Washington state Rep. Tarra Simmons (D-Bremerton) is facing ethics charges that she used her standing as a lawmaker to get a friend hired at a nonprofit she is closely associated with, and that she used leftover campaign money to help another nonprofit where she used to work.
The accusations culminated in a rare two-day public hearing before the state's Legislative Ethics Board this week. Proceedings wrapped up Tuesday evening, but it could be weeks or months before the board makes a final decision about Simmons' conduct.
Simmons, the first formerly incarcerated person to serve in the Legislature, could face a fine of $5,000 per violation and would have to pay the state's legal costs, if she's found to have violated ethics rules.
Sitting before the board on Tuesday, Simmons clutched her emotional support dog and tearfully detailed her personal history and her decision to run for the state House.
"I grew up in really difficult beginnings," Simmons said. "I was in foster care and was in jail, had a really rough life, and so the fact that I'm even here and the first in the nation who's been incarcerated and who became a state representative, that's why I take this very seriously."
The accusations against Simmons allege that she used her influence as a legislator to get a friend a position at a nonprofit, American Equity and Justice Group, and used money from her surplus campaign fund to help hire him. Simmons has denied that the man she helped hire was her boyfriend and has said she didn't put any conditions on the donation she gave to American Equity and Justice Group. At the time, Simmons was close friends with the executive director and founder of American Equity and Justice Group, Anthony Powers.
Simmons has said that she believed she was acting in a personal capacity and not in her capacity as a legislator when she suggested Powers hire her friend. She also mentioned that she did not believe allocating unused campaign funds as a donation was a legislative ethical issue.
"Campaign surplus funds are definitely not something that is legislative related," Simmons said. "So, I felt donating out of my campaign surplus to my friend to help his organization…I didn't understand how that was in my role as a legislator."
A second ethics allegation accuses her of securing $500,000 of grant funding from the state's 2024 supplemental budget to go toward Equity in Education Coalition, a nonprofit she was contracted to work with at the time.
Simmons and the executive director of Equity in Education, Sharonne Navas, have both said that Simmons' position there was not paid with this grant money.
Simmons and her lawyer, Douglas McKinley, have noted that because Washington has a citizen Legislature—meaning its lawmakers also hold full-time jobs for nine months out of the year—there are often times where an ethics board has to be consulted to go over conflicts of interest. But Simmons noted at the hearing that she has always tried to be mindful of ethics laws and that she had consulted the ethics board about potential conflicts of interest a number of times since she was elected as a representative in 2021.
Simmons had been facing a third ethics complaint, but it was not part of the hearing this week. Anthony Powers, Simmons' former friend and head of the American Equity and Justice Group, alleged Simmons had harassed him on Facebook. The ethics board dismissed that complaint earlier this month because Simmons made those posts on her private Facebook page.
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