The Governor and Money Laundering

Manweller—7/11/07

Believe it or not, the race for governor in 2008 has already begun. Out of the blocks, Gov. Gregoire has a leapt to a huge advantage by finding a very unlikely source for campaign funds. You. The taxpayer. Most Washingtonians don’t know it, but our Governor has found a legal way to money launder tax dollars to pay for her reelection bid.

The money launderer in this case is our ever growing state employees unions. The first step in the conspiracy came with a one-two punch. The Democratically controlled Legislature passed laws which empowered unions to collectively bargain with the state and Gov. Gregoire made it mandatory that every state employee join a state employee union or be fired.

Once these changes in the law were enacted, the size of every state employee union doubled. The Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) went from 19,000 members to 40,000 members. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) used the state to unionize all state paid health care workers gaining 28,000 members overnight. But more importantly, all of these employees are required to pay union dues that can be used for political purposes. See where we are headed?

Once their numbers doubled, so did the amount of money they had to spend on politics. The WFSE income doubled from $6 million to $12 million. The SEIU budget went from $375,000 to just over $9 million! In turn, these unions use their new found wealth to hire lobbyists who pressure the Legislature to give them bigger raises and more collective bargaining power. In the past few years, the WFSE lobbying budget has doubled from $250,000 a year to $500,000. They spend another $360,000 a year in outright political donations. Not surprisingly, 90% of all their donations go to Democrats.

The practice of empowering state employee unions with taxpayer dollars creates an incestuous and spiraling environment. The unions are required to bargain with the state. But, the state representatives political campaigns are funded by the very unions they are bargaining with. By using the power of the state to garner massive amounts of union dues, the unions have essentially purchased the very government that is supposed to overseeing them.

The consequences have been disastrous, even in the short run. In Olympia’s last budget, every state employee got a raise. Most were double digit raises. Some were as high as 25%. The total cost to the state has been about $1.6 billion. That’s $1,600,000,000 in case the shorthand doesn’t have the same impact. How many people reading this article got a 25% raise last year? Too bad, because you are paying for other people to get one. We should not be surprised, however, that the governor has prostituted herself out to every state employee union. It was not done out of concern for those workers, but out of self-interest. By giving huge raises to the unions, she is really just giving herself huge campaign donations from the public trough.

The conspiracy doesn’t end there. Gov. Gregoire has found a new way to increase the power of state employee unions. She hired 8,000 new workers since taking office. They all have to pay dues to the union, who in turn give it back to her in political donations. Essentially, Gregoire has figured out a way to have taxpayers fund her campaign by laundering the money through state employees unions. She can’t take money directly from the state treasury. That is illegal. But she can give the money to a state employees union, who in turn, gives it back to her. She takes the money, wins the election, and then pays off the unions with more money from the state treasury. It is a plan any mafia boss would be proud of. The only difference here is that it’s the taxpayers’ knees that are getting capped.

For a detailed report of all the numbers, check out this Seattle Times article: http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=unions01m&date=20070701&query=st