Commission to recommend less taxpayer cash for auditor’s race

James Mayer, The Oregonian January 13, 2009

Auditor candidates in next spring’s special election would be eligible for $50,000 in taxpayer money, rather than $150,000, under a recommendation the Citizen’s Campaign Commission will make to the city council on Wednesday.

The council will also consider a May 19 election date to fill the position created by the resignation of Gary Blackmer.

The city code calls for qualifying candidates to get $150,000 for an auditor’s race, the same as a commissioner campaign. But the campaign commission agreed with City Commissioner Amanda Fritz who suggested that the shortened campaign time line could give a publicly-financed candidate an unfair advantage over a candidate who elected to use private donations.

The auditor’s office provided historical data that showed the typical campaign for auditor cost about $60,000.

“It seems adequate,” said Leslie Hildula, commission chairwoman.

The commission will recommend that candidates receive another $67,000 if a July 14 runoff election is needed, reduced from $200,000 in the code.

The requirement that candidates gather 1,000 contributions of $5 from city voters to qualify for public financing would remain unchanged under the commission’s recommendations.

Candidates could begin gathering signatures on Thursday, with a deadline of March 10, the filing deadline for the May 19 election, under the commission’s recommendation.

The commission also will recommend retaining other limits for the special election, including the seed money limit of 10 percent, or $5,000, and the in-kind contribution limit of six percent, or $3,000.

James Mayer, The Oregonian 

Amanda Fritz op-ed

Amanda Fritz: Oregonian op-ed

Thank you, voters and taxpayers of Portland, for electing me to the Portland City Council. I will work hard to continue to earn your trust.

I support Public Campaign Financing. I will work continually to improve the system, and I will vote to refer the revised program to the ballot in 2010. I will educate voters about its importance, and lead the campaign to see it passed.

Because my 13-month run was funded with Public Campaign Financing, I had time to campaign in every one of Portland’s 95 neighborhoods. I attended hundreds of community events and meetings, met with thousands of Portlanders, knocked on doors in 50 neighborhoods spanning the city, posted more than 200 personal reports on my campaign web site, and responded to citizens’ questions by phone and email. I was out most days from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., and seldom went to bed before midnight.

In a traditional campaign, I would have had to spend several hours every day, making phone calls asking for donations. I ran because I want to serve the people of Portland by helping the Council to prioritize spending citizens’ money and time, in all areas of the city. I do not want to develop the “skill” of asking affluent people for large sums of money. I would not have run a second time without Public Campaign Financing.

Now, because I have been elected with public money, I am beholden to every taxpayer, voter, and citizen in Portland, rather than indebted to a few affluent donors with interests that don’t always dovetail with community concerns. I will be able to push the Council to prioritize spending money wisely to provide basic services in all 95 neighborhoods.

The annual cost of Public Campaign Financing since its enactment comes to $1.05 per Portland resident. This is a cost-effective investment to ensure that community interests are heard in City Hall. My campaign used taxpayers’ money wisely to convey my core messages about who I am and what I will do. My staff, volunteers, and I worked tirelessly to inform citizens of my plans to improve Portland. I talked with affluent business owners and with homeless youth, with Democrats and Republicans, with cultural groups, non-profit boards, high school students. I would not have had time to make personal connections with as wide a range of Portlanders, if I had been dialing for dollars every day.

Before calling for pulling the plug on Public Campaign Financing, let Portlanders watch how I perform on the Council. Watch what I do, being truly independent of special interest money. I will give citizens an account of the money I save through my actions as a City Commissioner, when I vote to refer Public Campaign Financing to the ballot in 2010. I am confident, having just spent 13 months of my life talking with Portlanders and hearing their views in up to 9 events per day, 60 hours every week, that Public Campaign Financing will become Voter-Owned, voter approved, in 2010.

Portland will get a city leader it paid for

Mark Larabee • The Oregonian • June 6, 2008

SUMMARY: Public financing In November, City Council will add a new member funded only by taxpayers

The result of November’s runoff for Mayor-elect Sam Adams’ seat on the Portland City Council will be a milestone for the city and its fledgling publicly financed elections.

