47th District Senate candidate Joe Fain

Pete Von Reichbauer—the King County Council member, widely known as PVR, whose extensive use of campaign funds to pay for meals and travel we covered last week—created a political action committee last year that contains a little more than $10,000. Now Democrats worry that the PAC money is intended for von Reichbauer's protege, Joe Fain, who is attempting to unseat Democratic state Sen. Claudia Kauffman (D-47).

The PAC, known as the Pete von Reichbauer PAC, is separate from both von Reichbauer's campaign and von Reichbauer's surplus account; it is mostly funded by von Reichbauer himself, who put in $7,500 of his own money back in January.

That was just a few weeks before Fain, who works von Reichbauer's chief of staff, declared he was running as a Republican against state Sen. Claudia Kauffman (D-47) in January.

Democratic political observers worry that the PAC will spend its money on an independent expenditure campaign on Fain's behalf. Independent expenditures must be made without coordination with a candidate's official campaign, and Fain says he is "not involved in Pete's PAC."

"My guess is there will be some sort of a coordinated effort from PVR,and the Republicans in terms of what are there going to do for Fain," says Blair Butterworth, Kauffman's consultant. "We assume that there are going to be some large independent expenditures."

However, PVR PAC campaign chairman Tom Pierson, head of the Federal Way Chamber of Commerce, says there are no current plans to spend the money on Fain's behalf.

"It was created in 2009, before Joe ever thought of setting up his campaign," Pierson says. "At this point, there's no intention of writing a check to Joe or anybody."

And Kent city council member Ron Harmon, who gave $200 to the campaign a little over two months ago, had only minimal recollection of giving the money, and said his understanding was that it was intended for use if von Reichbauer "was to consider another political office to run for," such as mayor of Federal Way.