SITUATION IN 2025
At the Oregon Legislature
The 2025 long session of the Oregon Legislature failed to address any of the technical errors in HB 4024 (2024), which was enacted with great urgency in the last days of the short 2024 session. Honest Elections Oregon (HEO) memoranda describing technical fixes are in this folder:
Correcting Technical Errors in HB 4024
We will go back to the Oregon Legislature in its February 2026 short session and seek to correct the ambiguities in HB 4024. We expect the opponents of campaign finance reform (big money interests) to again try to delay the effective dates of HB 4024 by many additional years. The Legislature adopted HB 4024 in early March 2024:
Before the Oregon Legislature in late June 2025, Secretary of State Tobias Read testified that his department did not have sufficient resources to implement HB 4024 on time. The House
Rules Committee avoided voting on a Republican amendment to delay implementation of HB 4024 for an additional 4 years--an amendment supported by both business and labor union lobbyists.
At the Oregon Secretary of State
Many of the ambiguities in HB 4024 could be clarified by the adoption of clear rules by the Secretary of State. Secretary Tobias Read issued draft rules to implement HB 4024 on May 1, 2025 and again on September 15, 2025. Honest Elections Oregon filed extensive comments over the summer, almost none of which were in any way reflected in the revised September 15 draft rules. We filed an additional 100 pages or so of comments on the September draft rules in October and November 2025. Those draft rules definitely do not correctly implement HB 4024 and introduce many additional problems.
Honest Elections Oregon filed the final comments contained in this folder:
HEO Comments on September 2025 Draft Rules to Implement HB 4024
The comments include:
The 2025 long session of the Oregon Legislature failed to address any of the technical errors in HB 4024 (2024), which was enacted with great urgency in the last days of the short 2024 session. Honest Elections Oregon (HEO) memoranda describing technical fixes are in this folder:
Correcting Technical Errors in HB 4024
We will go back to the Oregon Legislature in its February 2026 short session and seek to correct the ambiguities in HB 4024. We expect the opponents of campaign finance reform (big money interests) to again try to delay the effective dates of HB 4024 by many additional years. The Legislature adopted HB 4024 in early March 2024:
- It set an effective date for the campaign contribution limits of January 1, 2027, which gave the Secretary of State more than 2.8 years to adopt the necessary rules and technology.
- It set an effective date for the financial disclosure requirements of January 1, 2028, giving the Secretary of State more than 3.8 years to adopt the necessary rules and technology.
Before the Oregon Legislature in late June 2025, Secretary of State Tobias Read testified that his department did not have sufficient resources to implement HB 4024 on time. The House
Rules Committee avoided voting on a Republican amendment to delay implementation of HB 4024 for an additional 4 years--an amendment supported by both business and labor union lobbyists.
At the Oregon Secretary of State
Many of the ambiguities in HB 4024 could be clarified by the adoption of clear rules by the Secretary of State. Secretary Tobias Read issued draft rules to implement HB 4024 on May 1, 2025 and again on September 15, 2025. Honest Elections Oregon filed extensive comments over the summer, almost none of which were in any way reflected in the revised September 15 draft rules. We filed an additional 100 pages or so of comments on the September draft rules in October and November 2025. Those draft rules definitely do not correctly implement HB 4024 and introduce many additional problems.
Honest Elections Oregon filed the final comments contained in this folder:
HEO Comments on September 2025 Draft Rules to Implement HB 4024
The comments include:
- HEO Cover Letter to Compilation of Comments on Rules to Implement HB 4024
- Proposed OAR 165-001 Division 01 Procedural Rules
- Proposed Campaign Finance Rules Pertaining to Penalties for Violations
- Proposed Campaign Finance Rules Pertaining to Political Parties and Caucus Committees
- Additional Comments Proposed Campaign Finance Manual
- Comments of Campaign Legal Center on Proposed Anti-Proliferation Requirements (established, financed maintained, or controlled)
- Revised memorandum provided to Secretary of State on June 30, 2025, entitled “What can be Fixed by Rulemaking to Implement HB 4024 (2024).”Memorandum, dated June 9, 2025, prepared by attorney Dan Meek in collaboration with Oregon Department of Justice attorneys Leslie Wu and Alicia Temple, indicating proposed changes to HB 4024 to clarify enforcement procedures.
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See the remarkable 2019 Oregonian series:
Polluted by Money: How Corporate Cash Corrupted One of the Greenest States in America, by Rob Davis. 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. |