Washington's #1 political contributor for the last decade isn't Microsoft, Amazon, or Boeing. It's a home care workers' union, and it's not even close.
SEIU 775 is the single largest named political contributor in Washington State. Since 2016, the union and its affiliated PACs have spent approximately $30 million in net external political spending through the state's campaign finance system — more than Microsoft, Amazon, and Boeing combined, by more than two to one. Every major election cycle, SEIU 775 funds 175 or more candidates simultaneously while operating a $6.8 million ballot measure war chest, maintaining nine registered lobbyists in Olympia, and routing payments through consulting companies connected to the legislators who chair the committees where SEIU's agenda originates.
There is a story Washington's political press refuses to tell. Not because it's complicated. Because the people who would tell it are on the payroll.
SEIU 775 represents roughly 60,000 home care and nursing home workers across Washington, Montana, and Alaska. On paper, it's a labor union. In practice, it functions as one of the most sophisticated political influence operations in the Pacific Northwest -- with a registered lobbyist for a president, a $6.8 million ballot war chest, a history of hiding contributions from state regulators, and a web of relationships with Democratic legislators that blurs the line between representation and capture.
This is that story.
To understand the scale: SEIU 775's net external political spending since 2016 (~$30 million) exceeds Microsoft ($5.5 million), Amazon ($6.5 million), and Boeing ($1.4 million) combined by more than two to one. That figure already excludes ~$22 million in internal transfers between SEIU entities. The three largest private employers in the state — companies with tens of thousands of Washington workers, massive lobbying operations, and global political reach — are collectively outspent by a single home care workers' union. For every dollar SEIU puts directly in a candidate's hand, it deploys roughly $33 through political infrastructure: PAC transfers, ballot measures, and the consulting payments documented below.
A note on the numbers. SEIU 775 operates three PDC-registered entities (the union itself, the Ballot Fund, and the Quality Care Committee). The total PDC footprint across all three is $51.9 million since 2016. However, roughly $22 million of that consists of internal transfers between these entities — for example, the union transferring $20 million to its own Ballot Fund. All figures in this article use the net external number (~$30 million) unless otherwise noted. Even at $30 million, SEIU 775 is the #1 named political contributor in Washington State, more than double BP America ($15.2 million) and more than double Microsoft, Amazon, and Boeing combined.
The direct candidate contributions are the visible layer. They are also the smallest.
Of the $51.9 million SEIU 775 has deployed through Washington's campaign finance system since 2016, just $883,000 went directly to candidates. The rest — over $51 million — went to political committees, ballot measure campaigns, and PAC infrastructure. The breakdown:
| Recipient | Amount | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| SEIU 775 Ballot Fund † | $20.0M | Internal transfer to own ballot measure arm |
| SEIU 775 Quality Care Committee † | $2.4M | Internal transfer to own candidate PAC |
| SEIU Initiative Fund † | $1.3M | Internal transfer to own initiative arm |
| Subtotal: inter-SEIU transfers † | ~$23.7M | Excluded from net figure |
| No On 2124 | $12.0M | Defeating initiative to make WA Cares optional. SEIU members are paid by that program. |
| Other ballot measures & PACs | $4.6M | Approve 8201 ($2.6M), Prevent Fraud ($2.0M) |
| Democratic party infrastructure | $7.2M | New Direction PAC ($2.0M), Harry Truman Fund ($1.6M), Defend WA ($1.0M), Kennedy Fund ($955K), others |
| SEIU WA State Council PAC | $2.2M | Sister SEIU entity (state council) |
| Direct to candidates | $883K | 175+ candidates per major cycle |
| Subtotal: net external spending | ~$28.2M | |
| GROSS TOTAL (PDC footprint) | $51.9M |
† Internal transfers between SEIU 775 entities. These dollars appear twice in the PDC database: once as an outflow from the union, and again as an outflow from the receiving PAC. The net external figure (~$30M) excludes these transfers to avoid double-counting. Even at $30M, SEIU 775 remains the #1 named political contributor in Washington State.
Read that last row again. The candidate contributions — the ones that show up on legislators' PDC reports, the ones that earn endorsements and photo ops — are about 3% of net external spending. For every dollar SEIU puts in a candidate's hand, it deploys roughly $33 through political infrastructure the average voter never sees.
The single largest expenditure is $12 million spent defeating Initiative 2124, which would have made the WA Cares long-term care insurance program optional. SEIU 775's members are the caregivers paid by that program. The union spent $12 million defending a government program that funds its own members' wages. That is not advocacy. That is self-preservation with a political budget larger than most companies' entire government affairs operations.
This is a two-track operation. Track one: fund 175 candidates per cycle to build a legislative majority that will never touch your funding stream. Track two: spend $30 million on ballot measures to make policy directly when the legislature won't or can't. The candidates are the insurance policy. The ballot measures are the product.
