BUSINESS GROUPS ARE a shadow government, a parallel world of lobbyists, policy wonks, and ex-officials laboring to influence the government we all see. Usually they operate quietly, bending ears and twisting arms to shape laws and regulations in the interests of their members. Usually they play both sides of the political aisle—especially the side in power.
The Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW), one of this state’s largest and best-funded trade groups, plays the game a little differently. Dispensing with the usual niceties, it rages fearlessly against regulation, environmentalism, liberalism, and their mouthpieces in the legislature and state government. Its mission is to “fight against a government that has made this industry one of the most regulated in the nation.” Its newsletter and blog (“The Hammer”) often read like local versions of Rush Limbaugh or Fox News. They’ve called Governor Chris Gregoire “delusional” and a “power-hungry she-wolf.” They say global warming’s a bogus problem, but don’t worry: “Conservatives are having babies and liberals are not, which means that eventually conservatives will outnumber liberals.”
All this may be red meat to many of the BIAW’s 12,500 builder members, who tend to mistrust government and fear regulation. But it’s got the association’s largest local chapter, the Master Builders of King and Snohomish Counties, very worried. And it’s opened a rift that threatens to tear the builders’ association apart—or, maybe, transform it into a more mainstream, diplomatic, and effective player in the shadow government of business groups.
Sam Anderson, the Master Builders’ executive officer, doesn’t mince words either: “[BIAW leadership] says it’s there to protect small business as the last conservative voice in the state of Washington. I say baloney! The BIAW is there to represent its members!”
Those members have a big stake in many measures likely to come up in the new legislative session: mandatory home warranties, contractor licensing standards, higher sales taxes and workmen’s comp dues, required sprinklers in new homes, increased energy-efficiency standards. Consumer and environmental groups and the legislators pushing these reforms contend they’re needed to shore up state finances, protect homebuyers from shoddy construction and fly-by-night builder’s and combat climate change. But the industry, which has suffered more than most in the current downturn, fears such measures will make it even harder for them to do business.
To head them off, the BIAW has spent big money on state elections: $7.8 million last year, including more than $6 million on Dino Rossi’s race for governor. The year before, it spent big trying to unseat Washington Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerry Alexander and another justice it deemed too liberal.
That outlay fizzled at the polls: The justices kept their posts. Rossi didn’t win his. The state Public Disclosure Commission tagged the BIAW for campaign-finance violations, and Attorney General Rob McKenna slapped down a $900,000 fine. The BIAW promptly labeled the Public Disclosure Commission and the attorney general’s office “corrupt, oppressive agencies”—and risked alienating McKenna, state Republicans’ fastest-rising star and an early front-runner for their 2012 gubernatorial nomination.
Published: January 2010
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