Money and Oregon politics were the topic of discussion, but this was no smoke-filled back-room in Salem.
Panelists at a public forum, sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Lane County , said Oregon politics are in need of campaign finance reform, although most reforms are likely to be challenged in court.
The forum featured presentations Saturday from campaign finance reform researcher Janice Thompson, Oregon Court of Appeals Judge David Schuman, Carol Cushman of the League of Women Voters of Portland and Democratic state Rep. Phil Barnhart.
Even though most voters believe that politicians are heavily influenced by major financial donors, Thompson, the executive director of Money in Politics Research Action Project, said campaign finance reform tends to be a low priority for voters.
Her research found a dramatic increase in the amount and size of campaign contributions to legislative candidates, rising from $5.8 million in 1990 to $17.1 million in 2004.
An average 52 percent of candidate contributions from 1990-2004 came from business groups, with the political parties and the candidates themselves contributing the second largest amount at an average of 20 percent, Thompson said.
“The little guy donors are really being lost in the shuffle with so much money coming from a small group of donors,” she said.
The majority of general election contributions, 72 percent in 2006, were contributions of more than $1,001, while only 4.1 percent of contributions were $100 or less.
One solution for reform, panelists said, would be to implement voter-owned elections. Voter-owned elections are intended to equalize campaign financing by having a regular voter’s donation count as much as a big-money donor by requiring that campaigns accept only small, set donation amounts from all donors.
Cushman, who analyzed voter-owned elections in Portland after they were implemented in September 2005, said candidates who agreed to the strict donation and spending rules received money from voters across the whole city, including low-income neighborhoods. In contrast, candidates who continued to accept private money had most of their donations coming from businesses in downtown Portland and from the wealthy northwest neighborhoods.
However, any campaign finance reform measures can’t violate the First Amendment of the Oregon and the United States constitutions, which protect a person’s right to spend political money, Schuman said.
“Campaign finance was never framed as a right for people to have fair elections,” Schuman said. “It is framed as a right for people to express themselves through political matters through spending money.”
Schuman said one method would be to pass a state constitutional amendment to allow campaing reform without infringing on First Amdendment rights, although Oregonians usually reject constitutional amendments like Measure 46.
In 2006 Measures 46 and 47 were intended to be voted into law together. Measure 46, which would have amended the Oregon constitution to allow limits on contributions, failed. Measure 47, a law intended to place contribution limits, passed.
Thompson said the best way for future campaign finance reform would be to push for earlier disclosure of campaign contributions and to reform the system in step-by-step laws.
“Overall, it’s fair to say that we have good people in our political system who are stuck in a bad system of campaign finance,” Thompson said.
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