Video: Special interest group launches ads attacking Gregoire

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OLYMPIA, Wash. - It's just June, but a new batch of radio ads attacking governor Chris Gregoire's record is already hitting the airwaves.

While Gregoire is calling on republican challenger Dino Rossi to pull the ad and run a clean campaign, he says he has no authority to do so -- because it's paid for by Olympia's most powerful special-interest lobbying group.

The new ads blame Gov. Gregoire's support of the "sexual offender sentencing alternative program" for putting over 1,300 sex offenders on the streets during her term.

The ad is paid for by a group called It's Time for a Change, which received a quarter million dollars from the BIAW -- the Building Industry Association of Washington.

The governor was quick to respond yesterday -- appearing with supporters from law enforcement and saying the state's crime rate is the lowest it's been in 14 years.           

"It is absolutely stunning to me what the BIA will say and what they will do," she said. "Misrepresentations of the work I have done to protect children."

She called on Rossi to tell the BIAW to stand down.

Rossi was speaking at the BIAW's annual meeting today in Stevenson, where he thanked the BIAW for supporting his campaign.

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Governor Chris Gregoire

He said pulling the radio ads depends on their accuracy.

"If they actually do something that's not factually correct they should [pull it] but I haven't seen anything that's factually incorrect," he said. "The reality is they don't have to do anything I tell them to do, nor do I have to do anything they tell me to do either."

The BIAW isn't shy about supporting candidates it perceives to be favorable to business.

In 2006, the BIAW pumped $400,000 into the campaign of John Groen -- a pro development lawyer seeking to unseat Supreme Court justice Gerry Alexander.

Alexander prevailed.