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Eric Zimmerman, a candidate for the Multnomah County Commission, collected two checks this month from contributors who faced high-profile sexual abuse allegations.
The first check, for $150, came last week from Terry Bean, the Portland real estate investor and gay rights pioneer whom a Lane County grand jury indicted in 2014 on charges of sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy a year earlier. In 2015, prosecutors dismissed the case when the alleged victim refused to testify.
Bean gave Zimmerman an additional $500 in August.
The second check, for $500, came in early October from Bob Packwood, the former U.S. senator from Oregon who was drummed out of office in 1995 after a score of women came forward with accounts of sex abuse and harassment by Packwood.
Candidates for office typically avoid accepting donations from contributors accused of high-profile misdeeds. (Then again, this is an unusual year, when the Republican nominee for president boasts of his own history of sexual assault.)
Earlier this month, Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, who's running for re-election, returned $1,300 to Bean after WW reported on the contributions. (Rosenblum is married to Richard Meeker, the co-owner of WW's parent company.)
Jake Weigler, a spokesman for Zimmerman, says Bean's support of his candidate isn't unusual. "Terry Bean has a long history of supporting openly gay candidates," he says, adding that Zimmerman got to know the Packwood family through their shared interest in marriage equality. "They were happy to support his campaign."
Packwood, a moderate Republican in the U.S. Senate, this year has given money to a few other candidates, mostly Republicans, including candidates for Oregon treasurer and attorney general.
Zimmerman so far has raised about half of what opponent Dr. Sharon Meieran has raised, pulling in about $160,000 compared with her $318,000.
Willamette Week