A new financial disclosure law shows that charities favored by Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Belfair) are seeing a surge in donations from corporations and defense contractors whose business depends on earmarks and appropriations from a House subcommittee of which Dicks is an influential member, the Seattle Times reports.

Although the money given in his name to charities including the National Guard Youth Foundation, whose local academy Dicks helped start, totaled $478,000 just this year.

Dicks denies any impropriety in the donations, and suggests that they have more to do with the companies' humanitarian interests than with his seat on the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee.

"I've never been lobbied at events I've attended that I can recall. At most they say 'Can we come up to (your office) to talk to you?' " he told the Seattle Times."I think they do it because they like the cause, because these are things the industry supports."

See the Times' full story, which also details lesser levels spending on behalf of Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Spokane) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Seattle) here.