Oregon lawmakers are poised to vote on a “historic” set of campaign finance laws that would set limits on contributions and eliminate the $1 million checks that have been a feature of recent campaigns.
Top leaders in the state House worked out an agreement Wednesday morning with labor unions, business groups and the good-government advocates behind a potential voter initiative. The end result, House Bill 4024, breezed out of the House Rules Committee and is headed to the House and Senate floors for a vote. If the full Legislature and Gov. Tina Kotek approve it, backers of two voter-led initiatives said they’ll drop their plans to go to the ballot.
Jason Kafoury, a Portland attorney and one of the leaders of Honest Elections Oregon, praised lawmakers for the proposal and listening to feedback from his group and other backers of Initiative Petition 9, which would have asked voters to impose strict limits on campaign contributions. Honest Elections initially opposed the legislative efforts as an end-run around its proposal.
“This is a historic moment,” Kafoury said. “In the history of Oregon, the Legislature has never passed contribution limits, and we are on the cusp here.”
Oregon is now one of only a few states without limits on how much any person or group can give to a candidate, leading to individuals and well-funded organizations spending hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on a single race. Limits proposed in HB 2024 would kick in Jan. 1, 2027, and allow individuals and corporations to contribute $3,300 per election, or $6,600 for a candidate who appears in both the primary and general.
As amended, the bill would allow small donor political committees, or committees that accept up to $250 per year from individuals, to give up to $10 per donor per election to statewide candidates and $5 per donor per election for other candidates.
It also would set lower limits for union and other membership organizations than lawmakers initially proposed. The proposal now calls for allowing unions to give $26,400 per election to a statewide candidate and $13,200 per election to non-statewide candidates, down from an earlier proposal of $33,000 and $16,500.
The amendment raised proposed caps on contributions from political parties from $5,000 per candidate to $30,000 for statewide candidates and $15,000 for other candidates, reflecting concerns from Honest Elections that the low limit could serve as a “poison pill” that would prompt the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the contribution limits as it did to Vermont’s limits two decades ago.
The proposal took form over the past few weeks as lawmakers and others weighed the possibility that voters would see two competing proposals for campaign finance reform on their ballot in November. Along with IP 9, a separate coalition of labor unions and progressive groups was collecting signatures for Initiative Petition 42, which would have instilled some limits but allowed for large contributions from unions and small donor committees.
As late as Monday, lawmakers were considering sending their own proposal to the ballot. But intense negotiations Monday and Tuesday led to the final agreement.
An imperfect proposal
Angela Wilhelms, president of Oregon Business and Industry, the state’s largest business group, said while critics might say the bill was drafted in haste, it’s actually the product of years of work. It’s not perfect, she said, but that’s because no campaign finance laws are.
“You can’t completely legislate money out of politics,” Wilhelms said. “You can’t completely legislate a system that keeps bad actors from acting badly.”
House Majority Leader Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, said she has always believed the state needs campaign contribution limits but struggled with how to implement them. Fahey recalled how she was outspent in her primary and general election in 2016, when she was elected to the House, and how disheartening it was to see her opponents receive $20,000 checks when she was cold-calling strangers trying to get $50 or $100 at a time as a first-time candidate. Contribution limits will even the playing field for new candidates, she said.
“I think this is a better bill than anything the Legislature has ever considered before,” Fahey said.
Provided the bill passes, Fahey said she expects lawmakers will continue to work on campaign finance issues during the 2025 legislative session, and that they need to do more to ensure campaign spending is transparent and funds are disclosed.
Kafoury warned that good government advocates will be back pushing for more changes in 2025, noting that there’s a lot more to do around transparency. He said the Legislature should consider even lower limits: Honest Elections was looking for a $2,000 cap for statewide candidates and $1,000 cap for all other candidates – as well as an option for public funding of campaigns. But the legislative proposal is a start, he said.
“We’ve been the Wild West for way too long, no limits on any political contributions, and I don’t think that’s the Oregon Way,” Kafoury said. “I really don’t.”
The House Rules Committee approved the bill unanimously on Wednesday, but some lawmakers still have heartburn over it. Rep. Kim Wallan, R-Medford, said she was concerned that contribution limits will lead to more dark money in politics and less control for candidates over their own campaigns.
“There’s really no way to get the money out of politics,” she said. “The money’s going to be there, we just won’t have control over how it’s spent.”
Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: [email protected]. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.
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Julia Shumway is deputy editor of Oregon Capital Chronicle and has reported on government and politics in Iowa and Nebraska, spent time at the Bend Bulletin and most recently was a legislative reporter for the Arizona Capitol Times in Phoenix. An award-winning journalist, Julia most recently reported on the tangled efforts to audit the presidential results in Arizona.
