Oregon Campaign Finance Contribution Limits Initiative (2022)

Oregon Campaign Finance Contribution Limits Initiative
Election date November 8, 2022
Topic Campaign finance
Status Not on the ballot
Type State statute	Origin Citizens

The Oregon Campaign Finance Contribution Limits Initiative (#43-45) was not on the ballot in Oregon as an initiated state statute on November 8, 2022.

The initiative would have limited campaign finance contributions from individuals, multicandidate committees, political parties, legislative caucus committees, and membership organizations (e.g. unions). There were three different versions of the initiative filed by Honest Elections Oregon.

As of December 2021, Oregon was one of five states that allowed unlimited contributions to candidates and ballot measures. At the 2020 general election, Oregon voters approved Measure 107, which amended the state's constitution to authorize the state legislature and local governments to (1) enact laws or ordinances limiting campaign contributions and expenditures; (2) require disclosure of contributions and expenditures; and (3) require that political advertisements identify the people or entities that paid for them. One of the three initiatives would also have established a public campaign financing system.

Text of measure

Full text

The full texts of the different versions of the initiative are listed below:

• Initiative #43
• Initiative #44
• Initiative #45

Sponsors

Honest Elections Oregon led the campaign in support of the initiatives.

Arguments

• Jason Kafoury with Honest Elections Oregon, said, "I am proud of the measures we have filed and the extensive process we embarked on to craft the best policies possible with both local and national experts. ... We hope in the coming months, during the ballot title review process, to continue building a big tent to support these measures and to continue to work with historically marginalized communities"
• Rebecca Gladstone, president of the League of Women Voters of Oregon, said, "These measures can help to restore voters’ confidence in healthy democracy. oters must know that our elections are fair and free of undue influence by powerful dark money at the expense of voters. We can accomplish this and restore trust in our political system."

Background

Oregon campaign finance requirements

See also: Campaign finance requirements in Oregon

As of December 2021, Oregon allowed unlimited contributions to candidates and ballot measures. Committees must file all transactions electronically using the state's campaign finance reporting system, ORESTAR, if a committee receives or spends $3,500 or more. Committees must report the name, address, and occupation of the donor for contributions and expenditures exceeding $100.

Oregon Supreme Court rulings on campaign finance limits

Vannatta v. Kiesling (1997)

Section 8 of Article I of the Oregon Constitution states, "No law shall be passed restraining the free expression of opinion, or restricting the right to speak, write, or print freely on any subject whatever; but every person shall be responsible for the abuse of this right." Campaign contributions and expenditures were found by the state Supreme Court in Vannatta v. Kiesling (1997) to be protected forms of free expression under the Oregon Constitution.

In Vannatta v. Kiesling, the court wrote, "In our view, a contribution is protected as an expression by the contributor, not because the contribution eventually may be used by a candidate to express a particular message. The money may never be used to promote a form of expression by the candidate; instead, it may (for example) be used to pay campaign staff or to meet other needs not tied to a particular message... the contribution, in and of itself, is the contributor's expression of support for the candidate or an act of expression that is completed by the act of giving and that depends in no way on the ultimate use to which the contribution is put." The court also wrote, "Expenditures by a candidate, an organization, a committee, or an individual, when designed to communicate to others the spender's preferred political choice, is expression in essentially the same way that a candidate's personal appeal for votes is expression."

Multnomah County v. Mehrwein (2020)

In March 2018, Multnomah County Measure 26-184 (2106), which limited campaign contributions and independent expenditures and required campaign finance disclosures on campaign communications, was ruled unconstitutional using the precedent established in Vannatta. In April 2020, the Oregon Supreme Court overturned Vannatta and ruled that the campaign finance limits on their face were not unconstitutional while the limits on independent expenditures were unconstitutional. The court sent the case back to a lower court to determine if the $500 campaign finance contribution limit established by Measure 26-184 was too low.

Measures 46 and 47 of 2006

Measure 46 and Measure 47 were on the Oregon ballot in 2006. Measure 46 was designed to amend the Oregon Constitution to allow laws limiting or prohibiting election contributions and expenditures. Measure 47 would have implemented the contribution limits. However, while Measure 47 was approved, Measure 46 was rejected. Measure 47 depended on the approval of Measure 46 to be constitutional. In other words, since Measure 46 was rejected, the constitutionality of Measure 47 was in question. The constitutionality of Measure 47 was challenged in court (Hazell v. Brown) and ultimately struck down by the state supreme court in October of 2012.

