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 oregon 

February 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.
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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.
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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). 
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Measure 26-200 would extend the same protections to City of Portland elections, including Mayor, City Council, and City Auditor.
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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Courtesy of Jesse Springer at Springer Creative
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Courtesy of Jesse Springer
at Springer Creative
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.

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

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.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
Donald Trump's 30-second case for campaign finance reform

CONTACT US
info@honest-elections.com
503-427-8771
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.