A whole pile of crypto cash just got dumped into the already red-hot race for the open U.S. House seat in the 6th Congressional District.
Protect Progress, a political action committee backed by cryptocurrency billionaires—some of whom also back Donald Trump—plowed $1.4 million into an independent campaign in support of Democrat Emily Randall. The crypto people are concerned that they’ll get regulated out of business and are spending heavily around the country in hopes of a friendlier Congress. Why the crypto billionaires chose to back Randall over Franz is a little murkier.
Why you should care about this: The money is more than either Randall, a state Senator from Bremerton, or her Democratic opponent, Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz, raised for their own campaigns.
The TV ad will run in heavy rotation in the Seattle-area media market and on cable networks around the district that stretches from Tacoma across the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas and southwest to Grays Harbor and hews closely to Randall’s own messaging.¹ So in effect, her campaign just got more than twice as big. Here’s the ad:
The independent campaign comes on top of a separate push for Randall fueled by $100,000 from United Food & Commercial Workers, a union that mostly represents grocery store workers.
Franz, predictably, was livid and condemned the move in a Facebook video as outside MAGA billionaires meddling in Washington’s elections, suggesting some sort of improper quid pro quo. In an interesting piece of Millenial vs. GenX shade, Randall mocked the video on her TikTok account.
But one of the interesting elements here is that there appears to be little daylight between the two candidates on crypto policy. It’s easy to imagine Protect Progress going the other way, in which case all the yelling would be coming from the other camp. But Randall has been racking up key endorsements in the race throughout the spring and summer, and the PAC likely saw an opportunity to both back and ensure a winner, which is a good way to make friends in politics. (Paul Queary)
Adding up Olympia’s lobbying industrial complex
Killing a bill in Olympia isn’t cheap, and getting lawmakers to pull the trigger on a dicey proposal is an art that frequently falls to the legion of lobbyists roaming the capital—hired guns who twist arms and find votes for well-to-do clients of every stripe.
Winning friends and influencing people in the Legislature costs a heap of Benjamin Franklins, an industry unto itself with spending in the tens of millions each session. It’s plenty more than the average voter appreciates.² Since lobbying is something we devote a lot of our bandwidth to at The Observer, we decided it was time to show how much Big Money flooded the capitol in recent years, and who’s paying.
Lobby spending increased overall since 2016-17, with a peak in 2018, and has held steady from 2019 onward. Lobby spending spiked in 2018 after Democrats regained control of the state Senate after a special election in 2017. It was the same year Democrats took a swing at undoing some of the previous year’s decisions on education financing. In 2019, the money plane took a nosedive from $91.5 million to $71.8 million. The lobbying cash stream seems to have been fairly stagnant since then, per the Public Disclosure Commission.³
For lobbyists, entertaining allies and associates is one of the perks that comes with the job. To be fair, fireside schmoozing in Olympia is a privilege reserved for a small circle of elites⁴ handling big bills, especially since past reporting shamed some of the frequent flyers out of eating on the lobby’s dime nearly every night.
PDC stats show the wining-and-dining around Olympia has shot up, except for the 2020-21 when the state was under COVID-imposed lockdown. As of last year, lobbyists’ entertainment expenses have hit $331,000, just shy of 2019’s $375,000. (Tim Gruver)
Footnotes:
1. The PAC tipped the campaign to Punchbowl News. The Franz campaign confirmed details of the media buy via broadcasters’ logs, which are open to the public per state law.
2. Yes, we’re aware lots of lawmakers do come up with bills chatting with constituents over coffee, but for every doe-eyed high schooler trying to change the world, there’s a chamber of commerce trying to lower businesses’ tax bills.
3. It’s also worth noting lobbyists are often paid for lobbying-adjacent activities that don’t necessarily get filed with the PDC.
4. By elite, we’re talking people racking up dinner bills in the $1,500 to $10,000 range.
These articles first appeared in the author’s political website, The Washington Observer.
Thanks, Paul, for enlightening us on the size of the “OLD Club” (“Olympia Lobbyists Diner’s Club”) expense accounts. “Ugh!”
Also, a big Double “Ugh!” regarding the Crypto-nutz’ spending on the 6th District race. What benefit is there to our state in fostering more ways to scam investors with phunny-munny schemes (to provide criminal gangs with more ways to exchange untraceable funds)? On top of that, as we face more demand for electric power by existing users and possible new AI-supporting server-farms, what is the sense in allowing crypto “mining” operations? Scam, scam, scam!
I am in favor of making ALL aspects crypto illegal: to mine, trade, own, sell or use as a medium of exchange. A good first step would be to ban all political activity by any individual or entity connected to the crypto business.
Names. We need names. Who are the lobbyists taking out which legislators to these big-ticket dinners? Which are the PACs and lobbyist employers putting out the big bucks to influence public policies?
Most of us don’t have time to dig through all the individual PDC records. But that’s what The Observer does. It’s not enough to titillate us with graphics. We want the wine with the red meat!
Franz is in favor of government support for crypto?
I’m very sorry to hear that.
I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she simply is not well informed.
Hilary Franz is NOT in favor of government support of crypto because of its damaging impact on climate protection, which is her headline issue in pursuit of this important opportunity to take her climate policies to the national level. Read the Seattle Times front-page story on Sunday that details the tremendous depletion of clean energy in Grant County and others that have welcomed in data centers that now consume 40% of their clean electricity resources, which have to be replaced by reverting to fossil fuel generation. Emily Randall is selling out our state’s nation-leading efforts to transition out of fossil fuel use in accepting this $1.5 million donation from the MAGA-aligned crypto billionaires’ PAC Protect Progress (progress on what?) in a desperate bid to win a Congressional seat for which she is unqualified on environmental protection grounds alone. Her Protect Progress-paid ads make no mention of environmental protection as that is an impediment to their expansion in Washington State. We have to stop the burning of fossil fuels ravaging our planet.
“But one of the interesting elements here is that there appears to be little daylight between the two candidates on crypto policy.” A casual search suggests this isn’t too far off the mark, though the evidence is just that they both have the ability to recite buzz words.
The industry certainly may know something we don’t, and I wouldn’t vote Randall at this point, but it seems like Franz is not getting her environmental take on this issue out to the public.
It’s hard to respond to a $1.5 million ad blitz when the environmentally protective campaign doesn’t accept help from a climate-damaging PAC.