Wash. Union Fined, Agrees To Give Refunds

By Jeff Archer

The Washington Education Association must refund $5 to each of its 65,000 members as part of the largest financial settlement ever of state campaign-finance abuses in Washington.

With a total cost to the union of $430,000, the agreement announced late last month between the WEA and the state attorney general ends a lengthy dispute over how the union responded to a campaign-finance-reform measure approved by state voters in 1992. State investigators had maintained that the union engineered a scheme to circumvent a provision requiring unions and other organizations to get annual permission from each member to use payroll deductions for political contributions. ( "Political Initiative," and "Initiative 134," Jan. 21, 1998.)

"We had an obligation to fully understand the campaign-finance- reporting law and to make sure we filed every report correctly," the union said in a Feb. 27 statement. "We failed to do that, and we apologize to our members...