State Sen. Bruce Starr and Beaverton lawyer Keith Parker

[November 1st, 2006] Thanks to Oregon's slack campaign-finance laws, Rogues state Sen. Bruce Starr and Beaverton lawyer Keith Parker can take money they raised for a measure that failed to qualify for next week's election and spend it on unrelated candidate races.

And those same lame laws mean it will be nearly a year before they must reveal the donors of those funds now being used to help at least seven other legislative Republican candidates.

Here's the background: Starr (R-Hillsboro) last year became the Oregon face for the "First Class Education" national movement. Like the horse of Trojan fame, the proposal appeared attractive enough to gain traction in states such as Texas, Georgia and Kansas. It would require that 65 cents of every K-12 dollar go directly into the classroom.

In Oregon, where the National Center for Education Statistics says about 59.5 cents of every dollar goes into the classroom, backers say the 65 percent requirement would raise classroom spending by about $230 million annually without raising taxes.

But in August 2005, The Austin American-Statesman got a memo from the plan's architect, an Arizona political consultant named Tim Mooney, who laid out the "Political Benefits of 1st Class Education." Benefits include "splitting of the educational union" and perhaps making voters "more greatly predisposed to supporting vouchers and charter schools."

And, appropriately for the current Oregon election, the memo also states that pushing the measure allows money to be spent on other political purposes.

Bingo. Although the "solution" isn't even on the ballot, records show its backers have spent at least $80,000 to buy TV ad slots for GOP candidates, including metro-area candidates Shirley Parsons, Terry Rilling and T.J. Reilly, as well as Rep. Billy Dalto (R-Salem). That's impressive, given that the First Class committee reported no money in its last filing Aug. 30.

Starr says all the candidates are honorary co-chairs and that the money supports the issue, not them. "It's an out-of-the-box way to get signatures," Starr says. "The candidates drive voters to our website."

Democratic activist Steve Novick says that's nonsense. "They pretend they're raising money for a ballot measure that will help kids, and instead they give it to Republican candidates."