Oregon Supreme Court upholds limits on campaign contributionsOn April23, the Oregon Supreme Court reversed previous decisions and upheld the Multnomah County limits on campaign contributions enacted by voters in 2016. This will no doubt result in the upholding of the similar City of Portland limits adopted by voters in 2018.
Read the Honest Elections Press Release News Coverage: The Oregonian - Oregon Supreme Court rules campaign contribution limits are legal in Oregon Willamette Week - In historic Ruling, Oregon Supreme Court Says Campaign Contribution Limits Are Legal Portland Mercury - Oregon Supreme Court Upholds Multnomah County Campaign Finance Limits KATU - Oregon Supreme Court rules limits to campaign contributions OK KOIN - Oregon Supreme Court: Campaign contribution limits Legal - Ruling said $500 limits in Multnomah County are OK KGW - A New era in campaign finance: Oregon Supreme Court OKs contribution limits Read the amazing Oregonian editorial supporting our efforts.
update on campaign finance reform at the Oregon legislature 2019We are at a crucial point for campaign finance reform in Oregon. Largely because of our 87-89% "yes" vote wins on our Multnomah County and Portland campaign finance reform ballot measures in 2016 and 2018, the Oregon Legislature is finally considering statewide reform. But the bills now making their way through the legislative process are more about repealing reform than achieving it. These bills would expressly repeal Measure 47 of 2006, which Oregon voters approved and which contains actual strict limits on campaign contributions and independent expenditures, including the requirement that political ads identify their major funders ("taglines"). None of the current bills at the Oregon Legislature would accomplish either purpose.
Measure 47 will go into effect, if we prevail in our court action to validate the Multnomah County and Portland ballot measures. The Oregon Supreme Court has agreed to expedite the case, with briefing this summer, argument on November 1, and a decision likely to issue soon thereafter. So the bills at the Legislature should not be supported, unless they establish real and effective reform. But they have many loopholes that would enable big money to continue to flow into candidate and "independent expenditure" campaigns. For example, HB 2714 (as approved by the House of Representatives on a 35-23 vote on June 6) would allow the creation of 4 "Caucus Committees" run by the incumbents in the Oregon Legislature. Each such committee could accept unlimited funds from all political party committees, all Oregon candidate committees (many hundreds of them on the state and local levels), and even all federal candidate committees, including candidates for Congress in other states or for President. The Caucus Committees can then make unlimited contributions to candidates. This will enable wealthy donors to funnel effectively unlimited sums to help their favored candidates. HB 2714 has other serious defects. See our Summary of What is Going on in the Oregon Legislature about campaign finance reform. Measure 47 also requires that political ads identify their actual major funders, their major donors, the businesses they are engaged in, and how money each is spending on the ads. HB 2716 was supposed to do that, but the version adopted by the House Rules Committee on May 30 does not. It allows candidate advertisements with no disclosure of the funding sources. It allows "independent expenditure" advertisements that identify only the nice-sounding names of the political committees or nonprofit corporations that paid for the ads, such as the "Good Things for Oregon Committee" or the "Make Oregon Great Non-profit Corporation" or any other nice-sounding name you can think of. Both for limits on contributions and required taglines, all the Oregon Legislature needs to do is adopt on a statewide basis the same provisions that 88% of the voters in Portland and Multnomah County adopted in 2016 and 2018. But they are not doing that. Please tell your legislators to get these bills fixed and vote for real campaign finance reform! You can Find Your Legislators Here. There is one reform bill at the Oregon Legislature that should be supported in its current form. SJR 18 would refer to Oregon voters a proposed amendment to the Oregon Constitution to ensure that political campaign contributions and expenditures can be regulated by legislative bodies and the people using the initiative process. This joint resolution was approved by the Senate Committee on Campaign Finance Reform and is now before the Senate Rules Committee. Please tell your legislators to pass SJR 18 without amending it. Here is our very detailed Summary of What is Going on in the Oregon Legislature about campaign finance reform. See the remarkable Oregonian series: Polluted by Money: How Corporate Cash Corrupted One of the Greenest States in America.
The series is available at two places at The Oregonian: HERE and HERE. The first piece documents how Oregon legislators depend on corporate cash and how they reward their donors with lax environmental laws and policies. It includes this powerful 4-minute video-minute video but also much, much more. Honest Elections is a coalition of groups and people who work to achieve campaign finance reform in Oregon at the state and local levels.
