By Norman E. Kjono

From The Seattle Times, Saturday December 13, 2003, by Ralph Thomas, Seattle Times Olympia Bureau, headline “Gregoire Coffers Growing In Gubernatorial Bid:”

“Democratic Attorney General Christine Gregoire has surged to an early fund-raising lead over her opponents in the race for governor, thanks in large part to an outpouring of support from women in other states.

By the end of last month, Gregoire had raised more than $1.1 million – nearly four times as much as her closest rivals.

But here’s an even more remarkable statistic: With help from a powerful national women’s list Gregoire has received more than $360,000 in campaign donations from thousands of people outside Washington state. In fact, her out-of-state donations alone surpassed the total raised by any other candidate for governor.”

In Washington, state officials are barred from raising campaign contributions for 30 days prior to and after the legislative session. The Washington Legislature meets for about three months each year, which will postpone Attorney General Gregoire’s soliciting more campaign cash until roughly May 2004. Mr. Thomas addressed that issue in context of statements by Republican candidate Dino Rossi and Ms. Gregoire:

“[Republican gubernatorial candidate] Rossi announced last week that he will resign his [State of Washington] senate seat to focus full time on his campaign. Gregoire’s campaign accused him of sidestepping the fund-raising freeze and said he should stay in the Legislature instead of ‘hustling special-interests for money.’

“But none of the candidates for governor has taken in more special-interest money than Gregoire.”

There is an interesting twist to this story, one that high-lights Attorney General Gregoire’s penchant for engaging in negative labeling of opponents, selective recall, and material fact omission behaviors so skillfully applied by her companion tobacco control advocates. In effect, Ms. Gregoire accuses Mr. Rossi of being a “front for special-interests,” while failing to disclose that she appears to be the present all-time-champion of out-of-state special-interest fund raising. 

Where is that out-of-state special-interest cash to support Attorney General Gregoire’s campaign for governor coming from? Mr. Thomas provides a few clues, though he has not followed up on an important common denominator for the groups that he identifies:

“But the most striking trend so far is Gregoire’s heavy reliance on out-of-state money.

Of the more than 8,100 individual donations Gregoire received through last month, more than 40 percent were from people in other states. She has received checks from people in all 50 states and the nation’s capital, including more than $64,000 from California and $51,000 from New York.”

“Gregoire defended her out-of-state fundraising and said that the deluge of donations is a reflection of the national reputation she built during her three terms as attorney general.

‘I’m not embarrassed; I’m actually very proud of that,’ said Gregoire, who played a lead role in the $206 billion settlement between 46 states and tobacco companies in 1998.”

“Gregoire also is getting huge boost through her endorsement from Emily’s list, a national group that raises millions to help elect pro-choice Democratic women to federal and state offices.”

Mr. Thompson describes how Emily’s list sends out mailers and e-mail messages urging donations from its 73,000 members. He also states that Emily’s List  members can make donations to candidates directly through the group’s Web site, which reportedly touts Ms. Gregoire’s work on the 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. Interestingly, the Web site says that “Emily” is an anachronism for “Early Money Is Like Yeast (we make the 'dough' rise)". In Ms. Gregoire's case the out-of-state dough is certainly rising, but as will be discussed it’s not dough of the charming and friendly Pillsbury Dough Boy.

While the above information is interesting and useful as a clue to Ms. Gregoire’s cash-raising prowess, Mr. Thompson did not ask an important question: “What is the connection between Ms. Gregoire’s aggressive anti-smoker campaigns as attorney general and Emily’s List?”  The answer to that question is found in Appendix 2 of a Grant Results Report for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on the foundation’s Web site. Appendix 2 lists panelists, speakers and moderators for the Consumer Health Action 2000 Conference, which was supported by a $268,100 grant No. 037706 from RWJF to Families USA Foundation, Inc.  That grant is part of a RWJ foundation grant (No. 040697) in the amount of $5,359,435 to Families USA for “Creating and nurturing a support center for health care ombudsman programs,” which is to say creating and nurturing lobbying groups that will support public policy according to themes approved by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Sheila O’Connell from Emily’s List appears among the several panelists, speakers, and moderators listed in Appendix 2, as does Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack.

