BELLINGHAM — Thousands of dollars from the company proposing a coal-export terminal at Cherry Point have been funneled to the campaigns of conservative candidates in an obscure Whatcom County election.
The county Charter Review Commission meets for just half a year, once every 10 years, but its work is important enough to the Whatcom County Republican Party and a conservative political action committee that those groups donated almost $8,000 combined to commission races.
The money went mostly to “slate cards,” or lists of endorsed candidates that go on mailers and newspaper inserts.
The Democrats put their endorsed charter review candidates on slate cards, too, said Mike Estes, chairman of the Whatcom County Democrats. Those expenses weren’t reported to the state Public Disclosure Commission. Estes said the party was not required to itemize slate cards by candidate.
As of Friday, Oct. 17, most of the money spent by Whatcom First, a conservative political action committee, this election season came from Pacific International Terminals. The Seattle-based company has submitted permits to build a terminal at Cherry Point that would export up to 48 million tons of coal a year. The project is undergoing an environmental review that should be completed next year.
Pacific International’s $10,000 donation to Whatcom First (run through a second political action committee, Save Whatcom) was 55 percent of what Whatcom First had spent this year on elections as of Friday. So the export company can be credited with $2,358 of the $4,253 Whatcom First gave to charter review candidates.
Debating on voting
The commission will do what its name implies; it will review the county charter. Often called “the county constitution,” the charter sets the rules for how county government runs.
The 15-member commission can put charter amendments on the November 2015 ballot. Voters make the final decision.
“Charter review is the ultimate political insider’s game,” said Jon Mutchler, a Ferndale City Council member and a District 3 charter review candidate who has received $333 in support from the Republicans. “It appears deceptively inconsequential and insignificant, and only the most hardcore of diehard political junkies will research all 12 to 19 candidates in their district and vote for the five that best represent their views.”
Democrats suspect a commission controlled by conservatives would seek to strip decision-making power from the council on land-use decisions, including the coal terminal.
“There’s a worry about moving more of those decisions to the executive from the legislative branch,” Estes said. The council is the county’s legislature.
“That’s an interesting angle to take, at least to talk about, get it out there,” he said.
Estes suggested the coal terminal has too much influence over the proposals being considered by charter review candidates.
“It seems strange to me to change the rules for a single project,” he said.
