Now the Washington State Patrol is covering up corruption:

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So, Seattle's remaining newspaper does a story explaining how labor union corruption is not, in fact, corruption.

The money quote?

"We looked carefully at the e-mail and at the law," said State Patrol Chief John Batiste. "We could not find a specific criminal statute that was violated."

While it's positively frightening that the Chief of the Washington State Patrol was unable to find a law that I found rather easily, I'm only too happy to help the Chief in his search for justice:

RCW 9A.68.050

Trading in special influence.

(1) A person is guilty of trading in special influence if:

(a) He offers, confers, or agrees to confer any pecuniary benefit upon another person pursuant to an agreement or understanding that such other person will offer or confer a benefit upon a public servant or procure another to do so with intent thereby to secure or attempt to secure a particular result in a particular matter; or

(b) He requests, accepts, or agrees to accept any pecuniary benefit pursuant to an agreement or understanding that he will offer or confer a benefit upon a public servant or procure another to do so with intent thereby to secure or attempt to secure a particular result in a particular matter.

(2) Trading in special influence is a class C felony.

[1975 1st ex.s. c 260 § 9A.68.050.

The paragraph that breaks this specific law is in bold and italicized, below.

Now, then, Chief... I expect to hear of Mr. Bender's arrest in the morning.

Otherwise, you're going to have to explain your lame efforts to cover this up. And I don't think you're gonna want to do that.

March 17, 2009 1:05 PM

State Patrol says labor e-mail did not break the law

Posted by Andrew Garber

The Washington State Patrol says no crime was committed when a state labor group recently sent several lawmakers an e-mail linking campaign donations to contentious worker-rights legislation.

Legislative leaders killed the bill last week after being made aware of the e-mail, and requested an investigation by law enforcement.

"We looked carefully at the e-mail and at the law," said State Patrol Chief John Batiste. "We could not find a specific criminal statute that was violated."

A news release sent out by the Patrol also said: "Because detectives were quickly able to determine the e-mail did not violate criminal statutes, no investigation beyond the initial review was necessary."

The e-mail was an update on labor efforts to pass a bill called the Worker Privacy Act. It would prohibit companies from requiring employees to attend meetings or participate in activities related to political or religious matters, including labor issues. It was sent to several members of labor organizations as well as a handful of state lawmakers.

One part of the e-mail said, "Union leaders would send a message to the State Democratic party and to the Truman and Roosevelt funds from the House and Senate that 'not another dime from labor' until the Governor signs the Worker Privacy Act."

The Worker Privacy Act is vigorously supported by organized labor and equally opposed by business, including Boeing and the Washington Round Table, an organization of corporate executives.

UPDATE

The Washington State Labor Council just sent out a news release saying the Legislature overreacted to the e-mail.

Washington State Labor Council President Rick Bender said today that it was a "gross overreaction" for legislative leaders to refer an internal email among labor leaders to the Washington State Patrol for a criminal investigation. The WSP today announced that it "quickly" determined no laws had been broken.

More:

Washington State Labor Council e-mail

Here is the e-mail from a staff member at the Washington State Labor Council that prompted Democratic leaders to kill a labor-backed bill and turn the e-mail over to authorities for investigation.

The Seattle Times redacted a list of phone numbers contained in the e-mail before posting it online.

Subject: RE: Strategy Call on Worker Privacy Act Legislation

Brothers and Sisters,

Just a quick update on where we are on the Worker Privacy Act:

* Great leadership call yesterday where folks agreed that we would push for passage in the House this week and then call for a union president meeting with the Governor and the Majority Leader of the Senate to move the bill through the rest of the process

* Union leaders would send a message to the State Democratic party and to the Truman and Roosevelt funds from the House and Senate that "not another dime from labor" until the Governor signs the Worker Privacy Act.

* To date the Governor has received 2,247 contacts on the bill; the Speaker of the House has received 236 contacts from his constituents; and the Majority Leader has received 275 contacts from her constituents; [all of these numbers are minimums - there are a number of contacts that we have not been able to log, e.g., the State Democratic party did a 100,000 piece e-mail last Friday and we know that over 11,000 folks downloaded the piece but they have no way of knowing how many followed through with contacts].

* The Governor, the Speaker and the Majority Leader met this morning. While we don't have a report back yet we do have a meeting with the Speaker at 4:00 pm this afternoon. It is our hope that the Speaker will run the bill as the last bill on the floor tonight or tomorrow night.

* See attached letter from Scott Carson of Boeing dated March 9 to the Governor, Speaker and Majority Leader. He is now dubbing the bill the "neutrality bill". Just another move to try and conflate our bill with the Cedilla bill which was struck down by the US Supreme Court last June.

I will try and send another update later tonight. Keep the calls into the three leaders coming.