Yesterday The Seattle Times bruised Dino Rossi with a lengthy editorial criticizing Rossi’s “nonprofit” —which appears to be more of a campaign organization that, thanks to its nonprofit status, can take in unlimited and undisclosed donations.

I lauded the editorial on Slog yesterday, but there is one important thing about the Times piece that bugs me.

They write:

Even if it is not technically required, Rossi ought to announce contributors and the amounts donated.

If he becomes a candidate, voters will like him better for running a campaign and pre-campaign above reproach. Now there’s an idea for the idea bank: Remember that in the ways of campaign disclosure, Washington thinks of itself as the Sunshine State.

(I called Forward Washington, Rossi’s “nonprofit,” yesterday and spokesperson Ted Dahlstrom said: ”We have not violated any rule. We have no plans to disclose our list.”)

Unless the Public Disclosure Commission says otherwise, Dahlstrom’s right. And the Seattle Times’s cloying plea, appealing to our supposed “Sunshine State” status in claiming that Rossi “ought to” diclose is moronic. Groups should not be pressured into disclosing because of a partisan attack from the Democrats and because of newspaper appeals to some sort of supposed higher local standard. Groups should follow the fucking law. The Seattle Times is trying to set a weird peer pressure precedent by scolding non-profits.

Either the Seattle Times should call for a change in the law (which does seem flimsy) or they should wait to see what the PDC finds.