Campaign finance reform bill stalls in Senate

OLYMPIA — A campaign finance reform bill to require more disclosure of political spending appears dead in the Senate weeks after that chamber voted unanimously for a previous version of the measure.

Senate Bill 5153, which would require nonprofits that spend more than $25,000 on campaigns to identify their 10 biggest donors of $10,000 or more, failed a Senate floor vote Wednesday when Democrats moved to bring it up for consideration. The bill was written to identify the sources of so-called “dark money,” which has funded liberal and conservative nonprofits’ campaign spending on negative advertisements and other measures.

The Senate passed the original version of the bill March 11 in a 49-0 vote, but the House added some technical amendments that required the Senate’s approval.

Bill sponsor Andy Billig, D-Spokane, told The Seattle Times that Senate Republicans had decided not to allow the amended bill to come up for a floor vote. The Times reports that business groups lobbied against the bill after it first passed.

Senate Majority leader Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, said in a statement Republicans opposed the amendments added by the House. Billig had offered to revert the bill to the version the Senate previously passed, but did not succeed in bringing the bill up for a floor vote after it was opposed by the Republican majority, which includes several co-sponsors of the bill.

A similar bill died in the Senate in 2014, and Billig said he intends to propose it again in the 2016 session.