When SEIU 775 funds candidates, it does not pick favorites. It buys the field. In the 2022 and 2024 cycles alone, it contributed directly to more than 175 individual candidates each cycle, covering both chambers and both parties (though overwhelmingly Democratic). The top recipients across those two cycles include:
| Candidate | Total (2022-25) | Office |
|---|---|---|
| Emily Alvarado | $6,800 | Legislature |
| Vandana Slatter | $5,600 | Legislature |
| Steve Hobbs | $5,000 | Secretary of State |
| Victoria Hunt | $4,800 | Legislature |
| Mike Pellicciotti | $4,800 | State Treasurer |
| Patty Kuderer | $4,800 | Legislature |
| Bob Ferguson | $4,800 | Governor |
| Tina Orwall | $4,600 | Legislature |
| Alicia Rule | $4,400 | Legislature |
| Joe Fitzgibbon | $4,400 | Majority Leader |
The individual amounts are modest, capped by contribution limits. The story is the breadth and the names. The Governor who signs SEIU-priority legislation into law. The Secretary of State who oversees the elections SEIU spends $51 million to influence. The State Treasurer who manages the funds. And the Majority Leader who controls which bills reach the House floor.
Ferguson is the same attorney general who sued SEIU 775 in 2015 for failing to report $1.39 million in contributions. He took their money for his gubernatorial campaign. No one in the press noted the irony.
Sterling Harders has been president of SEIU 775 since 2018. She is also a registered lobbyist with the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission -- a designation she has held since 2004, through multiple certification cycles, most recently in January 2024.
Think about what that means. The same person who controls a $6.8 million political committee, signs off on candidate endorsements up and down the state ballot, and leads a staff of 130 -- also walks the halls of the Capitol in Olympia as a registered lobbyist for the very organization she runs. In most states that structure would trigger at minimum a raised eyebrow. In Washington, it gets a press release from Speaker Jinkins praising caregivers.
Her Secretary-Treasurer Adam Glickman runs the money. He chairs the SEIU 775 Benefits Group board and is the registered officer on the Ballot Fund PAC. When regulators came looking, it was Glickman who said any reporting errors were "unintentional." That framing has been useful more than once.
The compliance record here is not a footnote. It's a pattern.
In 2015, then-Attorney General Bob Ferguson -- a Democrat, and hardly a union antagonist -- sued SEIU 775 in Thurston County Superior Court for failing to properly report $1.39 million in contributions to its political action committee.1 The contributions hadn't disappeared; they had been disclosed by the PAC. What SEIU failed to do was report them in the union's own lobbying paperwork, obscuring the connection between the lobbying entity and the political spending entity. The AG's office also found that in-kind contributions -- staff time, office space, phones, web services, postage -- had never been reported at all by the PAC.
More recently, the Ballot Fund Committee was hit with a PDC complaint in 2024 for failing to accurately disclose expenditures across six ballot propositions it was actively opposing.3 It amended within four days of being contacted -- which bought it leniency. A pattern of amending under pressure is not the same as a pattern of compliance.
Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon is currently House Majority Leader, the second most powerful position in the Washington State House. He is also, by PDC records, one of the deepest SEIU investments in the entire chamber.
SEIU entities have contributed to Fitzgibbon in every cycle going back to 2010, totaling approximately $34,450 across eight cycles. Every major SEIU local in Washington has participated: 775, 1199NW, 925, PSE/1948, and Local 6.
| Cycle | Total from SEIU Entities | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | $4,800 | First cycle on record |
| 2012 | $900 | |
| 2014 | $950 | |
| 2016 | $2,000 | |
| 2018 | $6,300 | |
| 2020 | $3,500 | |
| 2022 | $4,000 | |
| 2024 | $9,600 | Majority Leader; highest single-cycle total |
| 2026 | $2,400 | To date |
| Total | ~$34,450 | 14+ year relationship |
The 2024 cycle alone hit $9,600 from SEIU entities -- the highest single-cycle total in his fourteen-year history with the union. That peak coincides precisely with his ascent to House Majority Leader, the position that controls floor scheduling, committee assignments, and which bills live or die in a given session.
The person who decides which labor legislation reaches the House floor has received SEIU funding in every election he has run, with contributions accelerating as his institutional power grew. That is not a coincidence. That is a portfolio.
The Lobbyist at Home. Fitzgibbon's relationship with SEIU extends beyond campaign contributions. His spouse, Lindsey Grad, is the Legislative Director at SEIU Healthcare 1199NW, earning $100,000-$200,000 -- the household's largest income source. Grad is a PDC-registered lobbyist for SEIU 1199NW, continuously registered from 2023 through 2026. She lobbies the legislature her spouse leads. SEIU 1199NW is a sister local to SEIU 775, part of the same institutional ecosystem. The Majority Leader's household income is directly tied to the organization whose legislative priorities he controls floor scheduling for.
Rep. Liz Berry represents LD-36 -- Queen Anne, Phinney Ridge, Greenwood -- and is one of the most SEIU-entangled legislators in Olympia. The PDC record tells part of the story. The federal labor disclosure record tells the rest.
