No one seems to be enforcing the strict campaign-contribution limits in the city of Edmonds.
The city five years ago passed a limit of $500 to a candidate per contributor per election cycle. State rules currently allow each contributor to give a candidate $950 for a primary election and $950 for the general election.
However, when two Edmonds City Council candidates in the Tuesday, Nov. 3, general election each reported $950 in contributions from the Affordable Housing Council, the political affairs arm of the Master Builders of King and Snohomish counties, no one seems to have caught the violation.
The two candidates, Neil Tibbott and Dave Teitzel both said a few days before the election that no elections or public-disclosure officials told them about the Edmonds rule.
Tibbott and Teitzel each reported a $500 contribution from the Housing council early in the summer and a $450 contribution in October.
A Housing Council representative said last week that the organization’s board had given the first $500 as part of an initial wave of contributions to “Housing friendly” candidates (including $250 to Edmonds council incumbent Mike Nelson) and later decided on additional contributions. He said that his organization had been careful to stay within state rules but had no knowledge of a stricter rule in Edmonds.
Both candidates said last week that they had sent checks back to the Affordable Housing Council. The Housing council representative confirmed that.
The candidates said that an examination of campaign-finance laws didn’t show the Edmonds rule.
A spokesman for the state Public Disclosure Commission said that the PDC enforces state rules but not stricter local rules. Edmonds is one of several Washington cities with campaign-contribution rules stricter than state rules.
Snohomish County elections officials said that, while they give candidates information about state rules, they don’t do that for local rules.
Edmonds City Clerk Scott Passey said that the city ordinance calls for a violation to be punishable by a civil penalty from the Edmonds Municipal Court.
Nelson, Tibbott and Tietzel all were leading in returns from the Tuesday election reported through Thursday.
Evan Smith can be reached at schsmith@frontier.com.
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