Gov. Kate Brown is using her well-funded political action committee to back a November ballot measure that would amend the state Constitution to allow limits on money in politics.
On April 30, the campaign to pass the constitutional amendment reported that the governor’s political action committee provided $8,333 in “management services,” according to state campaign finance records.
That the governor would use some of her roughly $1 million in political cash-on-hand to push for the donation caps isn’t the only irony: She’s was doing so even as the state Supreme Court ruled April 23 that campaign contribution limits do not violate free speech protections in the Oregon Constitution. In the opinion, justices upended decades of legal precedent that halted or prevented donation caps from taking effect.
Still, the strict limits on political money that voters passed in 2006 are not being enforced. On Friday, Secretary of State Bev Clarno’s administration announced Oregon political candidates can continue to accept huge contributions.
Clarno concluded, based on a verbal opinion from the Oregon Department of Justice, that the Supreme Court’s ruling on Portland metro-area contribution limits did not revive the state level limits that Oregon voters approved under Measure 47 in 2006. Both the Secretary of State’s office and Department of Justice declined to outline the legal analysis. The author of the 2006 initiative, Dan Meek, disagreed and said he might ask the Supreme Court to clarify its ruling on that point.
The extent of Brown’s involvement with the constitutional amendment campaign is still unclear. Two political consultants who advise Brown and manage her political action committees, Thomas Wheatley and Kevin Looper, could not be reached Monday afternoon.
Since the governor won reelection in 2018, she has largely avoided explaining how she plans to use the large sums she continued to raise. Her disclosures in the state campaign finance system are some of the only clues as to how Brown plans to deploy the money.
Brown’s other top expenditures reported so far for April include $13,000 on salaries and health insurance through Providence and a $5,000 contribution to the campaign to pass a high-earners and business tax measure to pay for homeless services in the Portland metro area.
The campaign to pass the constitutional amendment, which the Legislature voted last year to put before voters in November 2020, is just getting started. Its political action committee “Yes for fair and honest elections” formed April 2. So far, it’s received one other noteworthy contribution: $10,000 from AFSCME Council 75, a union that largely represents city, county and state employees across the state, according to state records.
