{"id":208643,"date":"2019-04-06T04:56:09","date_gmt":"2019-04-06T08:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=208643"},"modified":"2019-04-06T04:56:09","modified_gmt":"2019-04-06T08:56:09","slug":"washington-senator-registers-to-lobby-for-cambodia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/06\/washington-senator-registers-to-lobby-for-cambodia\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington senator registers to lobby for Cambodia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ericksen said Friday that while he didn’t think he was required to file with the federal government, he did so because \u201cI wanted to make sure everything was transparent and clear.\u201d (File Photo By Washington State Legislature, Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OLYMPIA, Wash. \u2013 Washington state Republican Sen. Doug Ericksen has registered as a foreign agent in order to consult and lobby for the country of Cambodia.<\/p>\n

Under documents filed with the U.S. Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, Ericksen signed an agreement between PacRim Bridges LLC \u2013 a company he formed in 2017 \u2013 and the Kingdom of Cambodia on March 25.<\/p>\n

Under the contract, PacRim will receive $500,000 a year to provide consulting services and to \u201cwork to support legislation that is positive for Cambodia.\u201d Among the services offered by PacRim will be arranging for cultural exchanges and visits by Cambodian delegations.<\/p>\n

Ericksen is CEO of PacRim, and former Republican Rep. Jay Rodne serves as general counsel and chief legal officer.<\/p>\n

Ericksen said Friday that while he didn’t think he was required to file with the federal government, he did so because \u201cI wanted to make sure everything was transparent and clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that while the contract includes language on supporting legislation beneficial to Cambodia as part of the work, his work will focus more on improving the image of a country that he sees as an emerging economy. \u201cOur goal is to advise and consult with the people of Cambodia to improve relations with the United States,\u201d Ericksen said.<\/p>\n

Because the Washington Legislature does not run year-round, many lawmakers hold outside employment. Administrators in the House and Senate were not aware of any other lawmakers who have registered as a foreign agent while serving in the Legislature. According to Jennifer Strus, attorney for the Legislative Ethics Board, nothing in the state Ethics in Public Service Act prohibits it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs with any member with outside employment, he may not lobby the Washington state legislature on behalf of his employer,\u201d Strus wrote in an email.<\/p>\n

Ericksen was elected to his third term in the Senate in November, winning by just 46 votes. He previously served six terms in the House. In 2017, he temporarily served as communications director for the Environmental Protection Agency transition team following President Donald Trump’s election.<\/p>\n

He had received criticism for previous trips to Cambodia, including one to observe the country’s July 29 elections that the White House had said were \u201cneither free nor fair and failed to represent the will of the Cambodian people.\u201d<\/p>\n

It its 2018 human rights report on Cambodia, the State Department cited several areas of concern in the country, including \u201cunlawful or arbitrary killings carried out by the government or on its behalf; forced disappearance carried out by the government; torture by the government; arbitrary arrests by the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ericksen said he doesn’t dispute the human rights findings, but he said his trips there \u201cpaint a different picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that his interest in the country developed following a meeting with a Cambodian delegation at the state capitol in the spring of 2016, followed by his first trip to the country with his family that summer.<\/p>\n

Talks following his trip to observe the elections led to this new role. Ericksen said he did his research to make sure it wouldn’t run afoul of any laws or rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople talk about the optics, but nothing about the reality of a conflict of interest, because there is none,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a non-profit group that works to limit money in politics, said that while there may not be any legal or ethical questions, \u201cI find it highly unusual for a country to hire a state senator to be a lobbyist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would certainly want to know what the Cambodian government thought they were getting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ericksen said he believes the relationships he has forged in Cambodia will help the two countries work together on issues ranging from anti-terrorism to combating human trafficking. \u201cI think it’s a really unique opportunity to actually help people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OLYMPIA, Wash. \u2013 Washington state Republican Sen. Doug Ericksen has registered as a foreign agent in order to consult and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":208644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-rachel-la-corte","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208645,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208643\/revisions\/208645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}