A compiled record, not a news outlet.
Mission, editorial stance, and disclosures. The registry exists to make accountability cases legible to a non-specialist reader, anchored to documents anyone can verify.
The drip became a pattern.
Most of these cases were already public. Few had been tied together.
Over the past two years, the layers of government that touch this region (Washington State, King County, the City of Seattle, and the regional bodies that tax it) have produced a steady drip of accountability stories: a $1.8 billion homelessness program with one percent of spending audited, a $34 billion transit megaproject that quietly reset its scope, a regional homelessness authority with $13 million unaccounted for, ethics findings against multiple sitting legislators, public-records lawsuits over school-district conduct. Most of these surfaced in named-byline reporting or formal audit findings. Few got tied together.
This registry exists to be the single place a Washington resident can go to see those cases laid out side by side, organized consistently, and connected back to the specific structural reform that would have caught each one sooner. It is built for the concerned citizen, not the political insider.
What the registry is, and is not.
A compiled public record bounded by source quality, geography, and time.
The registry is a compiled public record. It is not a news outlet, does not break stories, and does not run anonymous tip lines. Every case here is anchored in documents you can read yourself: audits, court filings, ethics rulings, settlement agreements, or named-byline reporting in established Washington news outlets. Anonymous tips, rumor, partisan commentary, and social media chatter are not eligible sources.
Scope is deliberately bounded. The registry covers Washington State government, King County government, the City of Seattle (including Seattle Public Schools), and regional or interlocal bodies with independent taxing authority that operate here (Sound Transit, KCRHA, Port of Seattle, and similar). Seattle is the starting point because it sits at the center of the regional governments above it: nearly every interlocal body in scope is anchored here, and most of the documented record over the past two years runs through it. Other Washington cities and their school districts are out of scope for now and may be added in later phases. The full scope rules live on the Methodology page.
The registry does not assert motive. It does not characterize any matter as more serious than its evidentiary record supports. Cases are labeled as documented, reported, or alleged, and the language in each case reflects that label. See the Methodology page for how cases are classified and how the source tiers work.
The source hierarchy that anchors every case.
Tier 1 is required for any documented record. Tier 3 is excluded entirely.
Every case is anchored in a tiered source structure. Tier 1 sources are required for any case classified as documented. The summary below is the public-facing version of the registry's full source-tier policy, which governs intake, validation, and naming decisions across the project.
| Tier | What counts | Role in a record |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | Primary documentary sources: SAO and King County Auditor reports; King County Ombudsman reports; Seattle City Auditor reports; Legislative Ethics Board (LEB) opinions; Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) findings; Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission (SEEC) decisions; King County Board of Ethics opinions; federal, state, and local Inspector General reports; court filings, indictments, settlements, and judgments; official agency statements (press releases, board minutes, formal letters from elected officials acting in their public capacity); and FOIA / PRA returned records. | Required as lead source for documented records. Always archived via Wayback at intake. |
| Tier 2 | Named-byline reporting from established news organizations with editorial accountability. Canonical Tier 2 outlets: Seattle Times, KUOW, Cascade PBS / Crosscut, KING 5, Fox 13 Seattle, KIRO 7, PubliCola, The Urbanist, MyNorthwest news desk, Axios Seattle, GeekWire (for business stories touching public agencies), and Associated Press. National outlets (Bloomberg, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post) qualify when they cover Washington matters. A news article that summarizes a Tier 1 document is itself Tier 2; the underlying document is Tier 1. | Supporting source for documented records. May serve as lead source for reported records. Two independent Tier 2 sources are required to name a private individual; a single Tier 1 source naming them is sufficient on its own. |
| Tier 3 | Excluded categories: partisan advocacy organizations (Change Washington, Shift WA, Washington Policy Center, Discovery Institute, Economic Opportunity Institute, Sightline Institute, and equivalents on any side of the spectrum); political-party communications (WA GOP, WA State Democrats, county party committees, campaign press releases); personal blogs and substacks; anonymous tips and leaks (unless the leaked document itself is Tier 1, in which case the document is cited, not the leak channel); social media posts; interest-group press releases (Chamber of Commerce, labor organizations, trade associations); PR / public relations firm communications; polling crosstabs; and YouTube or podcast commentary, even from credentialed individuals. | Excluded from case records. May appear in commentary or further-reading sections on reform pages, clearly labeled as advocacy or opinion. |
Editorials and opinion columns at Tier 2 outlets are treated as opinion, not reporting, and do not establish facts for a case record. Talk-radio segments at otherwise-Tier-2 stations (KIRO Radio, etc.) are Tier 3; only the news desks of those stations qualify as Tier 2.
When the registry names a name.
Individuals are named in the registry only where they have already been named in a public record by a Tier 1 source, or independently named by two or more Tier 2 sources. Mid-level staff, contractors, and nonprofit executive directors are referenced by role until a public-record threshold is met. The threshold is lower for senior elected officials, who are public figures by virtue of office. The standard for naming a minor or non-public-figure crime victim is strict: only where a Tier 1 source has already done so, or where the individual has chosen to identify themselves publicly through litigation or media.
On partisan balance.
Stated, not engineered.
The dataset skews heavily Democratic. Democrats hold essentially every statewide and King County office in Washington, and the registry reflects who is currently in a position to commit or enable the conduct it documents. Where Republican or non-partisan actors are implicated by Tier 1 or Tier 2 sources, they are included on the same evidentiary terms. The criterion is the source record, not the party label, and no documented case is omitted to engineer the appearance of partisan balance.
A rolling two-year window.
The registry operates on a rolling two-year window from the date a case became part of the public record. Older cases age out of the active index but remain accessible at their permanent URLs as historical references. The intent is a working accountability resource for current concerns, not a permanent grievance archive.
What happens when a case resolves.
Records are never silently deleted. Retraction without history is worse than the original allegation.
Cases that resolve favorably to the accused, through exoneration, dismissal, or a finding of no misconduct, are not deleted. The record is preserved at the same URL with a clear notice at the top describing the resolution, and the legal-status field is updated. Every substantive change to a published case is logged on the Corrections page.
Who maintains this.
The registry is maintained by an independent Washington researcher. Editorial decisions and source vetting are done by a single editor. The registry takes no funding from political parties, candidates, advocacy organizations, or any party named in a case. It does not solicit donations.