Governor Jay Inslee has signed a bill into law increasing disclosure in political advertising. Senate Bill 5258 was passed by the Washington State Legislature and delivered to the governor on April 23.

The bill requires a series of political advertisements supporting or opposing ballot measures sponsored by the same political committee, each of which is under $1,000, to include information on the advertisement’s top five contributors once the cumulative value of the advertisements reaches $1,000. Under the current law, information on the top five contributors is only required for individual advertisements in excess of $1,000.

This law will take effect on July 28, 2013, but with the first state elections not due to take place until 2014, we will probably not see how big of an impact this new disclosure requirement will have.