Measure 47 contained a clause providing that the measure would still be codified in state law to become enforceable when the constitution is found to allow or amended to allow limits on campaign contributions and expenditures. However, the proposed 2020 constitutional amendment only applied to laws and ordinances adopted through the initiative process or enacted by the state legislature or a local government on or after January 1, 2016, meaning Measure 47 did not become effective.

Local Oregon campaign finance measures

See also: Portland Measure 26-200 Campaign Finance Limits Charter Amendment (2018)

The 2020 constitutional amendment would apply to laws and ordinances adopted through the initiative process or enacted by the state legislature or a local government on or after January 1, 2016. Two local measures—Measure 26-200 (2018) and Multnomah County Measure 26-184 (2016)—would become enforceable if the constitutional amendment is approved.

Portland Measure 26-200 (2018) was approved by Portland voters in a vote of 87% to 13%, but the measure's provisions surrounding campaign finance limits were struck down as unconstitutional on June 10, 2019.

Multnomah County Measure 26-184 (2016) was approved by Portland voters in a vote of 88.57% to 11.43%, but the measure's provisions surrounding campaign finance limits were struck down as unconstitutional on March 6, 2018. On April 23, 2020, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that the campaign contributions limits were not facially invalid under Article I, Section 8, and sent the case back to the lower court to decide whether the limits proposed in Measure 26-184 violated the First Amendment. On August 23, 2021, Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Eric Bloch ruled that the limits did not violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing the initiative process in Oregon

The state process

In Oregon, the number of signatures required to qualify an initiated state statute for the ballot is equal to 6 percent of the votes cast for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election. Signatures for Oregon initiatives must be submitted four months prior to the next regular general election. State law also requires paid signature gatherers to submit any signatures they gather every month.

Moreover, Oregon is one of several states that require a certain number of signatures to accompany an initiative petition application. The signatures of at least 1,000 electors are required to trigger a review by state officials, a period of public commentary, and the drafting of a ballot title. Prior to gathering these initial 1,000 signatures, petitioners must submit the text of the measure, a form disclosing their planned use of paid circulators, and a form designating up to three chief petitioners. The 1,000 preliminary signatures count toward the final total required.

The requirements to get an initiated state statute certified for the 2022 ballot:

• Signatures: 112,020 valid signatures were required.
• Deadline: The deadline to submit signatures was July 8, 2022.

In Oregon, signatures are verified using a random sample method. If a first round of signatures is submitted at least 165 days before an election and contains raw, unverified signatures at least equal to the minimum requirement, but verification shows that not enough of the submitted signatures are valid, additional signatures can be submitted prior to the final deadline.

Details about this initiative

• The initiatives were filed by Jason Kafoury, James Ofsink, and Rebecca Gladstone on December 6, 2021.
• On February 8, 2022, Secretary of State Shemia Fagan (D) announced that the three filed initiatives did not meet a constitutional requirement to include the full text of the statute that would be changed. Fagan said, "As Secretary of State, I have a responsibility to ensure that every measure on the ballot meets the constitutional requirements to become law. If there is a procedural error in the measure, I owe it to Oregonians to require petitioners to fix the problem now, before those problems derail the law in the future." Honest Elections, the campaign behind the three initiatives, said they planned to appeal the secretary of state's decision to the Oregon Supreme Court.
• On February 9, 2022, the secretary of state rejected the measures. Secretary Fagan wrote in an op-ed, "Oregon’s constitution requires ballot measures to include the full text of the proposed law. The Oregon Court of Appeals defined 'full text' in a 2004 case called Kerr v Bradbury, and using that standard, I rejected the measures exactly like I had done five months earlier when an unrelated measure with a full-text violation came across my desk."
• On February 10, 2022, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum (D) certified the ballot titles for the three initiatives.
• On March 18, 2022, the Oregon Supreme Court unanimously denied the sponsors' request to direct Secretary of State Fagan to reverse her decision disqualifying the ballot measures. The court said, "[The sponsors] could have begun the initiative process earlier, so that, if the secretary identified deficiencies, relators could have taken timely steps to contest or cure them within the same election cycle."

See also

2022 measures

• 2022 ballot measures
• Campaign finance on the ballot
• 2022 petition deadlines

Oregon

• Oregon ballot measures
• Oregon initiative laws

News and analysis

• Ballot measure lawsuits
• Ballot measure readability
• Ballot measure polls
• Ballot measure signature costs

External links

• Initiative #43
• Initiative #44
• Initiative #45