HEO Surveys Candidates on Campaign Finance Reform

Survey Shows Most Oregon Candidates are Ignoring Voter Demands for Campaign Finance Reform.

While there are a few champions of campaign finance reform (CFR) among Oregon candidates for statewide or legislative office, most declined to answer the survey or expressed views inconsistent with the wishes of Oregon voters.

“Even though Oregon voters have overwhelmingly voted for campaign finance reform, including in 2020, Oregon legislators have not adopted contribution limits or meaningful disclosure requirements,” said Mindy Lowden of Wolf-PAC Oregon.

Honest Elections Oregon (HEO) surveyed the positions on campaign finance reform issues of all 2022 candidates for Governor and the Oregon Legislature. 37 candidates responded to the survey. Here are their answers.

HEO then evaluated their answers, assigning points for answers that are consistent with the goals of HEO. HEO then applied a grading scale ranging from A+ for the best answers to D for the worst, reserving F for the candidates who did not respond to the survey, despite repeated requests by email and phone over a period of several weeks. Here are the grades of those who responded.

The only candidates for Governor who scored "A" were Patrick Starnes, Michael Trimble, and George Carillo, all running in the Democratic primary. Tobias Read scored a B. Tina Kotek scored an F. Five other Democratic candidates for Governor scored between B and D. Fifteen Republican candidates for Governor scored Fs, and they were bested by Nick Hess (B), Tim McCloud (D), Amber Richardson (D), and Marc Thielman (D).

Of the candidates for the Oregon Legislature, 25 filled out the survey. Jeff Golden (SD 3), Anthony Sorace (HD 31), Christopher Draus (HD 41) and Catherine Thomasson (HD 45) earned A+. Six other candidates for the Legislature earned As, eight earned Bs, one earned a C, and six earned Ds. Those who did not respond earned Fs.
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"We appreciate the effort of those who responded," said HEO volunteer Dan Meek. "We are dismayed that most candidates did not try to fill out the survey. Perhaps they do not care about campaign finance reform or do not want voters to know their positions on specific proposals."

For more information, see Report on Candidate Survey. It details the survey purpose, procedure, responses, scoring, and analysis, with tables for each respondent’s answers and scores and list of non-respondents.
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HEO will conduct additional surveys to publicize the positions of candidates in the November 2022 general election.