For the first time, the City Council will have a new member –not an incumbent –elected after a campaign paid for solely by taxpayers.

That notion is not lost on the candidates, Amanda Fritz and Charles Lewis , who both said they would not have run without public money. They were the top two finishers last month in a race that had five of the six candidates using public money to pay for campaign signs, mailers, staff and office supplies.

Campaign reforms that are working

Campaign reforms that are working

Carol Cushman, League of Women Voters, The Oregonian, March 18, 2008

Picture, for a moment, this year’s City Council races without Portland’s campaign finance reform system of Voter-Owned Elections. We’d be seeing record spending (half a million plus per candidate) funded by large contributions ($1,000, $5,000 and beyond) from special-interest players backing a select group of candidates. Candidates would prove their viability by dialing for dollars. The election’s short timeline would force them to target deep-pocketed donors rather than typical Portlanders. Time spent fundraising would take away from the time a candidate could spend engaging ordinary voters.

Under that scenario, should we be surprised if the concerns of big contributors take precedence over community priorities?

This primary season a record 10,000 Portland voters joined the Voter-Owned Elections process by supporting candidates with their signatures and their dollars. The individual campaigns began by talking to voters about their hopes and concerns. A diverse group of candidates, varied in gender and race, from backgrounds in business, nonprofit, government and activism, demonstrated their public support and qualified for public financing.

Voter-Owned Elections limit campaign spending by participating candidates. Many nonparticipating candidates are also voluntarily limiting their spending — and the size of contributions to their campaigns — to far less than the big-dollar donations that were common before the reforms were enacted. And special-interest influence at City Hall has been reduced to the benefit of all, regardless of their access to wealth.

As the campaigns gear up for the May primary, the politics have begun. Charges are flying. Nonissues and personalities have emerged. The biggest nonissue, attacked by some candidates and the media, is the Voter-Owned Elections system. Instead, it should be seen as part of the solution, by providing the money so that anyone who demonstrates extensive community support can receive adequate resources to mount a viable campaign. Are there still items that need to be addressed? Yes. But the system includes a volunteer Citizen Campaign Commission to advise city elections administrators about changes. The commission’s work has been deliberative. For example, it recently completed guidelines for independent expenditures. Prior to the reforms these could occur without adequate opportunity for rebuttal.

This year’s special election to replace city Commissioner Erik Sten, also part of the primary, has brought new twists to the system, which are being addressed, but with caution so that any new rules aren’t made on the fly. But no one should be surprised when ongoing improvements are added to the system. That’s exactly why the reform ordinance created the Citizens Campaign Commission.

Portlanders should look forward to 2010 when they’ll have a chance to judge the reform program. I believe they’ll approve Voter-Owned Elections because they create campaigns run more on people power than on dollar power. They increase both voter choices and options for candidates. They level the political playing field, put the brakes on campaign spending and remove even the perception of special interests calling the shots at City Hall.

Carol Cushman is president of the League of Women Voters of Portland.

Ruling will affect Portland mayoral race

Ruling will affect Portland mayoral race

Sho Dozono may be out of the running if he’s ineligible for public financing for his campaign

ANNA GRIFFIN, The Oregonian, March 18, 2008

The future of Sho Dozono’s campaign for Portland mayor will rest this week on how a state judge answers two questions:

When does a candidate become a candidate? And, when does information stop having a value?

Portland Auditor Gary Blackmer answered those questions in Dozono’s favor last month, ruling that a poll conducted on the mayoral hopeful’s behalf in late December didn’t disqualify him from accepting taxpayer help for his campaign.

The city’s public financing law says candidates can only receive $12,000 in donations of goods or services. The poll cost $27,295. But at the time, Blackmer ruled, Dozono was merely considering a run, not an actual candidate.

In a daylong hearing Monday before a state administrative law judge, two candidates for mayor and the lawyer for another argued that Blackmer misinterpreted state and city law.

Their basic argument: State law, and anyone with common sense, would have considered Dozono a candidate when he received the poll and disqualified him from getting public cash. The timeline, they argued, is critical.

