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Service Employees International Union Local 503 is a powerful force in Oregon politics.
Its 72,000 members muster cash and an army of volunteers to help elect Democrats across the state. But last week, an email message exhorting members to contribute to the union’s political action committee, Citizen Action for Public Education (2022 expenditures: $2.23 million), came from a puzzling source: “Andrea Cooper, political director.”
It was puzzling because Cooper left SEIU in 2020 to become deputy chief of staff to then-Gov. Kate Brown. When Gov. Tina Kotek won the November election to succeed Brown, she elevated Cooper to become her chief of staff.
So what’s with the email?
“We were made aware of this email last evening and have been investigating what happened since then,” SEIU spokeswoman Pati Urias told WW on May 26. “We have since discovered the issue: It was an error on our part—an old, automated email process with an outdated signature line that we were unaware was active and had not been updated since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Urias adds: “We made a mistake, we are working to correct it, and apologize for anyone impacted by it. We sincerely apologize to Andrea Cooper, and the harm it may have caused her or anyone else.”
For her part, Cooper is still leading Kotek’s staff.