Portland's powerful pay to fight campaign financing

Petition - An attempt to stop the city's aid to low-spending candidates has big-spending donors

Thursday, February 02, 2006

ANNA GRIFFIN

The Oregonian

The committee trying to kill public campaign financing is getting its money from a Who's Who of the Portland corporate class and the leadership rolls at the Portland Business Alliance.

According to a campaign finance report filed Wednesday, the First Things First committee has spent $346,759 collecting the signatures to put a repeal of the funding plan on the May ballot.

That's $100,000 more than Tom Potter, who ran a low-budget, grass-roots campaign, spent to get elected mayor in 2004.

All told, repeal organizers raised $197,572 from more than 80 donors. They still owe $158,578 in accounts payable and loans, according to the fundraising report.

The business alliance was the group's biggest contributor, chipping in $32,000 from its political action committee. (The PAC raised nearly all that since September, when campaign finance reports showed that it had just $801 in the bank.)

Among other big donors: Qwest and Portland General Electric gave $10,000 each, and the Oregon Restaurant Association anted up $10,500. Good for at least $5,000 each were NW Natural Gas, Comcast, Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Schnitzer Investments, and the development team of Homer Williams and Dike Dame. The Taxpayers Association of Oregon offered up more than $10,000 in direct-mail help. The committee collected 40,988 signatures, meaning its spending averaged nearly $8.50 per name.

Portland City Council members voted, 4-1, last spring to offer political candidates who agree to limit their spending the money they would need to run their campaigns. Candidates in City Council races, for example, can receive $150,000 in the primary if they collect $5 contributions from 1,000 Portlanders.

Proponents say the fundraising system will reduce the influence money plays in city government and encourage women and minorities to seek public office.

Opponents say the city has other uses for the $1 million or so the program is projected to cost in its first year, and they say the voters of Portland deserve a chance to decide such a dramatic change in the electoral process before it takes effect. Under the City Council's plan, voters wouldn't have weighed in until 2010.

"We're scratching for dollars right now to get important things done, from jail beds to potholes to fixing the business income tax," said Scott Andrews, chairman of the Portland Business Alliance. "It seems silly to solve a problem that we don't think is really there when we have all these other needs."

So far, the most vocal opposition to taxpayer financing has come from a small circle of Portland business leaders -- the people who tend to give heavily in almost all city races. Andrews says that's simply the nature of Portland, "a fairly small business community."

Janice Thompson, executive director of the Money in Politics Research Action Project and one of the proponents of public financing, sees something more sinister behind the familiar names on First Things First's fundraising documents.

Her group, which keeps a database of campaign spending in Portland, estimated Wednesday evening that the donors who contributed to the repeal, their family members or their co-workers gave almost $500,000 of the more than $3 million City Hall candidates raised in 2004.

"The big-money special interest dollars behind the signature gathering effort shows reveals the blatant self-interest at work here," she said. "Portlanders will see this power grab for what it is."

Anna Griffin: 503-294-5988; annagriffin@news.oregonian.com