Amid an election season where corporations are once again spending “vast unholy sums to defeat popular initiatives,” a major food industry group has been found guilty of intentionally violating campaign finance laws by shielding its donors during Washington state’s contentious 2013 GMO labeling fight.
Thurston County Superior Court Judge Anne Hirsch on Wednesday ordered (pdf) a $18 million penalty against the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), the food industry’s powerful lobbying arm, which “is believed to constitute the largest campaign finance judgment in United States history,” according to the state Attorney General’s office.
“Our entire political system will suffer and degrade until we can replace the current system of one dollar, one vote, with a better one, based on the ideal of one person, one vote.”
—Gary Ruskin, U.S. Right to Know
“The People of Washington have directed that our state’s public campaign finance laws by interpreted liberally, in order to promote transparency and full disclosure to the voters,” Judge Hirsch wrote in the ruling.
The determination of “intention” and penalty followed a March ruling, when the court found that the GMA had “concealed the true source” of the $11 million the group spent opposing Initiative 522, which was narrowly defeated 52-48 percent.
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“Time after time, our nation’s largest food and agrichemical companies show that they have little integrity, and that they are willing to lie, cheat and launder money to keep us in the dark about what is on our food,” Gary Ruskin, co-founder and co-director of the food transparency group U.S. Right to Know, told Common Dreams.
Ruskin served as campaign manager for California’s Yes on Proposition 37, which was similarly defeated in 2012 by a slew of corporate spending.
“We thank Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson for standing up to the Big Food bullies,” Ruskin said, “and showing that they cannot always act with impunity.”
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