Oregon Public Broadcasting

The gloves are officially off in the Washington Governor’s race. Election Day is still five months away. But a conservative interest group has launched an independent ad campaign attacking Governor Chris Gregoire. Olympia Correspondent Austin Jenkins reports.

The ads sound like this:

Ad: “In 2005, Governor Gregoire signed the largest gas tax increase in state history, squeezing small businesses in Eastern Washington, hurting rural communities and threatening our way of life.”

The announcer says the ad is paid for by Time for a Change and that the top contributor is Change PAC.

So who’s behind Change PAC? The largest cash contributor is the Building Industry of Washington or BIAW. The conservative homebuilders group contributed nearly $250,000 to Change PAC at the end of May.

Lori Anderson with the PDC says there’s nothing illegal about making it difficult for voters to know who’s really behind an ad.

Lori Anderson: “It’s not uncommon for one political committee to contribute to another political committee and there can be more than two layers sometimes. We think it’s unfortunate.”

But Anderson says it would be unconstitutional to try to restrict the number of political committees an interest group can form.

The Washington Democratic Party says the ads are distorting and misleading.

The BIAW did not respond to a request for comment.