What is it, and how do I stay in compliance?
Like many states, Washington relies on a tool for the public to keep track of lobbyists and cash flow through political campaigns. The Public Disclosure Commission is Washington State’s public political registry and is the central source for all things political transparency.
All lobbyists, candidates for public office and political campaign participants must file reports and register with the PDC. If your group plans to hire a lobbyist or financially partake in Washington State politics, it is important to understand the basics about the system and how the rules apply.
The PDC is one of Washington’s strongest tools to create transparency so the public can stay informed about the following:
Who is doing the influencing, like private companies, non-profits, or individual citizens.
Which activities are influenced, like specific legislation, campaigns to elect and re-elect candidates, or political action committees with specific agendas.
When activities are influenced, like during a campaign cycle or during the legislative interim, and,
How political activities are influenced, like through cash donations or hosting an event where elected officials are invited to attend.
How do you know if you need to register or file a report?
The process can be complex.
Generally, the PDC breaks lobbying reports into four key categories: a lobbyist employer, a lobbyist, public agencies, and grassroots campaigns. The PDC regulates state lobbying activities. Although the PDC tracks local elections and candidate filing, reporting local and federal lobbyist information is not currently required. Here’s how the PDC defines each of these lobbying roles:
Lobbyist Employer
A lobbyist employer is any person or organization that hires a lobbyist or pays others for lobbying services in Washington state. This includes individuals, partnerships, corporations, governments, associations, political parties, committees, or groups.
Lobbyist
A lobbyist is a person paid for lobbying-related activities. Lobbyists include employees who devote all or some of their time to lobbying, individuals with one or more clients. Lobbyists can also include a law firm protecting client-driven legislative interests, or a person who agrees to represent an organization in Olympia in exhange for travel reimbursement. To see a list of exemptions and more details, click here.
Public Agency
A public agency applies to all state and local public agencies that lobby at the state level. To offer a few examples, a public agency could be a state-funded university or college, a county, or a city. Public agencies can also include special purpose districts, examples of which can include school, water or port districts.
Grassroots Lobbying Campaigns
Any groups that give money to a grassroot lobbying campaign must report the payments to the PDC if the campaign is influencing the public to engage in politics.
Compliance
As a general rule, any organization trying to influence state government politics should carefully research reporting obligations. Organizations that use lobbyists file annual reports with the PDC to publicly. Specifically, these reports state how much money they’ve spent on political activities, such as donations to a campaign, or lobbyist salaries. If any of the above situations apply to you, it may be time to better understand your reporting obligations.