This is the website for the first 3 efforts: Multnomah County, Portland, and Oregon. The top-level menu items have sub-menus for each one, where needed. But the need for reform is largely the same on all levels. TAKE action to support honest elections in oregonFebruary 2019
Quick Tip: If you choose to email your elected officials please feel free to mention your personal reasons for supporting getting big money out of politics. The more personalized the message is the more powerful it is. For the City of Portland Call and/or email the Portland City Commissioners and Mayor Wheeler thanking them for a swift implementation of Honest Elections (26-200) and urge them to direct the City’s attorneys to file an amicus brief (a “friend of the court brief”) to the Supreme Court Case regarding the constitutionality of the County ballot measure; defending the will of City and County voters to allow campaign contribution limits and disclosures requirements in ads funded by dark campaign money. Mayor: Ted Wheeler: MayorWheeler@portlandoregon.gov, 503-823-4127 City Commissioners: Chloe Eudaly: Chloe@PortlandOregon.gov, 503-823-4628 Nick Fish: nick@portlandoregon.gov, 503-823-3589 Amanda Fritz: Amanda@portlandoregon.gov, 503-823-3008 Jo Ann Hardesty: JoAnn@portlandoregon.gov, 503-823-4151 For Multnomah County: First, you will need to identify who your county commissioner is, you can do so by visiting this link: https://multco.us/communications/find-your-commissioner. The Chair, Deborah Kafoury represents the whole county to you should definitely message her as well as your Commissioner. Call and/or email the Chair and your County Commissioner to ask that they pass the implementation ordinance, particularly the clarification of the disclosures. This will help the Oregon Supreme Court case and give clarity to candidates beginning campaigns for 2020. Chair: Deborah Kafoury: mult.chair@multco.us, 503-988-3308 Commissioners: Sharon Meieran: district1@multco.us, 503-988-5220 Susheela Jayapal: district2@multco.us, 503-988-5219 Jessica Vega Pederson: district3@multco.us, 503-988-5262 Lori Stegmann: district4@multco.us, 503-988-5217 Take Action to Support Honest Elections in Oregon! For the State: 1) Urge Governor Kate Brown to refer strong campaign contribution limits and disclosure requirements to the Oregon State Legislature as well as a referral to amend the Oregon Constitution to ensure campaign contribution limits are allowable under Oregon law. Take action by calling: (503) 378-4582 Or using her “Share Your Opinion” form (online): https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Pages/share-your-opinion.aspx 2) Urge your State Legislators (senator and representative), to support legislation with strong campaign contribution limits, disclosure requirements, and to support a referral that amends the Oregon Constitution to clarify that unlimited money is not equivalent to free speech. Email and/or call your Senator and Representative by: going to www.oregonlegislature.gov, and entering your street address into the “Find Your District and Legislator” section and clicking on the “GO” button. Their pages will have email and phone numbers for you to use. Lastly: you can sign up to collect signatures to qualify a constitutional amendment to make campaign contributions legal. We are aiming to get this state-wide measure on the ballot for 2020 if we are unable to get it referred from the Oregon State Legislature. We are also working to amend the Oregon Constitution in 2020 to eliminate the contention that, unlike the constitutions of every other state, it somehow prohibits the enforcement of limits on political campaign contributions. The free speech clause in the Oregon Constitution is the same as in 36 other states; all of those states have limits on political contributions. This measure is aimed at the November 2020 ballot, because of steps taken by anti-reform activists to delay our opportunity to collect signatures for 2018 by repeatedly challenging in court the ballot title prepared by the Attorney General (and the revised ballot title prepared by the Attorney General). Can you guess the political party most closely affiliated with those anti-reform agents?
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Thanks to You for Honest Elections Portland's 87% Victory
Measure 26-200 Earned Over 87% "Yes" Votes and Won in Every Precinct in Portland Thank you for anything and everything you did to help with election cycle. Whether it was making social media posts, talking to your friends and family members to get them to vote, helping gather the 55,000 signatures to qualify the Honest Elections measure for the ballot, or volunteering to drop literature at the doors. We see you and we THANK YOU! Read more about the victory here. The Portland Campaign Finance Reform Charter Amendment (Measure 26-200) is like Multnomah County Measure 26-184 (2016), which passed with 89% "YES" vote. It amended the Multnomah County Charter to limit political campaign contributions and expenditures in candidate elections and to require that political ads prominently disclose their actual major funders (not just nice-sounding names of committees or nonprofit corporations).
Measure 26-200 would extend the same protections to City of Portland elections, including Mayor, City Council, and City Auditor. MULTNOMAH COUNTY 2016
In 2016, our efforts resulted in the enactment of Multnomah County Measure 26-184, which amended the Multnomah County Charter to limit contributions to candidates for County public office and to require that political ads financed by any large donors prominently disclose those donors in the ads. Measure 26-184 received a "YES" vote of 89% from Multnomah County voters.
Activists in Columbia County are gathering signatures for their Honest Elections Columbia County ballot measure. For info, go to Envision Columbia County.
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honest elections launches Portland effort
The voters of Multnomah County enacted Measure 26-184 by a margin of 89% "yes" to 11% "no" at the November 2016 election. The voters inside Portland were 90% "yes" on the measure. So we are offering Portland voters the opportunity to adopt a very similar measure to amend the City Charter to get big money out of Portland politics.
Honest elections launches statewide effort
.Oregon Progressive Party and Alliance for Democracy have launched a state-wide effort for a November 2020 ballot measure which would amend the Oregon Constitution to allow limits on campaign contributions and expenditures. The amendment would read:
Laws consistent with the freedom of speech guarantee of the United States Constitution may regulate contributions and expenditures, of any type or description, to influence the outcome of any election; provided, that such laws are adopted or amended by an elected legislative body by a three-fourths vote of each chamber or by initiative.
YOUR HELP IS NEEDED! If you can gather 10 or 100 signatures, please contact David e Delk for the signature sheets and any other information you will need. In your email subject line include: 2020 signatures.
Check out our separate website for this effort: Honest Elections Oregon
Laws consistent with the freedom of speech guarantee of the United States Constitution may regulate contributions and expenditures, of any type or description, to influence the outcome of any election; provided, that such laws are adopted or amended by an elected legislative body by a three-fourths vote of each chamber or by initiative.
YOUR HELP IS NEEDED! If you can gather 10 or 100 signatures, please contact David e Delk for the signature sheets and any other information you will need. In your email subject line include: 2020 signatures.
Check out our separate website for this effort: Honest Elections Oregon
Donald Trump's 30-second case for campaign finance reform
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Honest Elections Oregon and Honest Elections Portland are run by volunteers and is fueled by unpaid civic effort. It has received funding from Oregon Giving Back Fund, a nonprofit organization supported by grants from Harry Lonsdale, and from Dan Meek, David Delk, the Kafoury McDougal Law firm, Hugh McGavick and others, all available on the Oregon ORESTAR campaign finance reporting system.