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Oregon lawmakers forced by the threat of a citizen-led ballot measure to adopt a sweeping law limiting campaign contributions in 2024 are once again trying to delay key portions of the law before it takes effect.
Lawmakers on the House Rules Committee heard public testimony Tuesday morning on an 84-page amendment to House Bill 4018, issued in House Speaker Julie Fahey’s name and posted to the Legislature’s website less than 15 hours before the 8 a.m. hearing. A second public hearing is set for Thursday.
The amendment responds to warnings from state election officials that the 2024 law meant to end million-dollar contributions and provide more transparency about political donors either needs to be dramatically pared back or lawmakers need to allow more time and more money to fully implement it.
Unions, industry groups and advocacy organizations that play large roles in campaigns through contributing money and time lined up in support of the amendment, while a coalition of groups that have advocated for years for strict limits on money in politics decried it as an effort to undermine the 2024 law.
The amendment wouldn’t change a 2027 effective date for the state to institute contribution limits, but it would delay until 2031 the requirement to disclose original sources of campaign funds. It also would effectively increase contribution limits by making many of them apply to calendar years, not two-year election cycles.
Dan Meek, a Portland attorney representing the Honest Elections Oregon coalition that pushed for contribution limits, said the late-breaking amendment doesn’t address technical errors with the 2024 law but instead comes “very close to making the contribution limits and disclosure requirements illusory.”
Supporters including the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, which spent more than $360,000 through its associated political action committee in 2024, and Oregon Business and Industry, which spent more than $1.4 million through two separate PACs focused on candidates and issues, maintain the changes are necessary to create a campaign finance system voters can trust.
“Failure to extend implementation for these sections risks requiring an underfunded Secretary of State’s Office to launch a regulatory program that is not ready and will erode public trust in our elections at a time when we can least afford it,” said Preston Mann, vice president of external affairs at the business lobby group.
Secretary seeks more money
While it wasn’t part of the bill lawmakers are considering, several proponents urged support for Secretary of State Tobias Read’s request for a “best guess” $25 million budget meant mostly to help pay for a complete overhaul of Oregon’s 20-year-old campaign finance reporting system, ORESTAR.
Without the money, the rollout by next January faces significant issues, Read told lawmakers at a January meeting. It’s significantly more than the $5.4 million his predecessor, LaVonne Griffin-Valade, had asked from the Legislature to implement the law.
If we don’t get this law right, the public will see it as another broken promise, and that would do more harm than good.
– Secretary of State Tobias Read
It would be the second year in a row lawmakers considered delaying implementation of the law, and campaign finance advocates are not pleased.
In letters to lawmakers earlier this year, several groups warned that Read is inflating costs and mischaracterizing the difficulty of enacting the law. And Gov. Tina Kotek at a Jan. 28 news conference said she would oppose any vote by the Legislature to delay its implementation.
Read said the office shares the goals of the governor and campaign finance advocates but has repeatedly warned that a botched rollout would do irreparable harm.
“We share the same goal as you. In this legislation, we want to put power back into the hands of Oregonians and make sure that no one can buy the state’s democracy,” Read told the Senate Rules Committee in January. “But we also know this: If we don’t get this law right, the public will see it as another broken promise, and that would do more harm than good.”
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Catching up to other states
Most states limit how much money any person or group can give to a candidate, leaving Oregon as an outlier. Wealthy individuals and organizations have spent millions on races in recent years. Oregon’s richest man, Nike cofounder Phil Knight, has personally given more than $11.6 million to candidates and campaigns in the past six years, including $1.5 million to Republican Sen. Christine Drazan’s unsuccessful 2022 campaign for governor.
In 2026 alone, four leading candidates for governor have reported receiving six-figure checks. Kotek took in $150,000 from a PAC affiliated with a carpenters’ union, while Drazan accepted $100,000 from a southern Oregon auto dealer, Republican and former Trail Blazer Chris Dudley took $100,000 from a former Portland-based philanthropist who now lives in Idaho and Rep. Ed Diehl, R-Scio, received $100,000 from a former Salem restaurateur.
Labor unions, business groups and good government groups have long sparred over the best approach to money in politics, but the prospect of competing ballot measures forced lawmakers to act in 2024.
Under that compromise legislation, individuals will not be able to give a candidate more than $3,300 per election — or $6,600 to a candidate who runs in both the primary and general elections. Membership organizations, such as labor unions, could give up to $26,400 per two-year election cycle to statewide candidates and less to legislative candidates.
But the law also includes a number of reporting and disclosure provisions, meant to ensure bad actors cannot create shell groups or pass money through different entities to donate more than allowed.
Ricardo Luján Valerio, Read’s deputy chief of staff, told lawmakers on the Senate Rules Committee in January that the law as written included a patchwork of contribution limits tied to different timeframes that are confusing and could cause donors and candidates to commit costly errors. There are also a number of provisions that require donor verification, including personally identifying data such as social security numbers, which need robust data privacy assurances.
“The trade off between transparency and privacy is one of the most important policy questions we face in implementing (the law),” Luján Valerio said.
Looking for clarity
Read has described the challenge of meeting the implementation deadlines as “being asked to build a house without knowing how many bedrooms and bathrooms it needs.”
He said other states have less rigorous accountability measures than Oregon, and that he’ll aim to meet the 2027 deadline to enforce contribution limits. The more complex parts of the bill need to be reworked by the Legislature, he maintains.
“There are core questions that will determine whether (the campaign finance law) succeeds or whether it becomes another broken promise,” he said in January. “We are looking to you for clarity, for leadership and for action.”
Luján Valerio told lawmakers on the committee that he and his colleagues had “exhausted everything within our authority to implement this bill as currently written, but the effectiveness of this policy will depend on the clarification and resources given by the legislature.”
Kotek said she would support some bill tweaks as needed, but not delays.
I recognize that you and other members of the Legislature face substantial pressure from various special interest groups who do not wish to see HB 4024 implemented, or if it is enacted that it includes provisions favoring their particular interests. However, I would remind you that the voters of Oregon have repeatedly, and by overwhelming majorities, voted for real, effective campaign finance reform.
– Bill Volmer, member of Honest Elections and the Consolidated Oregon Indivisible Network
“I support starting contribution limits, on track with the law currently, which would be next year,” she said. “If we have to phase in other portions of it, I want to hear what that looks like, but Oregonians are expecting campaign contribution limits for next year.”
Campaign finance advocates are skeptical of the challenges Read and his office enumerated and fear he’s using a large budget request to scare the Legislature into delaying the bill’s implementation.
Bill Volmer, a member of the nonprofit advocacy groups Honest Elections and the Consolidated Oregon Indivisible Network, wrote in a January letter to lawmakers following Read’s committee testimony that most other states have found a way to enforce campaign finance laws with less money.
“Even California, with a population 10 times larger than Oregon, spends only about $19 million per year on implementation of both its campaign contribution limits, its extensive disclosure requirements, and its government ethics laws,” he said. Washington spends about $7.2 million per year.
“I recognize that you and other members of the Legislature face substantial pressure from various special interest groups who do not wish to see HB 4024 implemented, or if it is enacted that it includes provisions favoring their particular interests,” he wrote. “However, I would remind you that the voters of Oregon have repeatedly, and by overwhelming majorities, voted for real, effective campaign finance reform.”
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