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Thursday, May 24, 2012

Ethics Complaints Filed Against McKenna In Response to Stranger and AP Stories

Posted by on Thu, May 24, 2012 at 1:53 PM

Kimberly Christensen—who described herself to me as a freelance writer, mom, and former midwife from Wallingford—yesterday filed a complaint with the King County Obmbudsman's office, alleging that Rob McKenna, while on the King County Council, demonstrated a "complete disregard" for rules prohibiting campaign activities inside government offices.

“When I read the Stranger and AP articles, it seemed like it was begging for someone to file a complaint," Christensen told me this morning. "All the information was there, but I know that in order for it to be investigated somebody actually has to file.”

The county ombudsman's office confirmed that it has received not one but two complaints—the other, apparently, is from lawyer Kyle Olive—regarding McKenna.

"We will make determinations about these complaints as soon as we can," said Jon Stier, senior deputy ombudsman. He noted that the King County ethics code provides for civil penalties—meaning fines—for a person found to have committed ethics violations, but he could not tell me whether a person no longer working for King County (McKenna now works for the state as attorney general) can be the subject of a King County ethics investigation.

Christensen told me she's "hoping there will be some sort of formal censure" of McKenna, whose King County archives feature hundreds of campaign-related documents that shouldn't be there. She continued:

I have a particular thing about this, because as a midwife, and seeing how really critical access to healthcare is for women and children, I worked really hard on supporting the health care reform, and volunteered on a lot of campaigns to get that going. So when McKenna filed a lawsuit trying to overturn health care reform, I got really pissed off and decided to activiely work against him becoming governor.

Christensen is a member of FUSE Washington, she told me, so she got in touch with FUSE about her McKenna concerns, and they suggested this route.

No response, yet, from McKenna's campaign.

 

Comments (4) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment
Vince 1
Thank you Kimberly. For all you do.
Posted by Vince on May 24, 2012 at 2:03 PM
2
Freelance writer, mom, and former midwife?

Has she considered going and getting a job?

(And more seriously, what #1 said.)
Posted by seatackled on May 24, 2012 at 2:11 PM
3
Most excellent.
Posted by DMonaghan on May 24, 2012 at 2:35 PM
4
Complain to the wsba. Have his law license revoked.
Posted by Irritated on May 24, 2012 at 7:36 PM

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