Polluted by Money: How Oregon could control the influence of campaign cash

Oregon’s lack of campaign finance limits has made it one of the biggest money states in American politics, an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive found.

The newsroom’s series, Polluted by Money, showed a clear impact of Oregon’s freewheeling campaign system on environmental policy. The flood of money created an easy regulatory climate where industry gets what it wants, again and again.

Since the series was published, dozens of readers have asked how the problems identified by the newsroom could be fixed.

Here are three ways that other states have attempted to minimize the influence of campaign cash on elected officials.

1. Limiting the flow of money to politicians’ campaigns.

Oregon is one of five states without any limit on the amount anyone can donate to someone running for office. Whether you’re a candidate for the Clackamas Soil and Water Conservation District or a front-runner for governor, businesses, labor unions or individuals can give your campaign as much as they want.

That would end if voters approve a ballot referral, Senate Joint Resolution 18, that’s sponsored by Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton, and Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend. Gov. Kate Brown, Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Ashland, and several other lawmakers have backed the effort to refer the question to voters.

Sweeping majorities of voters in Portland and Multnomah County (upward of 88 percent) have supported efforts to get money out of politics in their jurisdictions. A case testing the Multnomah County limits will be argued before the Oregon Supreme Court later this year.

If lawmakers decide not to send a constitutional amendment to voters in November 2020, contribution limits could still be made legal by the Oregon Supreme Court’s ruling in the Multnomah case, which is expected to be issued next year.

A 1997 Oregon Supreme Court ruling said the state constitution doesn’t allow limits on campaign contributions. Now that the issue is before the court again, today’s justices could take a different position.

But a constitutional amendment by voters would set it in stone.

If limits were allowed under the constitution, either voters or the Legislature would still have to decide what they should look like in law.

In Washington, corporations, unions and individuals can give $1,000 to a legislative candidate or $2,000 to a state executive candidate (like the governor) in a primary or general election.

Minnesota, which is about the same size as Oregon, also sets dollar limits but goes even farther. Corporate donations aren’t allowed and candidates are rewarded with public financing if they agree to limit their fundraising. In Connecticut, campaigns are almost entirely funded by taxpayer subsidies.

2. Strictly controlling how campaign money can be spent.

In Oregon, campaign money isn’t just spent on campaigning. It has paid for luxury hotel rooms, weekly visits to the local sports bar and a variety of wearable Apple accessories. It paid for Salem lodging and meals that taxpayers already covered for legislative sessions, boosting lawmakers’ income. It even bought one departing lawmaker a year of Amazon Prime.

Oregon allows lawmakers to spend on the costs incurred from being a legislator, enabling them to cite either campaigning or legislating as a justification for many expenses.

Some states are far clearer. Pennsylvania says very broadly that campaign money can only be spent on campaigning. Others prohibit campaign spending on items that are legal in Oregon like campaign finance penalties or hiring a family member.

Oregon lawmakers can earn extra pay if they use campaign funds for hotels and meals while the Legislature meets -- expenses that taxpayers already cover through daily $149 per diem payments. New Mexico explicitly prohibits spending campaign money on session living expenses.

Lawmakers could choose to pass a law limiting their own spending. They could choose to limit it in return for a pay raise. The salary and per diem averages out to about $45,000 a year for the part-time job.

Voters approved spending limits when they passed Measure 47 in 2006. Those have lived in suspended animation ever since. Lawmakers’ referral to voters could enable Measure 47 to become law, but they have written it in a way that would kill it.

No legislation has been introduced this year to restrict how campaign money can be spent.

Instead, this session, Sens. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, Fred Girod, R-Stayton, Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, and Dallas Heard, R-Roseburg, have proposed a 68 percent raise in Senate Bill 959. (On top of a 28 percent raise they were just awarded.)

3. Strictly enforcing tight rules once money is in the system.

Oregon’s election watchdog, the Oregon State Elections Division, has subpoena authority but doesn’t use it.

Its compliance specialists instead write letters asking questions. More than once they dropped a case because no one wrote back.

Fines are lower here than in other West Coast states. California’s top fine is $1 million. In Washington, it’s $18 million (which is pending in court). Oregon’s biggest fine is $116,000.

One Oregon elections official said he didn’t want his agency to be a gotcha organization. Other state election watchdogs embrace that as their job and the reason taxpayers fund them in the first place.

They also have different managerial structures to limit their own political headwinds.

Voters in Washington and California both created independent campaign spending watchdogs in the wake of Watergate. They have a firewall that Oregon doesn’t -- they’re overseen by gubernatorial appointees. Their leaders are hired by the appointees, not by an elected official.

In Oregon, the Secretary of State, an elected official, decides how aggressive the division’s employees should be.

Oregon lawmakers say the state’s system is built upon transparency. Anyone can see who’s donating to a politician and how the money is being spent. But there are gaps. Among them, the newsroom found legislative candidates paid more than $3 million in staffing costs without naming the person who did the work. Only the payroll vendor was listed.

Lawmakers also listed $1.3 million in unidentified miscellaneous expenses of $100 or less, the legal threshold for reporting how they spent the money.

— Rob Davis

rdavis@oregonian.com

503.294.7657; @robwdavis

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