they will get the money to "its intended candidate".

by Particle Man on Mon Nov 05, 2007 at 09:06:56 AM PST

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ROSSI'S BIGGEST CONTRIBUTOR
Skims $ Millions
from workers comp to attack Gregoire

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