Glen Morgan files another lawsuit against Democrats in Clark County
Glen Morgan, a conservative activist who has a seemingly Herculean stamina for staring at campaign filings, has set his sites on the Clark County Democratic Central Committee for being horrendously bad at getting its financial reports in on time.
Morgan is a Thurston County resident and executive director of the Citizens Alliance for Property Rights. He’s taken a particular interest in upholding the state’s campaign finance regulations (particularly for Democrats) by filing hundreds of complaints with the state’s Public Disclosure Commission.
Some of those complaints he’s followed up with citizen’s action lawsuits, litigation initiated by a citizen on behalf of the state. The most recent one of these lawsuits targets the Clark County Democratic Central Committee.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Thurston County Superior Court, is very similar to others he’s brought against other Clark County Democratic politicians and organizations (which include state Rep. Monica Stonier, D-Vancouver, former state Rep. Tim Probst, D-Vancouver, and the 49th Legislative District Democrats). The lawsuits are so similar that I suspect Morgan’s lawyer, Angus Lee of Vancouver, has a boilerplate form he interchanges with names, dates, amounts of money and other variables.
The lawsuit states that in 2016 and 2017 the committee failed to file reports on time that described who gave money to the committee and how they spent it. The public was left in the dark about its finances as a result, the lawsuits states.
According to the lawsuit, the committee was a total of 6,461 days late in filing reports on contributions totaling $142,040.32. For its expenditures, the committee was 4,640 days late for a total of $161,577.24.
I reached out to Rich Rogers, chair of the Clark County Democrats, and will update this post when I get a response.
Critics of Morgan say that he’s nitpicking campaigns mostly run by volunteers for relatively minor infractions. Supporters say that he’s upholding the law in a way Washington’s Democrat-dominated state government won’t.
Either way, he’s made some of his efforts in Clark County stick. In February, Stonier settled a lawsuit brought against her by Morgan. Under the settlement, she paid a $2,900 civil penalty (half of which was suspended) and $3,315 to Lee’s law firm for fees and costs.
The 49th Legislative District Democrats disbanded after being targeted by Morgan.
