Murmurs Self-imposed campaign spending limits are often little more than a publicity stunt for candidates, but they can turn out to be a headache. City Commissioner Amanda Fritz raised her contribution    More

Murmurs Last week, Murmurs quoted Ron Murray, a founder of Oregon Dog PAC—a political action committee aimed at starting a no-kill shelter—as saying the Multnomah County animal shelter euthanizes 64 per   More

Murmurs Mayoral candidate Charlie Hales was awash in money from developers during the May primary race—almost one-quarter of his cash came from development- and real estate-related donors. After he won, H   More

Murmurs Mayoral candidate Jefferson Smith has released a 1994 settlement agreement that got him off the hook for a misdemeanor assault charge. Smith, then a University of Oregon student, injured a woman   More

Murmurs It’s election season, so you can expect campaigns to be making stuff up. But the Measure 79 campaign is the worst in a long time. The measure would amend the state constitution to ban real-estate    More

Murmurs It’s rare for charitable groups to make political contributions—federal law discourages them from converting donations (deductible to the giver) into political cash. But a couple of local 50   More

Murmurs Metro has said publicly that a new headquarters hotel at the Oregon Convention Center would get a $10.4 million cash subsidy from the regional government and the City of Portland. But documents    More

Murmurs One Portland politician isn’t softening his stance toward Walmart as the retail giant hires local software talent (“Value Shopping,” WW, Aug. 29, 2012). City Commissioner-elect Steve Novick says   More

Murmurs Gov. John Kitzhaber keeps rolling the dice on Elisa Dozono. In May, WW reported that Kitzhaber submitted Portland lawyer Dozono’s name for a vacancy on the Oregon Lottery Commission, then withdrew i   More

Murmurs The U.S. Department of Agriculture has fined Oregon Health & Science University $11,679 in the 2009 deaths of five monkeys at the school’s Oregon National Primate Research Center. Two died aft   More