Campaign finance complaint filed against Freedom Foundation

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed a campaign finance complaint a conservative group his office says did not properly file expenditure reports in support of ballot measures in the cities of Sequim, Chelan and Shelton.

The complaint against Olympia-based Freedom Foundation was filed in Thurston County Superior Court Wednesday.

The filing comes a day after the attorney general filed a complaint against a union and political action committee based on a complaint from the Freedom Foundation.

The complaint filed by Ferguson alleges that Freedom Foundation violated the requirement to report independent expenditures, including the value of time the staff spent on litigation to place propositions on the ballots in the three cities in 2014.

The measures, to change local laws related to collective bargaining between municipalities and employee unions, ultimately did not qualify for the ballots.