Last fall, a group of friends and business associates led by lobbyist Len Bergstein asked Dozono to think about running for mayor against City Commissioner Sam Adams. In mid-November, Dozono’s business, Azumano Travel, registered several potential domain names in case he ran. In mid-December, Dozono sent out an e-mail and put up a Web site asking people whether he should run.

On Dec. 17, a Las Vegas-based polling firm began calling potential Portland voters on Dozono’s behalf. The 25-minute poll included several dozen questions, details of Dozono and Adams’ biographies, favorable ratings for Adams and other members of the City Council and questions about where potential voters stood on numerous specific issues.

State law essentially says that anyone who spends or receives money for a campaign is considered a candidate. But the city code is more complicated.

Blackmer ruled that Dozono didn’t become a candidate — and subject to that cap on in-kind donations — until he filed official paperwork stating he would try to collect the 1,500, $5 contributions required to win public cash. That was Jan. 7.

So Dozono wasn’t a candidate when he paid for the Web site or sent the first e-mail announcing “the beginning of our grassroots campaign.” He wasn’t a candidate on Dec. 20, when one of his daughters and Bergstein tried to form a political action committee, Friends of Sho Dozono. He wasn’t a candidate on Jan. 2, when he and his wife visited City Hall to learn more about public financing and set up a training session with city regulators. He wasn’t a candidate on Jan. 4 when they picked up the forms used to collect qualifying donations or later that day when one of his aides called the city elections officer to ask if, “hypothetically,” it would be a problem if someone had donated a poll to his campaign.

Adams and fellow candidates Craig Gier and Beryl McNair disagree with Blackmer’s take. Dozono, they said, was a candidate when he got the poll results Dec. 21. And in the hearing, they raised another point of contention:

Even if Dozono didn’t meet city standards for candidacy when he got the poll, didn’t he continue to benefit from its information once he became one?

Again city policy and state law differ. State law is specific about the value of a poll — for the 15 days after a candidate receives the final campaign results, a survey is worth 100 percent of its cost. After that, the value drops over time.

Even if Dozono wasn’t a candidate until Jan. 7, Adams and the others contended, the poll’s value to him still exceeded the city cap on in-kind donations when he became one.

“Our point is to say that there’s a substantial continuing value,” said Roy Pulvers, Adams’ attorney. “The primary value of the poll is to help craft strategy and message in a campaign, not to decide whether to run.”

Blackmer, who spent a tense three hours smiling tightly on the witness stand, acknowledged that it’s difficult to state the value of a poll. But he said he considered the survey’s questions — which were read to him over the phone after Dozono declined to give him a printed version — a legitimate part of an attempt to “test the water.” Attorneys for the city and Dozono’s campaign said Blackmer should be given the benefit of the doubt — he is, after all, an independently elected official whose job is to interpret and enforce city code.

“What I was listening for was something in that poll that indicated, first of all, that he was a candidate, some declaration. I didn’t hear anything like that,” Blackmer said. “If someone had given Mr. Dozono $27,000 worth of lawn signs, he could simply have refused them. Knowledge is a little harder to give back.”

Judge David Gerstenfeld will decide later this week whether that knowledge costs Dozono $161,000 in public money.

Back when he was trying to qualify for public financing, Dozono said he wouldn’t run if he didn’t receive city money. Last week, in an interview with KATU, he seemed to be reconsidering:

“I think the campaign has already started,” Dozono said. “Whether I can actually run a competitive race with only the $40,000 I’ve raised — that is money I have available. I would hope that citizens might come to my aid and support me in some other significant way.”

Anna Griffin: 503-412-7053; annagriffin@news.oregonian.com

Overview of Portland’s publicly-financed elections

For use in outreach and presentations.

Overview of process

Ready, Set, Run!

Ready, Set, Run!
City Candidate Field Settles Down
(a breakdown of all the candidates in the May primary election)
Amy J. Ruiz, Portland Mercury, March 13, 2008

The primary election is a little over two months away, and we finally have a sense of everyone who will be in the race. Tuesday evening, March 11, was the filing deadline for those wanting to be on the May 20 ballot.

