April 13, 2004

Waging The Transparency Wars, Part II

Keeping Your Eye On The Ball

For starters, let's take a moment to confirm that there was no exclusive here after all. According to today's Oregonian, the Francesconi camp in fact released a statement with the same charges raised here last night by Ed Grosswiler.

Of course, they never sent us that statement -- par for the course -- and so at the time we posted our first item, we were blissfully unaware that everyone else already had this particular part of the story.

That said, what's missing from The Oregonian story is any attempt at providing the context which would explain why the Francesconi campaign suddenly is launching such attacks against Potter.

Let's take the more serious of the two charges first. Grosswiler asserted in a reader comment here last night that "Tom has invited people to bundle their contributions (see the Potter web site under credit card contributions.) State law prohibits bundling of contributions."

As we detailed in our previous item, our research thus far indicates that there is no such prohibition against bundling, and that in fact the 2004 Campaign Finance Manual indicates that both individuals and organizations can collect contributions for a candidate, so long as those contributions are reported as being from the people from whom they were collected, and not as being from the individual or organization which collected them.

Here's what today's Oregonian story says on this particular matter:

Potter's campaign allows a contributor to put $100 on a credit card and attribute the donation to four people, thereby meeting his $25 contribution cap. Francesconi's campaign said state law requires that contribution to be reported as a donation of more than $50. Potter said he has received about 150 credit card contributions, less than 10 percent of his total. He did not know how many included multiple donors.

The problem here is that the Francesconi campaign is asserting that these credit card contributions are considered to be a single contribution -- but we've so far found no indication under state law that this is the case. Again, we don't claim at this point to have the final word on this matter, and in fact we reiterate our invitation to Grosswiler to point out specifically what part of state campaign finance law this method violates. Because as of right now, we still don't see it.

Grosswiler's other charge was that Potter is not reporting the names of individual contributors. Returning to today's Oregonian story:

Despite the gap, Francesconi's campaign blasted Potter in a statement titled "Potter Campaign Deceives the Public" for not disclosing the names of what Potter said were 1,693 contributors of $25 or less. State law requires donors of more than $50 to be disclosed.

Now, in the name of transparency, we don't have any real objection to a candidate voluntarily disclosing the names of contributors regardless of the amount given. Since we've issued a challenge for Francesconi and other candidates to voluntarily engage in immediate disclosure of contributions, there's no reason to not also challenge candidates to disclose the names of all contributors. Fair is fair.

However, you'll note that when it comes to this particular charge, there is no violation of state law occuring. Rather, it's just the Francesconi camp attempting to smear the activities of the Pooter campaign.

Since our own analysis of state campaign finance law appears to indicate that their other charge -- that some sort of illegal "bundling" is going on -- is scurrilous and false, that too takes on the appearance of a smear campaign.

So just why would the Francesconi campaign be taking this moment to suddenly launch into a smear campaign against Potter?

For one thing, Francesconi's own powerhouse fundraising has begun to receive criticism for its sheer size. But there's more to it than that. In recent weeks, specific activities that carry with them at the very least an appearance of impropriety have been generating attention that the Francesconi campaign would rather not be receiving.

There was the recent Willamette Week story on a local law firm which has been donating office space from which Francesconi conducted fundraising, an "in-kind" contribution which as of that article had not been reported (although Francesconi said that it would be).

Then there was the recent Oregonian article which described a rather curious pair of contributions:

On May 16, 2003, one week after Francesconi met with Moyer, the Fox Tower developer, to discuss Moyer's Park Blocks ambitions, two checks arrived: $500 from Moyer, and $2,000 from Moyer's executive assistant, whom Francesconi said he hadn't asked for money.

So what? Well, let's turn to the recent Portland Mercury article for some insight:

Was Moyer's assistant Tune suddenly overcome by political passion for Francesconi? Where does a person of presumably modest means come up with such a significant sum of loose cash? Why would it be donated to the Francesconi campaign? Or did Moyer funnel money through Tune to downplay his name on this public report?

When contacted by the Mercury, Tune refused to comment and hung up the phone.

(Disclosure: In the name of transparency, we note that the Mercury article was penned by Phil Busse, also a Mayoral candidate, and in fact the one we recently endorsed.)

In other words, here's what's really happening. When faced with actual and serious issues of potential campaign finance impropriety, the Francesconi campaign is now trying to distract campaign watchers by raising two issues against the Potter campaign -- one of which is not a matter of law, but of best practices; and the other of which appears to be a false accusation of campaign finance law violations.

Don't fall for it. We always in our heart of hearts suspected that when push came to shove, it would be the Francesconi camp that would begin to play the dirty politics game. Unfortunately, it appears to our mind that this has now come to pass.

It's incumbent upon those of us trying to follow this campaign to not let allegations of impropriety which appear on their face to be false to distract us from more serious allegations which are more deserving of attention. Unlike today's Oregonian story, which mentions neither of the above-mentioned troubles with the Francesconi campaign's own fundraising activities.

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