The RWJ foundation provided more than $200 million to tobacco control activists during the Project ASSIST years in the 1990s, while the pharmaceutical corporation that is its namesake, Johnson & Johnson, was distributing Nicotrol nicotine delivery device products, such as nicotine patches and inhalers, under license from Pharmacia AB of Stockholm, Sweden. The RWJ foundation awarded about $3 million in current and recently expired grants to Washington University in Saint Louis  while Dr. Walton Sumner II, MD published a paper “Estimating the Health Consequences Of Replacing Cigarettes With Nicotine Inhalers” under the university’s auspices. Dr. Sumner’s paper, which explicitly states that smoking bans “reduce opportunities to smoke,“ and thereby give pharmaceutical nicotine replacement therapy products a competitive edge, was published in the journal Tobacco Control June 2003 at www.tobaccocontrol.org. Tobacco Control journal is also supported by grants from the RWJ foundation. Dr. Sumner explicitly advocates the use of fast acting and highly addictive nicotine inhalers to replace cigarettes. Dr. Sumner also states in his research paper that increased taxes on cigarettes will give pharmaceutical nicotine products a competitive price advantage. Hence, tobacco control advocate’s declared strategy to use government influence to increase taxes on cigarettes, and to reduce opportunities to smoke, to give their pharmaceutical nicotine sponsors’ products a competitive edge. It seems that Attorney General Gregoire has overlooked enforcing anti-trust laws as a material part of her job description.

Nicotrol is currently distributed by Pharmacia, now a part of Pfizer since a recent merger. Johnson & Johnson and other “Smoke Free” nicotine distributors are reported to be developing a new fast acting and highly addictive nicotine inhaler similar to that recommended by Dr. Sumner. The choice of words “fast acting” and “highly addictive” is Dr. Sumner’s, and is included as part of the text in his research paper. Clinical trials for such nicotine products have been conducted on school children.

The RWJ foundation Goal Area that the Consumer Health Action 2000 Conference addressed was “Access — To assure that all Americans have access to basic health care at reasonable cost,” which was, of course, the theme used to sell Washington’s I-775 that imposed a new 60 cent per pack tax on cigarettes in 2001. The new cigarette tax was ostensibly to fund expansion of health insurance for the poor. The phenomenon of Ms. Gregoire denouncing political opponents over special-interest money is akin to anti-tobacco shrilly denouncing as its policy opponents, such as Forces members who fund activities out of their own pockets, as “fronts for tobacco,” while expediently ignoring the fact that tobacco control advocates are up-to-their-armpits-awash in cash from tobacco companies through Gregoire’s 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. To which we add millions more per year in tobacco tax revenue sharing from Washington’s 2001 I-775. 10 percent of the tax proceeds from I-775 are earmarked for tobacco control programs, with the balance allegedly going to provide health insurance for the poor. Anti-tobacco is raking in its 10 percent from I-775 at present, however the 90 percent that was supposed to go for expanding health insurance for the poor has been deferred due to the state’s present fiscal crisis. 

Lesson learned: under Ms. Gregoire’s leadership not only will anti-tobacco use government influence to enrich its own coffers and protect its special-interest revenue streams through successfully promoting new taxes on Washington “Target Group” consumers, but they will also stand expediently silent as new cigarette tax revenue that is earmarked for lower income and Blue Collar citizens is diverted. That is particularly onerous in light of the fact that the sales pitch used to sell I-775, and therefore the 10 percent revenues to anti-tobacco activists and programs, was that 90 percent of the initiative’s proceeds would go to help the poor. Today under the leadership of Ms. Gregoire anti-tobacco displays its now-all-too-familiar “anti-mentality” behavior of “We’ve got ours, screw you on yours.” It seems that children and the poor were useful shills to promote anti-tobacco’s 10 percent of new cigarette tax revenue stream, but when the rubber hits the road to genuinely support those it used to promote new tobacco taxes Ms. Gregoire and her anti-minions do not honestly stand up for those they used to get their tax revenue sharing bucks. It appears that under Gregoire’s leadership once children and consumers have served their cash-raising purpose for special-interests they become disposable. Where was our attorney general in 2002 when it came time to assure that kids and families in our state got the 90 cents on each dollar for health insurance they were promised during the campaign for I-775, which she and her anti-minions so aggressively supported? 

But the connection between Ms. Gregoire and out-of-state special-interests is not so tenuous as a “coincidental” listing of her campaign cash supporter, Emily’s List, in a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant report. Nor is her apparent view of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and its pharmaceutical special-interest agenda detached from her policy decisions as Attorney General of the State of Washington. In fact, there appears to be a seamless connection, an apparent quid pro quo, between her past self-acknowledged national anti-smoker reputation and her current flood of campaign money from out-of state. 

