Take The Money And Run

[November 5th, 2008]

One lesson lingers amid the post-election hangover: Politics means money.

Between the May 20 primary and Oct. 31, contributors poured $52 million into state and local elections, according to the watchdog group Democracy Reform Oregon. When final contributions are tallied, 2008 will show a large uptick in candidate spending versus 2004, but less spending on measures.

Thanks to Oregon’s two-year-old ORESTAR campaign finance system, it’s easier to track spending online than it was during the last presidential election year. Still, because Oregon’s gossamer-thin campaign finance laws still allow candidates and parties to pass contributions through to each other, most voters have no idea who really financed this year’s races.

Here are six things we learned from the parties’ and candidates’ filings:

1. It’s good to be the king. Everybody expects House Majority Leader Dave Hunt (D-Gladstone) to replace House Speaker Jeff Merkley, who ran for U.S. Senate. Hunt raised about $300,000 since June, even though he was unopposed for re-election. His fundraising prowess is a happy coincidence of interests: Donors want access to the speaker and the speaker wants control of his caucus. So since Hunt has no opponent, nearly all of his bankroll to the House Dems’ political action committee, FuturePAC.

2. It’s not money laundering when it’s legal. Voters often must be mind readers to trace their candidates’ funds. Take Democrat Toby Forsberg, running in House District 39 (Clackamas County). A political newcomer, Forsberg was one of only two House candidates to raise more than $500,000 as of Nov. 3. But the origin of that money is unclear: Forsberg got 329,000 from FuturePAC. FuturePAC’s biggest donor, of course, is Hunt. Candidates and PACs can accept unlimited donations and give it to other candidates as long as they report the gifts (See “Shakedown Dues,” WW, Feb. 28, 2007). That’s great for donors and middlemen but doesn’t do much for transparency. “There’s no way the average voter knows where candidates’ money is coming from,” says Janice Thompson, director of Democracy Reform Oregon.

3. Education matters—but not as much as cute animals. Portland Community College asked voters for a $374 million bond issue for new buildings to educate more than 86,000 students. The Oregon Zoo sought to raise only a third as much—in no small part to benefit seven elephants. But zoo levy supporters raised and spent nearly 900,000 —more than twice PCC’s campaign budget.

4. Bill Sizemore wins even when he loses. Sizemore put five measures on the ballot. And as the Oregon Education Association demonstrated last month in court, Sizemore converted conservative sugar daddies’ tax-deductible donations into a mid-six-figure salary. But more importantly, he forced union opponents to spend more than $14.4 million, which both exhausts their treasuries and stops them from putting their own measures on the ballot. Sizemore’s measures “were poised to pass,” says Kevin Looper of Defend Oregon, before his group began to fight them.

5. Keep an eye on that out-of-state money. Kate Brown, a Democratic state senator running for secretary of state, threw union supporters a bone during the February special session: Brown sponsored legislation requiring that out-of-state contributions (which normally come from such conservative stalwarts as Nevada medical device tycoon Loren Parks and New Yorker Howard Rich) show up in the ORESTAR system in a different color. Then Brown’s two biggest contributors—the Washington, D.C.-based Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and the San Francisco-based Secretary of State Project—collectively gave her more than 100,000.

6. The state Republican Party is in disarray. OK, maybe that’s obvious. But what’s noticeable is that the big bucks from conservative donors such as Parks and Klamath Falls window wallah Dick Wendt are going mostly to ballot measures, not candidates. A rare bright spot was Republican Rick Dancer’s ability to tap big timber money—nearly $250,000—in his run for secretary of state. But overall, the party looked like a down-on-her-luck stripper when Reynolds America—a beneficiary of GOP opposition to a 2007 tobacco tax—stuffed 100,000 into the party’s G-string last week.