Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna hauled in $250,000 for his gubernatorial campaign in the three-day thaw in fundraising between the regular and special sessions of the Legislature.
The cash infusion pushes McKenna’s total to right around $4 million – a sum on which he will be stuck for awhile.
Campaign finance laws bar state officials seeking legislative and statewide offices from collecting donations whenever lawmakers are in session. This special session could go the maximum of 30 days.
For McKenna, the fund-raising window opened at midnight Thursday and slammed close at 12:01 a.m. Monday.
He’ll even have to return any contributions received on days lawmakers are in special session, even mailed donations postmarked March 9, 10, or 11, 2012, according to a memo sent to state officials by the state Public Disclosure Commission.
McKenna’s campaign made a fierce effort during every one of the 72 hours – sending out appeals via email, Twitter and Facebook. By late Monday, with tallying still under way, they predicted the total would eclipse $250,000.
The ban on fund raising does not apply to federal lawmakers vying for a state office like Democratic U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee.
Inslee has taken in $4.22 million as of Feb. 29, according to information shown on the PDC web site. His campaign did not provide any figures for fund raising over the weekend or the first two weeks of March.
McKenna and Republican Party officials point out Inslee’s total is as high as it is because he’s received generous donations from the state Democratic Party and transferred a batch of money left over from his federal campaign account.
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