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Public Disclosure Commission grants Sam Crystal request to redact home address and suppress video
Summary
The Washington State Public Disclosure Commission on Oct. 30 granted Sam Crystal’s request to redact their home address from prior campaign contribution reports and to withhold the video portion of today’s hearing recording; the chair ordered audio remain available for public records requests, with a fallback to suppress the full recording if audio/video cannot be separated.
The Washington State Public Disclosure Commission on Oct. 30 granted a request from Sam Crystal to redact their home address from campaign contribution reports and to suppress the video portion of the adjudicative hearing recording, Chair Jay Robert Leach said.
Jennifer Hansen, presenting on behalf of the PDC, told the commission that Crystal sought removal of their residential address from filings disclosed on campaign reports for Nikkita Oliver (2021) and Marin Costa (2023) and had cited safety concerns and efforts to remove address information from the internet. Hansen also said both campaign filers had consented to modification of their reports if the chair granted the request.
"I currently serve in the role of program coordinator for Seattle Public Schools, and my role focuses on supporting LGBTQ plus youth and families," Crystal said when testifying about why they sought redaction. Crystal told the commission they had seen "hateful articles" that named their position and said a simple web search of the job title could lead to their name and then to their home address.
Leach said he had "no problem with the home address request" but expressed hesitation about withholding the recording. He explained the commission must balance privacy concerns with a "state constitutional provision that provides for access to judicial-type proceedings." Ultimately Leach said: "I'm gonna grant Sam Crystal's request with respect to his address and with respect to the video portion of the recording that is made of today's hearing, but direct that the audio portion of today's hearing shall remain available, as a response to a public records request." He added a contingency: if the office cannot separate audio from video, his order would encompass the entire recording.
Hansen cautioned that the PDC had not previously released audio without video and that she had not confirmed with IT staff whether the two could be separated, which could delay posting. Hansen said she had done limited testing and "wasn't able to find" recordings indexed in a way that made individuals searchable, but she did not contact technical staff to confirm.
Staff and the chair also discussed how disclosure thresholds work. Hansen and Leach explained that a state disclosure threshold administered by the PDC is $100 in aggregate per election cycle—contributions may be itemized and trigger name-and-address disclosure—and that Seattle's voucher system can expose donor information regardless of dollar amount.
Hansen told Crystal they would receive an order memorializing the decision. The chair framed the disposition as the least-restrictive remedy that still addressed Crystal's safety concerns.
