Now that campaign donation limits are legal in Oregon, the specifics that lawmakers are negotiating in private would set much higher limits than voters have approved and allow the broadest possible array of entities to continue pouring big money into state politics.
While the general public can’t attend those meetings, big political donors have been allowed in, according to lawmakers and donors’ testimony referencing the private proposals.
Lawmakers’ interest in capping political money was never particularly high this session — no Democratic leaders listed it as a priority — and now appears to be withering.
“Every year I feel like we get closer and so I’m optimistic that maybe this is the year,” said Rep. Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis, chief sponsor of the proposal under negotiation, in a hearing last month, the last time such plans have been discussed in public.
In an April 22 interview, Rayfield said it was unclear if there would be enough support to pass his donor-negotiated proposal, House Bill 2680, this session. “There’s optimism but a lot of skepticism,” Rayfield said. He suggested advocates of limits might have to take an initiative to voters in order to get the contribution limits they want, a potentially difficult prospect in an ongoing pandemic.
Rep. Andrea Salinas, a Lake Oswego Democrat who proposed lower donation limits and a simpler system supported by good government advocates in House Bill 3343, did not respond to a request for comment on the outlook for her proposal.
At the March 30 hearing, Salinas said Oregon’s “lack of real campaign contribution limits, coupled with a structure filled with loopholes, has allowed special interests to influence election results,” forces lawmakers to spend more time fundraising and undermines the state’s ability to be a leader in democratic elections.
House Republican Leader Christine Drazan of Canby said she understands Oregonians’ desire to reduce the cost of campaigns. But courts have ruled political spending is a form of speech, she said, and the government cannot outlaw it — it can only limit the size of donations flowing into campaigns.
“Since we can’t do that, what are we going for right now?” Drazan said in a recent interview. “What are we fixing?”
Rayfield’s proposal, House Bill 2680, is the bill most actively being discussed. In addition to contribution limits, it would do two other things: create a public donation matching program and repeal the low contribution limits Oregon voters approved in 2006.
Those limits lay dormant for years due to Oregon Supreme Court rulings that political money limits violate broad free speech guarantees in the state constitution. But in April 2020, the Oregon Supreme Court reversed that long-established legal precedent and ruled that campaign contribution limits are indeed allowed under the Oregon constitution. Then-Secretary of State Bev Clarno, a Republican, and Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, a Democrat, concluded the new Supreme Court ruling did not revive the voter-approved limits but they refused to explain their reasoning. Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, a Democrat newly elected to the job, also believes the Supreme Court’s new ruling did not activate the 2006 voter-approved limits, according to a court filing. Through a spokesperson, Fagan refused to explain her reasoning.
Oregon voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment in November to allow donation limits, but lawmakers carefully worded the initiative so that it would not revive the 2006 law.
Unlike other recent Oregon proposals to limit campaign contributions, which would only allow people or political action committees to give money to campaigns, Rayfield’s bill would greenlight direct political donations by corporations, limited liability companies and partnerships, unions, associations, clubs and other entities.
Sen. Jeff Golden, an Ashland Democrat and chief sponsor of another proposal to limit donations, Senate Bill 336, said the latest proposed versions of Rayfield’s bill outlined in unpublished amendments focus on accommodating major donor groups.
“Those who’ve had input on the Rayfield bill are primarily campaign funders,” Golden said in a recent interview. He said those groups look at any contribution limit proposal in terms of “how does this fit with our organizational objectives?”
Rayfield shot back that Golden should attend the private meetings on House Bill 2680 “to have a factual basis for making such inaccurate assumptions …”
Public employee unions, which are top campaign supporters of Democrats, want a carveout that would allow them to spend huge and potentially unlimited sums. Their representatives spoke in support of that approach in the March hearing.
Businesses and Republicans have said any contribution limits should not favor one party or interest over another. In an April 2 letter to Rayfield, the state’s largest business lobbying group, Oregon Business & Industry, wrote, “In our current system there are two primary groups that spend big in campaigns – businesses and unions. The bill must treat those equally if we are to have a balanced system.”
