LEB Case 24-11 — Sen. Jeff Wilson, alleged failure to respond to public records request for text messages on official phone

A complaint alleging that Sen. Jeff Wilson failed to respond to a public records request for text messages on his official phone was reviewed by the Washington State Legislative Ethics Board (LEB) in 2024; the full opinion has not been independently confirmed.

What happened

A complaint was filed against Washington State Sen. Jeff Wilson alleging failure to respond to a public disclosure request for text messages sent or received on his official legislative phone. The Legislative Ethics Board (LEB) reviewed the complaint and issued Opinion 24-11.

The complaint is identified in the LEB docket as “Failure to Respond to Public Disclosure Request for Text Messages on Official phon,” with the truncated topic field reflecting the source data. Text messages on an official phone are public records under the Washington Public Records Act, RCW 42.56, and are subject to disclosure on request.

What the primary source says

The LEB’s publicly posted opinion index records the case number, year, respondent name, and subject matter. The full opinion text has not been independently confirmed in sources available at the time of this record. This entry is based on the docket listing only.

Status

LEB opinion 24-11 was issued in 2024. The outcome — whether Wilson was found to have violated ethics rules, whether the complaint was dismissed, or whether the matter was referred to a different forum for the public-records question — is not confirmed in this record. This entry will be updated when the full opinion is reviewed.

Why it’s in the registry

Public-records compliance on official phones overlaps several LEB conduct categories at once: use of public resources, electronic-resources misuse, and transparency obligations. The registry tracks the full electronic-resources cluster (content in 24-09, election-season edits in 24-10, records compliance here in 24-11) rather than only the politically loudest subset.

Reform implication

Who is supposed to enforce a public-records failure on an official phone is genuinely contested. The Public Records Act gives that authority to courts and the Attorney General. The LEB has authority over use of public resources. Complaints that touch both bounce between forums. A written joint-jurisdiction rule — saying when the LEB defers to a PRA action, when it proceeds anyway, and how the disposition is recorded — would close the gap. See [reform: public_resources_firewall] and [reform: leb_transparency].