On Friday, June 17, the Oregon House of Representatives voted 54-5 to reject SB 270A, the bill to limit fines for failure to report campaign contributions and/or expenditures to $5,000 for all violations occurring in any month, regardless of the number of violations or the amount of money not disclosed.

This was a victory for the Oregon Progressive Party, the Independent Party of Oregon, and Fair Elections Oregon, which were the only 3 organizations opposing SB 270A (which had passed the Oregon Senate by a vote of 29-0 before we heard about it).

We thank former Senator Rick Metsger for making his views known to House members on the eve of the vote. We also thank the members who spoke against the bill on the floor, including Bill Kennemer, Greg Matthews, Mary Nolan, Chris Harker, Brian Clem, Jeff Barker, and Carolyn Tomei. Jefferson Smith and his staff also worked to defeat this bill.

    Read more ...

As noted by the Oregonian in the articles referenced in blog entries below, Secretary of State did not oppose the bill, and her office offered some support for it. "Secretary of State Kate Brown, who oversees campaign finance law, hasn't taken a stand on the bill. Barry Pack, the deputy secretary of state, says Brown agreed there needed to be some cap and felt it was up to legislators to decide the amount. `I don't know that there is some magic number out there,' says Pack, adding that a $5,000 fine is still a `hefty price to pay.'"

Note that the Oregon League of Women Voters supported SB 270, as explained in their Legislative Report of February 9, 2011, p. 5 (supporting "SB 270 modifies the penalties for candidate and measure campaigns that violate campaign finance regulations").

After the electronic tote-board showed that the vote on SB 270A was 40-20 against, 15 House members then changed their votes from "yes" to "no." The Legislature's written records will report those as merely "no" votes and will not disclose that these members voted "no" only after they knew that the bill was defeated. This is a significant defect, as it allows members to show their constituents that they were opposed to a bill when in fact they supported that bill with their "yes" votes, until it was clear that it did not matter. Fortunately, we have an audio record of those who changed their votes in this way.