(Updated) Friday Election Campaign Round-Up
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
Outside of today's poll news which we covered late last night, let's take a look at other election items. Over in The Oregonian they again compare campaign warchests, a comparison which obviously again shows Francesconi leading the money race.
But the bit we want to pass along here is this one:
Potter's report listed seven individual donations greater than $50, the threshold for listing donors under state law. His campaign said those donations came from people who parceled their donations among family members to bring the individual contributions to $25 or less.
Those contributions meet the campaign's self-imposed standards, but state law requires them to be reported as a single contribution. Potter amended a previous report for the same reason to include 35 individual donations greater than $50.
I guess the Potter people still would rather speak to The Oregonian than to us about this matter, since our repeated inquiries about it never resulted in a response. But we continue to be perplexed by the entire matter, since people keep saying it's a violation of state law, but never bothering to indicate which. When combined with our own failure thus far to find such a law, we remain confused here. Perhaps now that the issue has resurfaced in Portland's print daily, someone will be able to explain it to me.
Meanwhile, the article also takes a tour through major contributors to the various candidates in local races, and includes a sidebar which compiles lists of some of the contributions of $1,000 or more.
As something of a curiosity, we feel we must point out a weird item from Randy Leonard's most recent expenditure report -- an $80.00 item from April 16, paid to Portland Flora and listed as "Flowers for Mayor." Now, we understand why one would send flowers to Katz, who has in for surgery, but doesn't that seem more like a personal expense rather than a campaign expense?
Meanwhile, Sarah Gilbert dissects yesterday's online Mayoral debate; an old Anodyne article on Mark Lakeman surfaces (Lakeman is currently running for Leonard's seat); and Isaac Laquedem continues his endorsements.
Speaking of which, this evening is the final Commissioner No. 4 forum prior to our getting down to making our own endorsement in the race. Expect that item by sometime Sunday at the latest.
Finally, for the moment, also be sure to check (as usual) the "City Matters" column in today's Oregonian (which once again seems to not have turned up online), this time for a strange twists and turns at the recent press conference at which Commissioner Sten endorsed Tom Potter.
Disclosure: PORTLAND COMMUNIQUE accepts political advertisements, and currently runs ads from the Busse, Francesconi, and Potter campaigns.
Update
Ah, here we go. What we missed is a press release out of the Potter campaign yesterday. While the Elections Division informed them that such "bundled" contributions are permitted, they advised the campaign to report them in the name of the person who spent the funds.
This is a tricky one, because if one person made a contribution on behalf of other people (say, family members) but those family members did in fact give money to the person who physically made the contribution to pay for their respective contributions, then as near as we can tell, campaign finance law says that you report those contributions in the names of the individuals, and not of the collecting individual or organization.
So we're still not convinced that there was any violation here. And it's still as clear as it was when this cropped up in the first place that Potter's campaign was the attempted target of a smear campaign by an opponent with his own finance controversies.
Update
Forgot to mention a couple of items from campaign newsletters we received last night. In the petulant self-promotion category, we point out that on both their campaign website and in last night's newsletter, the Adams campaign makes use of our endorsement alongside those of the most established outlets which endorsed him. Meanwhile, in the Fish campaign newsletter, they remind people to vote by taking a jab at Adams, who apparently forgot to do so in previous elections -- including one in which his boss at the time was up for re-election as Mayor.
May 08, 2004 at 05:06 AM
I love the flower bit. I can only imagine that it will result in a public thank you. That mention will be the justification.
Adds today, like internet pop ups, are nothing more than creatively getting something in front of viewers. The only problem with the flowers is one of business sense in that the public thank you is not guaranteed.
Did you notice also that there was a high-powered meeting of the “Campaign Finance Full Disclosure Panel” on Friday May 7, 2004?
http://www.sos.state.or.us/executive/campfin.htm
I delivered some comments that might or might not have been presented to the panel.
The flowers bit highlights the micromanagement nature of campaign finance issues while they miss the bigger picture of the total lax oversight accorded to the free press. I prefer greater freedoms on public discussion of public matters regardless of whether the speaker just so happens to also be running for office or pushing a specific measure. Imagine if The Oregonian had to report every luncheon date where they picked up the tab and had to assign the tab to a political campaign or measure if applicable.