In 1998 Ms. Gregoire championed and personally negotiated in large part the November 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. During that same month Attorney General Gregoire’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Task Force published its report as to how tobacco settlement funds should be used. The co-chair of that task force, Dr. Robert Jaffe of Washington DOC, discussed that report in a 2001 Rendezvous interview sponsored and published by the RWJ foundation. In that interview Dr. Jaffe characterizes the tobacco industry – and therefore, inescapably, its customers who lawfully consume legal tobacco products – as a “River of Slime.” Dr. Jaffe also talks about his participation in drafting Attorney General Gregoire’s November 1998 tobacco settlement proceeds report. It turns out that, according to Dr. Jaffe, initiative I-775 was crafted to bypass the legislature. Dr. Jaffe describes how tobacco control advocates in Washington were not satisfied with the amount of money dedicated to their interests by the legislature. The apparent solution was to “. . . start another tax initiative t (sic) dedicate tobacco taxes toward the state’s program.” That initiative became I-775, which passed. There is therefore direct linkage between Ms. Gregoire, her office’s tobacco control task force, new taxes on cigarettes, smoking bans, and special-interest pharmaceutical agendas promoted by the RWJ foundation. Perhaps Ms. Gregoire’s indifference to promoting new taxes on products lawfully consumed by “Target Group” consumers in Washington is accounted for by her viewing target persons as part of a “River of Slime,” as so eloquently described by her tobacco task force’s co-chair, Dr. Jaffe.

The links between Attorney General Gregoire and the RWJ Foundation are even deeper, however: the 1998 report of her tobacco control task force coauthored by Dr. Jaffe explicitly recommends that state health policy be coordinated with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. So the onerous nature of Ms. Gregoire’s failures to disclose about the source of campaign cash hit the touchstone of special-interest money for public policy advantages. Not only has she failed to disclose an apparent link between her anti-smoker jihad as Attorney General and the magnitude of her present campaign cash, she has also failed to disclose that her office recommended in 1998 that our state health policy be coordinated with the foundation that may be facilitating her receipt of campaign cash today. Are there links between public officials selling out our state health policy to special-interests in the past and the ability of those same politicians to raise campaign funds in the future? We believe that is the fundamental question of the forthcoming 2004 elections. That question merits intense scrutiny by public disclosure entities.

It appears that we are observing the financial clout of a pharmaceutical special-interest quid pro quo in action. The implicit message is that those who use their public office to coordinate state policy with tobacco control special-interests can be rewarded in the future with using a private foundation’s access to advocacy groups such as Emily’s List to raise record amounts of campaign cash.

It is unfortunate that Ms. Gregoire has failed to disclose her office’s connection to coordinating our state’s health policy with a special-interest private foundation in New Jersey. We note, however, that full and fair disclosure of financial conflicts-of-interest has never been a well-regarded or strong suit of tobacco control. We will leave the campaign finance law issues that such an apparent quid pro quo can raise to the policy wonks. A more important question presents itself for voters: Based on her past behavior, what will we get if Attorney General Gregoire’s record campaign cash, as so readily promoted by Emily’s List, results in her becoming governor of the State of Washington?

In our view is that question is somewhat of a non-sequitur, it does not logically follow that Christine O. Gregoire would be the one who actually sits in the governor’s chair if she is elected in 2004. Considering the private foundation common denominator among groups mentioned by Mr. Thompson, it becomes transparent to us that with Ms. Gregoire in the governor’s office the $7 billion Princeton, New Jersey Robert Wood Johnson Foundation could elevate its status from a special-interest private foundation that uses its financial clout to mandate state policy to a de facto seat as acting Governor of the State of Washington. Should Attorney General Gregoire become the next Governor of the State of Washington we can reasonably expect that the anti-tobacco advocates who appear to generously fund her campaign through Emily’s List will also use the public office conduit that she can provide to further advance their mercantile strategy to replace cigarettes with fast acting and highly addictive pharmaceutical nicotine inhalers.

And all along we unsophisticated bumpkins in Washington believed that allegedly anti-tobacco was about public health, not just another pharmaceutical mercantile agenda to line special-interest’s pockets. Fool me once as Attorney General, shame on you. Fool me a second time as candidate for governor, shame on me.

Who’d o‘ thunk it? Attorney General Gregoire flings barbs at other candidates about “hustling special-interests for money,” while she expediently fails to disclose to The Seattle Times and prospective voters that she has already garnered a $1 million-plus hoard of campaign money, largely through one of the biggest special-interests of them all, pharmaceutical special-interests, nicotine distributors and anti-tobacco supporters.

Then again, Ms. Gregoire was not forthcoming about her task force’s recommendation that our state health policy be coordinated with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Why should we expect her to be any more forthright about disclosing that the foundation may have handed her a hidden, golden key to the governor’s washroom? Is Ms. Gregoire’s current campaign cash hoard a special “Thank You” for coordinating our state’s health policy with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 1998? Perhaps it is time for those who enforce Washington campaign finance law to aggressively explore that question. We recently completed a spate of political angst in Seattle over members of the council appearing to trade votes to expand parking for a strip-tease joint for campaign cash. It seems to us that the integrity of the Office of the Governor of the State of Washington at the least merits equal scrutiny as a strip joint allegedly buying council votes with campaign donations.