The business group urged Rayfield to either exclude unions from donating to potentially big-spending small donor committees or cap the amount such a committee could donate. As of late March, Rayfield had proposed leaving union donations completely unlimited.
Rayfield has now created two potential versions of House Bill 2680, one of which is favored more by labor and the other by businesses.
“We get ideas from all different kinds of groups,” Rayfield said during a March 30 hearing.
Good government groups have also been involved in the discussions, and Rayfield said he sought technical guidance from national groups such as the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.
None of Rayfield’s late March or April proposals were formally published on the Legislature’s website, as is typically done with proposed bill changes, although one of the late March iterations appeared online after a person submitted it as testimony. The Oregonian/OregonLive separately obtained copies of the proposals.
One critic of Rayfield’s approach, attorney Dan Meek who works to limit money in politics, said it would be easy for anyone to get around the individual spending limits — currently proposed by Rayfield in his primary proposal at $2,900 per primary or general election race for a statewide candidate, $2,000 for Senate candidates and $1,000 for House candidates — by forming myriad “clubs” with at least two members.
The proposed limits of $1,000 to $2,900 per individual donor are at least 10 times the limit Oregon voters approved for most races under the 2006 ballot measure. In Portland, voters approved per-person limits of $500 to campaigns for city offices.
Meek said the option of forming clubs could make it possible for the Oregon mega donor often cited by proponents of campaign contribution limits, billionaire Nike co-founder Phil Knight, to make huge donations in smaller increments. Knight directly gave $2.5 million to the 2018 gubernatorial campaign of Republican physician and former lawmaker Knute Buehler.
Oregon legislative caucus committees could also still accept up to $40,000 per primary or general election from a federal candidate or federal caucus political action committee under one of Rayfield’s latest proposals.
Rayfield and others are also proposing to create a new classification of political action committee, a “small donor committee,” that would allow groups with common interests such as unions, business associations, Planned Parenthood or the National Rifle Association to pool small contributions to direct to favored candidates or campaigns.
Under Rayfield’s latest plan, such a committee would have the ability to dump huge sums into elections: $50,000 to any state candidate’s campaign or $50 multiplied by the number of people who contributed to the small donor committee or were contributing members of any group that gave to the committee, whichever figure is greater. For example, the 42,000-member Oregon Education Association teachers union could theoretically give more than $2 million, depending upon how many members donate any amount to the group.
In addition, staffers of membership organizations such as business associations or unions that have small donor committees could donate unlimited amounts of time to political campaigns under Rayfield’s proposal, potentially making it legal for the groups to have their employees run or work on candidates’ campaigns.
Meek said it’s also concerning that Rayfield’s latest proposals appear to allow local governments to opt out of state donation limits, which could lead to huge amounts of money flowing from local campaigns to state political action committees. Rayfield, who is a lawyer, said his intent was to allow local governments to adopt lower limits.
Golden, the Ashland senator, said he hasn’t given up hope lawmakers will pass meaningful contribution limits this session. If they don’t, he said, Meek and other advocates of campaign finance reforms could take the issue to voters as they did in 2006. “He and others have proved their credibility in terms of passing pretty strong measures” in Portland and Multnomah County, Golden said.
If lawmakers don’t pass contribution limits this year, the upshot could be a new round of record-setting spending in 2022 as Oregonians choose their next governor and select state representatives and senators. Salinas, the representative from Lake Oswego, said at the March hearing on her and Rayfield’s bills that “Oregonians are frustrated by money in politics and rightfully so.”
“For a state that’s built a reputation on expanding access to democracy through innovative methods like as vote-by-mail and automatic registration, it’s out of line with our values to allow a small handful of wealthy special interests to drown out the voices of the masses and I can see why Oregonians want the system to change,” Salinas said. “With the pressure to raise money, it often feels like my attention gets pulled away from my No. 1 focus, which is improving the lives of others.”
-- Hillary Borrud; hborrud@oregonian.com; @hborrud
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