Ad alleging sex crime cover-up heats up campaign

OLYMPIA – As the days count down to November’s election, Washington’s second-most-expensive state Senate race is turning more ferocious.

Since Friday, Spokane residents have been opening their mailboxes to find large postcards that maintain that Sen. Brad Benson “voted to cover up sex crimes against our children.”

The mailer – which features a photo of a hurt-looking girl clutching a teddy bear, as well as some Spokesman-Review headlines about alleged church and boys home sex abuse – focuses on a vote by Benson three years ago.

Benson, R-Spokane, called the mailing “a new low.”

“I guess when you’re desperate you dig deep and stretch things,” said a fellow senator, Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, who voted the same way on the bill.

In 2003, Benson was one of 35 House lawmakers who voted against adding the clergy to the occupations required by law to report allegations of child abuse. The bill passed the House, only to die in the Republican-controlled Senate.

The new ad was sent out not by Benson’s Senate opponent, Democrat Chris Marr, but by the state Democratic Central Committee. Marr says he doesn’t condone the “sensational” format of the ad and wouldn’t have sent it out himself. But he says it accurately reflects how Benson voted.

“Some people may not like the piece, but I say let’s look at the legislation behind it,” Marr said. “Brad cannot deny that he voted against it.”

A spokesman for the Democrats, Kelly Steele, said the group stands by its ad.

The 2003 bill, he said, would have been “common-sense, bipartisan legislation to protect our children against these heinous crimes,” Steele said. “It’s a black-and-white issue: Child sex abuse must be zero tolerance.”

But Benson, a father of four, said it’s absurd to suggest that he wants to cover up child sex abuse.

He cited his votes for longer prison terms for child molesters, stricter sex offender registration and tighter limits on “alternative sentences” for first-time offenders.

“I don’t think there’s anybody who’s more opposed to sex offenders than I am,” Benson said.

So why vote against House Bill 1054?

He said he felt that it “unfairly targeted clergy” and the people of faith or low-income people who seek out counseling at churches. The bill, he said, also would have required reporting of any allegation of child abuse or neglect, credible or not.

“There were real-world questions raised about the confessional” and counseling, said Schoesler. “This is a tough issue.”

The bill was supported by then-Attorney General Chris Gregoire, a group representing victims of priest sex abuse and victims’ advocates, and prosecutors, as well as others. Among the few groups who testified with concerns about it: the state Catholic conference.

Last year, Benson said, he – and everyone else in the Legislature – voted for a more narrow bill focused on similar problems. Senate Bill 5308, which is now state law, requires supervisors of any group providing services for children to report suspected abuse or neglect by employees or volunteers. That, Benson said, includes clergy members. (As with the 2003 bill, an exemption is built in for information revealed during religious confession.)

Marr’s walking a careful line on the mailing. He noted that he didn’t send it out – and says he had no contact with the Democrats over the ad – but stopped short of saying that it’s over the top.

“I certainly don’t promote it,” Marr said. “On the other hand, is it a legitimate issue? Anytime someone’s taken a vote on a piece of legislation, especially one that affects the lives of kids, I think it’s fair to look at that. … To me, those are the facts laid out.”

Staff writer Jim Camden in Spokane contributed to this report.