Campaign financing dominates discussion at candidates’ forum

Oregon’s three Democratic candidates for secretary of state couldn’t stop talking about campaign cash Friday.

It wasn’t just because they are aspiring to the office that oversees that and other aspects of how elections are conducted. Beyond that, the issue has become a contentious one, given that so much of the money being contributed in the race is going to just one candidate.

Kate Brown has raised $528,345 in contributions, while Rick Metsger has collected $173,295 and Vicki Walker has taken in $96,075.

It was against this backdrop that Walker seemed to juxtapose her campaign against that of Brown’s during the City Club of Eugene candidates’ forum at the Downtown Athletic Club.

“They say how you campaign is an indication of how you will govern,” said Walker, who, like Metsger and Brown, is a state senator. “My campaign has been about big ideas, not big contributions and wild spending.”

Metsger largely stayed out of the fray, although he did answer an audience question about campaign fundraising by pointing out, “I don’t have the $25,000 or $45,000 hunks that Sen. Brown has gotten.” Metsger was referring to the $45,700 Brown has received from the Washington, D.C.-based Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and the $25,000 received from the Oregon Education Association teachers’ union.

Brown said it was because she had “rolled up her sleeves and I went to work and I delivered” that she was being supported by Oregon’s educators, the gay rights group Basic Rights Oregon, the Oregon League of Conservation Voters and NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon.

“You may call them special interests. I think they’re special,” Brown said. “They share my vision of a forward Oregon.”

The hourlong forum covered an array of topics, including the candidates’ views on sustainability and their ideas for the various functions of the secretary of state’s office: overseeing elections, state audits, corporate documents, state archives and serving on the State Land Board. But the topic of campaign finance popped up throughout the event.

All three candidates agreed that big money from donors was an important issue for the next secretary of state to deal with.Brown touted her work in bringing greater transparency to the way campaign finances are reported through a new online database that resulted from legislation she championed.As secretary of state, Brown said she would expand the system’s ability to let anyone with a computer and Internet access to “follow the money.” She said she also wanted to look at contribution limits and public financing of campaigns.

Metsger said he considers increased voter participation to be an antidote to ceding control over election outcomes to big money and the TV-ad soundbites and other messages paid for by campaign contributions. He said he would set benchmarks for increasing voter registration and election turnout each year.

“We will use that as the measuring stick to my success,” he said.

Walker said limiting campaign contributions — which would require voter approval of an amendment to Oregon’s constitutional free expression protections — would be a priority for her.

In 2006, Walker and Republican Jim Torrey raised and spent more than $1 million combined in their state Senate race. Even so, she said she has “never been beholden to special interests.”

She said that may explain why, despite her strong record of working on issues important to the Oregon League of Conservation Voters and the Oregon Education Association, both groups supported Brown.

The reason they are supporting Brown, she said, “is because that candidate has more money in the bank,” giving the appearance of greater electability.

Walker said she had done far more for educators than her opponents have, given her work since 2005 as chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee.

Becca Uherbelau, OEA spokeswoman, agreed that Walker was considered a strong advocate for teachers. But at the union’s candidate endorsement convention last month, its delegates voted for someone else.

“In the … delegates’ minds, they believed that Kate Brown would make the best secretary of state,” she said.

Jonathan Poisner, executive director of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, acknowledged that Walker did do much better than Brown in the past three conservation league scorecards for legislators. She received scores of 95 percent, 92 percent and 100 percent for her votes on environmental legislation in the 2007, 2005 and 2003 sessions, respectively.

Brown’s scores for those three sessions were 89 percent, 67 percent and 67 percent.

Poisner called the scorecard a very important tool, “but it’s by no means the only tool by which to judge a candidate.”

He said the league considered all three Democrats to be strongly pro-environmental candidates.

Besides using the scorecard ratings, the league considered leadership skills, and how well the candidates were able to push hard on bills that should pass, prevent action on anti-environmental legislation or work for an acceptable compromise, he said.

“And we concluded, at the end of the day, looking at all those factors, that Kate Brown is the candidate who would most advance the broad goals of the conservation community,” Poisner said.