Candidates have until Friday afternoon, March 14, to withdraw from the race, and chances are a few will. Until then, here’s a primer on everyone who’s running for mayor or city commissioner. Hang it on your fridge, so when all that campaign literature comes pouring through the mail slot, you’ll know which ones to recycle.

[read more…]

Poll questions still dog Dozono

Poll questions still dog Dozono
Public financing – When does a hopeful become a candidate? The answer will have a bearing on the coming race for Portland mayor
James Mayer, The Oregonian, February 25, 2008

When movers and shakers approached Sho Dozono late last year, flashing big money and urging him to run for mayor, the travel agency executive was intrigued, but he wanted to know where he stood with Portland voters before jumping into the race.

So some of the backers arranged for a poll to try to persuade him to make the leap and challenge city Commissioner Sam Adams for the job.

“If I had no chance, why would I offer myself as a candidate?” Dozono told The Oregonian in his first extensive interview about the mysterious poll.

The survey has now become an issue in the mayor’s race, entangling Dozono’s campaign in controversy and raising troubling questions about the city’s 2-year-old experiment in public financing for elections.

Dozono has avoided talking much about the poll, saying he didn’t commission it and didn’t know who did, though he admitted seeing the results.

His vague answers only invited more questions, including how he could not know the source of the poll and, later, how he could not know the poll’s potential to derail his chances to use public money to launch his bid. The implications were serious for Dozono because he announced early on that he wouldn’t seek office if he didn’t qualify for public financing.

Offering an explanation now, Dozono said this is how things unfolded last December:

“There was a group of people trying to assess if it would be viable for me to run,” he said, “and if so, there were people willing to finance my campaign.”

This group of potential backers, which Dozono still won’t identify except to say it included political types and elected officials, contacted lobbyist Len Bergstein. Bergstein — on his own nickel — hired San Francisco pollster Amy Simon.

The poll determined Adams was popular with voters and held a commanding lead in a mayoral matchup with Dozono. A political consultant told Dozono it would cost a million dollars to be competitive and he could still lose.

[more…]

Poll Position

Poll Position
Amy J. Ruiz, Mercury, February 14, 2008

City Auditor Gary Blackmer let mayoral candidate Sho Dozono off the hook last week, for an extensive poll conducted last December that was a secret until last week. Dozono says he doesn’t know who commissioned the poll or paid for it, but he got a peek at the results back in December. According to sources familiar with the poll’s questions, it likely cost between $15,000 and $30,000.

The problem is, publicly financed candidates for mayor—like Dozono—have a $12,000 cap on in-kind contributions. If they exceed it, they risk losing public funds. The poll, which Dozono’s camp hasn’t reported to the state elections division yet (a complaint was filed over that issue on February 11), appears to be an in-kind contribution under state law. But according to Blackmer, even if Dozono were to report it tomorrow, “The poll is not likely to threaten Dozono’s qualification for public campaign finance funds.”

Hmm.

According to Blackmer, the question isn’t how much the poll cost, or whether Dozono’s campaign reported it. Rather, Blackmer says Dozono wasn’t a candidate under the city’s rules until he filed a declaration of intent to participate in public financing, on January 7—after the poll was conducted—so the in-kind cap rules don’t apply.

[More…]

Bruce Broussard Files Election Complaint Against Sho Dozono

Bruce Broussard Files Election Complaint Against Sho Dozono
Amy Ruiz, Mercury, February 12, 2008

Bruce Broussard—a community activist and frequent figure in Portland politics—has filed a complaint with the state elections division, against Sho Dozono.

In a recent Oregonian article, Broussard says in his handwritten complaint, “it was indicated that the candidate for mayor Sho Dozono violated the definition of a candidate according to Jennifer Hertel, campaign finance specialist with the Secretary of State’s office.”

“Concerns were also raised in the Tribune as well… I would like the Secretary of State to make a full investigation of this matter,” Broussard concludes.

[More…]