After a tsunami of campaign spending on the 2022 governor’s race in Oregon – a record-breaking $70 million – a broad coalition and lawmakers worked together to pass the state’s first campaign finance reform this spring. Legislators scrambled during a short 5-week session to keep everyone at the table. Otherwise, it was shaping up to be a costly and confusing fight over campaign finance reform at the ballot box this fall with two competing measures. This episode of Across the Aisle examines how it came together.
This is across the aisle, from the National Conference of State Legislatures.
I’m Kelley Griffin.
In 2022, donors spent a record-setting $70 million on the Oregon governor’s race.
Oregon had no limit on campaign donations, though citizens groups and some lawmakers had tried for years.
But that tsunami of spending prompted a coalition of groups to collect signatures this spring for a fall ballot measure that would set strict donor limits. The ballot measure became a catalyst for lawmakers to come up with their own. In only five weeks, they agreed across party lines on the state’s first campaign finance reforms. Democratic Majority Leader Julie Fahey sponsored the bill.
Fahey -Yeah, once it became clear that there really, it was a very real possibility that there could be this fight at the ballot, I think everyone took a half step back and said, let's come to the table and maybe be willing to leave some of our entrenched positions behind.
At the start of the session, Fahey enlisted Minority Leader Jeff Helfrich. Initially Helfrich wasn’t sold. He says the Republican caucus had their own priorities. But then he heard about the plan for the ballot measure.
Helfrich: We have to do something because what we see coming down the pipe to get voted on is just not going to be manageable and it's going to be really hard to change
Politically, this was a good position for backers of the ballot measure to be in, says Jason Kafoury of Honest Elections. They had collected 100,000 signatures, well on their way to getting their version of campaign finance on the ballot. And they felt confident they could win. But now the legislature was taking up the issue and Kafoury had reasons to hope for a solution there instead.
For one thing, they’d have to spend a lot of money in the election, especially because labor unions had their own plans for a ballot measure on campaign finance reform.
For another thing, any measure voters approve at the ballot could be revised beyond recognition in the next legislative session.
He saw that it was shaping up to be a good year for reform in the legislature.
Kafoury - Democrats and Republicans had never been aligned on a policy around campaign finance reform. And so when they got the Republicans and the business groups on board, my spidey sense said that we needed to think about the political calculus and the difficulties of going to the ballot.
That’s why Kafoury was ready to roll up his sleeves to get a deal done in the statehouse. Labor leader joined in, and so did Angela Wilhelms, the president and CEO of Oregon Business and Industry. Not because her members felt the need for reform. They embraced the transparency of Oregon’s approach, Wilhelms says.
Wilhelms :OBI has been consistent that we believe the system Oregon has is actually the most transparent and fair system in that voters, candidates, the media, any interested party knows within a matter of days leading into an election, who's contributing what to whom.”
That said, Wilhelms says OBI was open to discussing reform,
Wilhelms - so long as those limits are constitutional, that they're clear for anyone who wants to follow it, whether that be the candidates or the contributors, and that they don't create this sort of secret system of campaign finance that exists in the shadows.
And she says the proposed ballot language from Honest Elections was flawed so it made sense to work on a legislative solution that would ensure a level playing field.
Rep. Jeff Helfrich had the same concern.
Helfrich: Every time there was the talk of campaign finance reform, it seemed that it was going to put one party at a disadvantage over another. And being in a blue state, there was a lot of push for unions to have more control and be less regulated where businesses would be more regulated. /nd so for me it was about an even playing field and what does that look like?”
Fahey saw an opportunity to meet everyone’s concerns: contain massive individual contributions, maintain transparency and create a system where small donors could pool their contributions for more impact. She and Helfrich both wanted to make sure the cap wasn’t so restrictive it would send donors scurrying to give money to independent PACS. Those groups follow federal rules, enshrined in the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. That means donors can give as much as they want and their contributions aren’t public. They hit the ground running. Fahey says they had to move fast, and account for a lot of opinions.
Fahey : As you can imagine, we are 90 legislators who all operate in our campaign finance system. So we all have pretty strong opinions about what we think it should look like. So it's been, historically, it's been pretty difficult to come to agreement and pass something through the legislature
Legislative staff started on the details. Fahey and Helfrich worked with their caucuses. Business and labor leaders, and community and citizens groups were involved every step of the way, debating and helping shape the bill.
As determined as they all were to make this work, most of them had doubts at first.
Jason Kafoury of Honest Elections.
Kafoury: I would say I was beyond skeptical heading into it just because I've been at these negotiations for over a decade at the legislature, and when you're at the legislature, it only takes one interest group peeling away one or two votes here or there to kill something.
Even Fahey had concerns.
Fahey : I think when we first started out, I think we thought about it as being a long shot that given all of the history and the attempts that had been made in the past decade to try and pass something that it did feel like a long shot.
But they all knew what was hanging over their heads – if they couldn’t agree on something they expected a big, costly, confusing fight over at least one and probably two ballot measures. That helped the parties find common ground.
Fahey: As conversations moved forward and we could see people really moving off of their positions, it got to a point where we really had a path towards passing something this year.
Little by little, the bill came together in a form everyone could get behind, modeled after federal limits. Individuals and corporations can give up to $3,300 to a statewide candidate per election cycle, while political party committees can give up to $30,000. Membership organizations such as labor unions and nonprofit advocacy groups can contribute a total of $26,400 to a statewide candidate per cycle. The promote transparency, the bill directs the Secretary of State to create a dashboard listing top individual and industry contributors.
It passed with strong majorities in both the House and Senate.
As soon as the bill was signed by Gov. Tina Kotek, Kafoury announced Honest Elections would withdraw the proposed ballot measure, and the other measure was dropped, too.
Everyone agrees that the ballot measure made the bill happen. Fahey says it kept everyone at the table.
Fahey: The ballot measures did I think force everyone into a room to have a different kind of conversation than happened in the past.
Kafoury is grateful for that.
Kafoury: if we hadn't have gathered the hundred thousand signatures and we hadn't had that ready for the ballot this year, all those other folks would've just continued to allow the unlimited regime to go on for perpetuity would be my guess. So I think our effort forced that legislature, as I said, for the first time in its history to pass some limits.
Fahey says one other thing added to the momentum.
Fahey: It also helps, honestly, that there is huge support amongst Oregonians for the issue of limiting campaign contributions, an overwhelming majority of Oregonians wanted us to get this done.
The new law doesn’t go into effect until 2027, and everyone involved says there’s plenty to do in the meantime to implement it, and likely more details to refine as the Secretary of State puts the law into place.
To be sure, high-dollar contributors will still have the option to make unlimited contributions, they would just have to make them to independent PACs, and candidates can’t have anything to do with the messaging of the PAC.
That part is worrisome to everyone who worked on reform, but they also know it is out of their hands.
Angela Wilhelms of Oregon Business and Industry previously worked in the statehouse for years, and she’s seen the long struggle over campaign finance reform.
Wilhelms:There is no perfect campaign finance system. There is no system or set of limits that again, gets money out of politics. So for us, and I think for Oregonians, having a system that remains transparent and fair and inclusive, and of course constitutional is key and people should be proud to see that the legislature put a bill forward that we think adheres to those values.
I’m Kelley Griffin. Thanks for listening to Across the Aisle from the National Conference of State Legislatures. If you know of examples of working across the aisle, send me an email at acrosstheaisle@ncsl.org