SEIU entities have contributed to Berry's campaign in every cycle since her first election, totaling approximately $25,300 across four cycles from at least four distinct SEIU locals and PACs:
| Cycle | Contributors | Total |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | SEIU 775 (x2), SEIU 1199NW (x2) | $4,000 |
| 2022 | SEIU 775 (x2), SEIU 1199NW (x2), SEIU 925 (x2), PSE SEIU 1948, Local 6 | $8,300 |
| 2024 | SEIU 775 (x3), SEIU 1199NW (x2), SEIU 925 (x2), PSE SEIU 1948, Local 6 | $10,600 |
| 2026 | SEIU 775, SEIU 1199NW | $2,400 (to date) |
| Total | 4 consecutive cycles, 4+ SEIU locals | ~$25,300 |
Note the mechanic: SEIU 775 appears in every single cycle, and it maximizes its reach by using multiple PAC vehicles -- the Quality Care Committee and direct contributions -- to effectively double its footprint within the same cycle. That is not accidental. That is coordination.
But campaign contributions are the visible layer. The more significant connection runs through federal labor filings that most political reporters never read.
SEIU 775's LM-2 filings with the Department of Labor show the union paid Summit Strategy LLC -- a consulting firm 100% jointly owned by Berry and her spouse Michael Hill -- over $170,000 across eight years (2017-2025), according to federal LM-2 filings. The payments predate Berry's marriage to Hill (2019), her candidacy (2020), and her committee chairmanship (2022). In the same window, SEIU 775 contributed directly to Berry's campaign and poured $190,000 into P3 PAC, the progressive independent expenditure vehicle that has operated in Berry's political environment across multiple cycles.
The full documented chain, sourced entirely to PDC filings and federal LM-2 disclosures:
| Link | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|
| SEIU 775 → Berry campaign (direct) | ~$25,300 | PDC kv7h-kjye |
| SEIU 775 → Summit Strategy LLC | $170,000+ (2017-25) | DOL OLMS LM-2 |
| SEIU 775 → P3 PAC | $190,000 (2024-25) | PDC kv7h-kjye |
| P3 PAC → Berry (indirect) | $800 (2022-24) | PDC kv7h-kjye |
| Total SEIU ecosystem spend in Berry's orbit | ~$385,000+ |
None of these transactions is illegal. Each is individually disclosed. What the press hasn't done is put them in the same sentence.
The Full LM-2 Timeline. Federal filings show SEIU 775 paid Summit Strategy over $170,000 across eight years (2017-2025), predating Berry's marriage to Hill (2019), her candidacy (2020), and her committee chairmanship (2022). The relationship is not new. Berry married into it.
The Three-Label Problem. The same payments from SEIU 775 to Summit Strategy receive three different labels across three signed government filings:
Three labels. One money stream. Two of those labels suggest technical consulting work. The federal filing -- the one with criminal penalties for misstatement -- calls it what it is.
The Payment Gaps. Federal LM-2 filings show SEIU 775 paid Summit Strategy every year from 2017 through 2019. Payments stopped in 2020 -- the year Berry ran for office. They resumed at a fraction of prior levels in 2021 ($5,738), stopped again in 2022, and came back at $19,125 in 2023, tripling to $63,213 in 2024. The gaps align with Berry's candidacy and her appointment as committee chair. We do not know whether this pattern is coincidental.
An Ownership Question. Berry's F1 filings describe Summit Strategy as "100% owned by filer and spouse." The Washington Secretary of State's filing for Summit Strategy LLC (UBI 603 173 950, formed January 17, 2012) lists Michael Hill as the sole governor. Berry is not listed. The company was formed seven years before Berry married Hill. These two public records describe the same entity differently. See the full Berry profile for detailed analysis.
Full investigation: Rep. Liz Berry — Structural Overlap Profile
Perhaps the most structurally audacious arrangement in this whole apparatus has nothing to do with the PAC.
The SEIU 775 Benefits Group -- a separate 501(c) entity that controls healthcare, retirement, and training benefits for 60,000-plus union members -- has a board that includes active state government officials. Catherine Kinnaman, Director of the Home and Community Services Division at DSHS, sits on that board. Seth Miller, Assistant Director of the Retirement Services Division at the Washington Department of Retirement Systems, also sits on that board.4
These are not advisory roles in name only. The Benefits Group holds real assets. It negotiates with the state over benefit structures. And the state officials who administer those same benefit structures -- at DSHS and DRS -- sit at the same governance table as the union that lobbies the legislature over the Medicaid reimbursement rates that fund all of it.
The conflict is structural. It is baked in. And it has existed, apparently unremarked upon, for years.
This piece does not allege criminal conduct. It identifies relationships, documented by public records, that deserve public scrutiny -- and that Washington's political press has declined to examine with any rigor.
Who audits the Benefits Group's board composition for conflicts with the state agencies it intersects with?
Why has no legislator introduced enhanced disclosure requirements for union-to-consulting-firm payments that sit in federal LM-2 filings most journalists never read?
Why did Bob Ferguson -- who sued SEIU 775 while AG -- accept its enthusiastic support for his gubernatorial campaign without anyone in the press noting the irony?
And why are the same legislators who receive SEIU endorsements, organizers, and PAC dollars -- in some cases going back 14 consecutive years -- the ones who vote on the Medicaid reimbursement rates that determine how much money flows into the union's contracts?
These are not gotcha questions. They are the basic accountability questions that a functioning political press corps would ask. We will keep asking them until someone answers.