Political group Let’s Go Washington accused of breaking law while gathering signatures

A year-long investigation has led to charges from a state campaign watchdog against Let’s Go Washington (LGW) for allegedly violating campaign finance laws while gathering signatures for six initiatives last year, the Washington State Standard reported.

The charges focus on how the political action committee founded by conservative businessman Brian Heywood reported spending on signature-gathering for the measures in 2023. Politico calls Heywood “a hedge fund executive who is spending millions of dollars to circumvent Democrats’ lock on state government.”

The dispute stems from LGW’s success last year in gathering signatures for the six initiatives to the Washington State Legislature. Lawmakers adopted three initiatives related to police pursuit guidelines, parental rights, and taxes. Voters will decide on three others that aim to repeal the capital gains tax, the cap-and-trade system, and make the state’s new long-term care services program voluntary.

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Washington’s Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) staff filed charges on Sept. 9, alleging LGW did not “accurately and timely” report its spending on signature-gathering for each measure. They also claim the committee failed to obtain and disclose information from vendors about their spending on subcontractors and did not produce requested campaign records.

After being issued a subpoena in July, LGW provided 9,000 pages of materials. The five-member Public Disclosure Commission will consider the charges in a special meeting on Oct. 3.

Heywood stated that the group “has been transparent in all of its campaign reports.” He added that commission staff “does not dispute that we have reported every penny we have received and spent,” and that the issue concerns only technical details of how the information was reported.

An alliance of progressive groups opposed to the ballot measures filed a complaint in July 2023, alleging that LGW failed to disclose details about the flow of money in and out of the committee for each initiative. They claimed that by using Heywood’s “deep pockets” as its near-exclusive source of cash in 2023, the committee circumvented the need for regular reports of contributions and failed to report pledges intended to cover in-kind expenditures.

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Lawyers representing SEIU 775, Washington Conservation Action, Planned Parenthood and Civic Ventures have pushed for action on the allegations before the fall election. At a commission meeting two months ago, they urged commissioners to refer the case to Washington’s attorney general but were rebuffed because the staff had not finished their investigation.

Defend Washington, the coalition’s name, stated this week that the charges show LGW “has been trying to conceal relevant facts from voters as they weigh how to vote on these measures … and then stonewalling the PDC as they attempted to investigate.”

Initially, the committee treated it as a single undertaking, combining all funds raised and spent. Earlier this year, at the commission staff’s request, the committee filed amended reports detailing specific amounts for each initiative.

Another charge involves Allstate Petition Management (APM), one of two signature-gathering firms hired by LGW. According to commission documents, the committee reported $1.9 million in payments to APM but did not collect information on amounts paid to subcontractors, as required by state law. LGW sought this information from Roy Ruffino, APM’s top executive, who responded that the information was proprietary and unreasonable to disclose.

The case remains under investigation, and charging documents may be amended, according to PDC officials.

Bill Kaczaraba is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here. Follow Bill on X here and email him here.