The body that enforces campaign finance laws in Washington upheld one violation, and overturned another against former Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich.
He was found to have violated two campaign finance laws in November.
The two complaints stemmed from a video Knezovich recorded at a county facility and uploaded to the official sheriff’s YouTube channel criticizing local legislators, Black community leaders and Amber Waldref, a candidate for the board of County Commissioners. The criticism was over criminal justice reform policies the racial justice advocates support and recently passed police reform laws. The commission fined him $300 dollars.
Knezovich appealed both findings, arguing elected officials should be able speak out about community issues.
“Again, for me, this is not about a fine,” he said. “This is about the ability to be able to talk to the public and to do so without quite frankly having a political activist file a complaint against an elected official to basically try to silence us.”
One of the complaints, campaigning against Waldref, was filed by Paul Dillon a prominent local progressive. The second, lobbying, was filed by PDC staff after watching the video.
The commission upheld the finding that Knezovich campaigned against Waldref – noting that in his PowerPoint presentation criticizing her, he explicitly identified her as a candidate for office.
Members of the commission said the second finding, lobbying, was more of a gray area because Knezovich didn’t instruct viewers to contact their legislators or vote for, or against any issues. They voted to vacate that that finding.
