Oregon Speaker of the House Julie Fahey says public trust in our democratic institutions is dropping. “This trust is the foundation of our country and our ability to self-govern,” Fahey writes in an email to Eugene Weekly. “One of the reasons for this loss of faith is that members of the public have watched billionaires spend millions of dollars to influence elections, drowning out the voices of everyday people.”
Currently, there are no limits on campaign contributions in Oregon, but that will change thanks to the 2024 Oregon legislative session. Fahey sponsored House Bill 4024, establishing campaign contribution limits to political races at the local and state level.
“The goal with the legislation was to help level the playing field so that no one person or entity can have an outsized influence on Oregon elections,” Fahey writes. “Under the bill, individuals and corporations can only give up to $3,300 to any one candidate running for elected office in Oregon.”
Nike co-founder and former CEO Phil Knight donated $1.5 million to former Republican Rep. Christine Drazan’s 2022 gubernatorial campaign, according to the Oregon Secretary of State campaign finance activity database. As Fahey explains it, under HB 4024, that donation is $1,496,700 over the new $3,300 limit.
“We’ve eliminated this idea of these eye popping donations being sent to candidates, like the Phil Knight contributions to gubernatorial candidates,” Fahey’s Chief of Staff Scott Moore says. “That’s a thing of the past.”
The legislation creates caps on donations to political candidates — with different limits for different donors. For example, a candidate for a local or state level office can accept $3,300 max from “persons” — which, Moore says, Oregon law considers to be individuals, corporations and unions. That $3,000 cap “applies to labor unions. It applies to individuals. It applies to corporations, anything that fits in that bucket of ‘persons.’”
However, a candidate could accept up to $2,000 from any candidate’s PAC, or up to $15,000 from any political party. “Political committees associated with political parties or membership organizations (like labor unions) are also limited in what they can give to individual campaigns,” Fahey writes.
“We thought it was appropriate to set different limits depending on the office because of the differing costs associated with running campaigns for those offices — when you have more voters to reach, it costs more to run winning campaigns,” Fahey writes.
Brendan Glavin, deputy research director for OpenSecrets, a nonprofit dedicated to following the money in statewide elections across the nation, says establishing campaign contributions creates a healthier relationship between candidate and contributor.
“Money coming from a select few individuals who are dominating the giving creates this corruptible situation,” he says. “Candidates can’t just have their funding be concentrated among a small group of well-heeled organizations or individuals, versus having to actually go out and raise money from constituents who are willing to use their hard-earned cash to support them.”
Glavin says this should positively affect elections at all levels in the state.
However, HB 4024 will not implement any cap on donations to committees exclusively focused on passing or opposing ballot measures.
For example, according to the Oregon Secretary of State campaign finance database, the Target Corporation donated $250,000 to the Defeat the Costly Tax On Sales PAC — a PAC that successfully defeated Measure 118, which would have increased corporate taxes on profits exceeding $25 million by 3 percent to give $1,600 to every Oregonian.
According to OpenSecrets, the successful opposition to Measure 118 raised more than $7 million. Only $800,000 and some change was raised in support of the measure.
Here in Lane County, some donations to People Not Lane Politicians — the PAC behind the unsuccessful Measure 20-362, a ballot measure that critics say would have gerrymandered county districts — would still be accepted under the new law.
For example, Murphy Plywood Co. donated $10,000 to the PAC.
However, this only affects campaign finances in Oregon — and has no effect on limiting independent expenditures.
“Unfortunately, given the Citizens United ruling at the federal level, deep-pocketed donors are still able to run independent expenditures (or “dark money”) campaigns, as long as they don’t coordinate with candidates,” Fahey writes.
Citizens United v. FEC is a landmark 2010 U.S. Supreme Court case that prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns from corporations, unions, nonprofits and individuals.
Moore says an independent expenditure is “campaigning or electioneering. It’s money spent to try and persuade voters to vote a certain way, but not done in collaboration with the candidate themselves.”
Independent expenditures cannot be restricted by HB 4024. “We can’t change that fact in Oregon,” Fahey writes.
However, Moore says HB 4024 will help bring dark money into the light. “Once you reach the threshold of spending $50,000 or more in an independent expenditure, that’s when you then have to start disclosing who your donors are,” Moore says.
Glavin says HB 4024 will stop dark money from making large donations directly to local candidates.
Dark money comes from 501(c)(4) nonprofits — nonprofits that are not legally required to disclose their donors — which then donate their money to PACs.
“Changing a campaign finance system in Oregon that has been in place for decades was something that took time and a lot of good faith negotiating and efforts. It’s a change that will also take significant time to implement and educate those seeking to run for office in the future,” Fahey writes. The new campaign limits do not take effect until 2027.
This story has been updated.