Murmurs While Oregon education czar Rudy Crew is pushing a reform agenda in Salem, he’s hoping to moonlight so he can add to his $280,000-a-year state salary (see “Wrecking Crew,” WW, Jan. 16, 2013).    More

News Environment & Energy Daily, a trade publication that tracks Congress, reported today that Josh Kardon, the former chief of staff for Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has a new client—the oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. Kardon, worked for Wyden for 18 years, many of them stationed in Portland. When Kardon left Wyden's office in 2011, the senator was glowing in his praise. “Josh is the most gifted political ...   More

Murmurs Two years ago, the Tonkon Torp law firm scored a coup when it snagged Josh Kardon, the longtime chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, to bolster its federal government-relations practice. Kardon,   More

News One of the state's top political operatives is on the move again. Jon Isaacs, currently the executive director of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters informed his board this week that he will depart the environmental group to join Grant Park Strategies, the burgeoning political consulting firm founded by Josh Kardon, the former chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).Isaacs ran FuturePac, ...   More

News Earlier on Wednesday, WW reported that U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden would be the featured guest at a May 31st reception in Portland held to celebrate the opening of the Portland law firm Tonkon Torp's federal lobbying and government relations practice. Tonkon's federal practice is led by Josh Kardon, who stepped down last year after 18 years as Wyden's chief of staff. But late this afternoon, Wyden's deputy ...   More

News Earlier this week, WW published a story about the selection process for two open federal judgeships in Oregon. The selection committee, which was appointed by U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, chose five straight white males as finalists for the highly coveted $174,000-a-year positions. Wyden chief of staff Josh Kardon, who oversaw the process for Oregon's senior senator, took strong exception ...   More

News Yesterday, I wrote how former Vice President Al Gore will do a fund-raiser in Oregon for Bill Bradbury, who's running in the Democratic gubernatorial primary next year along with ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber and former Hewlett-Packard exec Steve Shields. The Bradbury-Gore connection makes sense because Bradbury has been one of the folks who's traveled around to highlight Gore's warnings about global ...   More

News U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has hired Jake Weigler to run his 2010 re-election campaign. Weigler ran Steve Novick's unsuccessful 2008 run in the Democratic primary for Oregon's other U.S. Senate seat. The Wyden campaign looks a lot easier than the 2008 task for Weigler, who has subsequently served as a spokesman at the Oregon Departments of Justice and Education (His last day at ODE is Feb. ...   More

News A couple of weeks ago, Josh Kardon, who has served as Chief of Staff to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) since 1994, announced he was taking a leave to run his boss's re-election campaign. But now it looks as though Kardon's departure might be permanent. Today, the Tonkon Torp law firm, which has an active lobbying practice, announced Kardon will be joining joining forces with the firm, although ...   More

News In a rare move for Portland politics, a sitting U.S. senator has put his weight behind a candidate for local office. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has plowed $5,000 from his federal PAC into Loretta Smith's campaign for Multnomah County commissioner. Smith has been an aide to Wyden for 20 years. Josh Kardon, Wyden's former chief of staff, has also given $1,000 to Smith's campaign. Those contributions ...   More