California billionaire Tom Steyer put himself (and his NextGen Climate Action group) back in the news last week, jumping into the fray over the U.S. State Department report that said finishing the Keystone pipeline would not have a “significant” effect on overall greenhouse gas emissions – and it just might turn up the heat on his own shady campaign finance actions in 2013.
Readers will recall that Steyer was let off the hook for a seemingly obvious campaign finance violation in our state last fall. Now, his renewed attack on Keystone may finally cause the state’s Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) to reconsider opening the case against Steyer, since it was the ongoing presence of his NextGen Climate Action political action committee last October that should have demonstrated to the PDC that he was continuing political activity in Washington State long after he had told campaign finance regulators that he was not.
The PDC has been treating the free-spending billionaire with kid gloves since he parachuted into the state last summer, spending over a half-million dollars to try to help Democrats hold onto a state Senate seat. Ultimately voters saw through the attacks Steyer helped fund and elected Jan Angel in the 26th District.
Now we’ll see whether the PDC will also see through the Steyer’s deceptions, and actually launch an investigation into his actions.
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