Spokane County Commissioner Al French accuses opposition of violating campaign finance law in flurry of complaint filings

As the general election inches closer, outside spenders are pouring money into the race between County Commissioner Al French and opponent Molly Marshall.

Special interest groups have spent a combined $200,000 for canvassing, mailers and advertisements for and against the two candidates in the past two weeks .

While French has had more than $70,000 spent in favor of his re-election bid by the local and national political action committees for the Association of Realtors, his opposition has poured more than $94,000 into efforts to prevent the commissioner from being elected to a fifth term.

Marshall, on the other hand, has had $26,500 spent in favor of her candidacy. There are no reports of independent expenditures opposing her, according to the Public Disclosure Commission.

At a press conference Wednesday, French decried the “dark money from Seattle” influencing the race. He also highlighted complaints he filed later that afternoon with the PDC that allege Marshall and her supporters have violated state campaign finance law.

Two of the complaints accuse Marshall of misrepresenting herself as the incumbent in her campaign materials and perpetuating falsehoods about French’s involvement in the response to the PFAS-contaminated waters on the West Plains.

Marshall’s logo, which is consistent across her campaign signs, mailers and social media, do not include the words “vote,” “elect,” “choose” or anything along those lines that would indicate she is a first-time candidate.

The messaging simply reads “Molly Marshall” above “County Commissioner • D,” which French argues is a violation of the state statute prohibiting candidates from wrongly representing themselves as an incumbent.

Marshall said the PDC already received a complaint about her logo earlier this year and dismissed it without an investigation, determining it was a nonissue. The PDC said Marshall has not used “any terms implying they were an incumbent or already in office,” in an email about the decision provided by the candidate. 

Another complaint is directed at several political groups and unions that financed a television ad attacking French over his PFAS response, an ad the commissioner called defamatory misinformation in his complaint, according to a copy provided by French. Notable subjects of the complaint include FUSE Washington and the Washington Conservation Voters, two progressive political groups that supported the failed recall effort against French.

“They lost the primary election, and they lost in the court of law, so now they’re willing to lie in the court of public opinion to be able to sway the voters,” French said. “These are desperate tactics for my opponent’s allies, willing to lie and defame me to try and resuscitate a failing campaign.”

The 30-second ad, paid for by the progressive political action committee Citizens for Liberty and Labor, begins with a woman stating, “Because of Al French, our families were exposed to dangerous chemicals in our drinking water.”

It then goes on to accuse French of hiding knowledge of the contamination, while referencing the long-circulating allegation French once blocked the county from receiving a state grant to address it. French has maintained the county legally could not accept the grant, as the county and city of Spokane have ceded control of the airport grounds to the airport board.

“We are at risk of becoming Al French’s Flint, Michigan,” the woman in the ad says. “A place where politicians hide the truth, and our health and property values suffer.”

French’s attorney Mark Lamb said the ad violates state law prohibiting political advertisements that contain “a false statement of material fact about a candidate for political office.” He added that many of the claims made in the ad were disproven in court, when Whitman County Superior Court Judge Gary Libey threw out the recall petition for lacking legal and factual standing.

“These ads go well beyond those allegations that were thrown out of court, and try to assert, somehow, Commissioner French was responsible for the contamination,” Lamb said. “There is no factual basis for that, because that is, quite simply, a lie.”

French called on Marshall to disavow and condemn the ad while noting their shared military background, saying they both had to adhere to the Uniform Code of Military Justice during their time in the service, and that he still does.

“She must condemn these despicable tactics,” French said. “Otherwise, saying nothing condones this kind of smear campaign. Elections should be about comparing records of accomplishments, new ideas for tomorrow, not spreading lies.”

In addition to the complaint and call for condemnation, Lamb said he will be sending cease and desist letters to Comcast and other companies airing the advertisement. French said he is prepared to take legal action if stations continue to air it.

Marshall said Wednesday evening she did not feel comfortable commenting on French’s remarks or the complaints until she was able to review them herself.

Among Independent Expenditures, Citizens for Liberty and Labor has poured more money into the race than any other entity, spending roughly $94,500 for the aforementioned ad, mailers and canvassing efforts opposing French, and $24,000 in support of Marshall.

Citizens for Liberty and Labor may sound familiar to area voters. It raised more than $354,000 to back Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown and council members Betsy Wilkerson, Kitty Klitzke and Paul Dillon in last year’s general election, and at least one local news station pulled one of the group’s ads attacking former mayor Nadine Woodward off the air after the station was threatened with legal action for circulating defamatory remarks. Attempts to reach the organization Wednesday were unsuccessful.

The committee has a shortlist of donors: the progressive Seattle-based groups FUSE Washington and the Washington Conservation Voters contributed $77,400 and $15,000, respectively. The Spokane Firefighters Union contributed $32,500, while their counterparts at the state level contributed $7,500. The national and statewide committees for the union representing county and city employees contributed a combined $55,000.

French and Lamb highlighted that 82% of the committee’s funding comes from outside the county, and that FUSE and the Washington Conservation Voters were the primary financial backers of the recall effort.

French and Lamb took issue with the funding behind the recall effort as well, noting FUSE’s $6,400, the conservation voters’ $2,500 and Planned Parenthood’s Washington advocacy group’s $4,000 in donations all violated the state limit of $1,400 for recall committees.

The Clean Water Accountability Coalition, the committee sponsoring the recall effort, had asked the PDC to waive the limit earlier this year, but later retracted the request just before the agency denied it because of connections between Marshall’s campaign and the recall effort, as well as concerns it would provide a loophole to further violate contribution limits. In July, Fuse contributed $500 directly to Marshall before the recall got off the ground.

“The problem is of course the intertwining of the recall with an actual contested election in which it allows you to beat the whole campaign limit (system) if you can dump all your money into the recall campaign and do it that way,” PDC Commissioner Doug North said in an Oct. 3 written statement.

A fourth complaint filed against Spokane Firefighters Union President Randy Marler and members of the union that appeared in one of Marshall’s commercials accuses the city employees of using government resources to assist in a political campaign, which is prohibited by state law and city code.

In an ad released Oct. 12, Marler and a group of firefighters are seen interacting and posing with Marshall in front of Fire Stations 5 and 11 as she discusses her platform topic of mitigating wildfire risk and touts their endorsement.

Marler said the PDC won’t find any violation on the union’s part, as the firefighters are sporting union-owned uniforms emblazoned with the local’s logo and appear to be on the public sidewalks in front of the stations.

Marler, who founded Citizens for Liberty and Labor to advocate for workers and alongside like-minded organizations, said he believes French filing the complaints this close to the election is a sign he’s worried about his candidacy. Marler stepped down from his director role at the PAC three years ago to focus on his union role, he said.

“I think he’s scared, and he should be,” Marler said. “Molly’s running a great campaign, and she’s got a lot of support, and I think he’s threatened for the first time in a long time.”

Lamb said he and French will be requesting the PDC to expedite their review and decision process on the complaints, because the election is less than two weeks away and ballots have already been mailed.

More than 25% of ballots countywide had been returned as of Wednesday evening, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

French said he raised the concerns despite the close proximity to the election because of “the ballots still out there that can be informed by the truth.”

“I’m hoping that the revelation of both the dark money, the illegal campaign contributions and the distortion of public record will come out, and that the voters will be informed so that they can cast their ballot with the degree of confidence that they have the information they need to make a good decision,” French said.

“Otherwise, Spokane County will be controlled by the powers on the other side of the state,” he added.

The election is November 5.