Skip to main contentData culled from the city of Portland’s public campaign finance database shows that dozens of candidates for Portland City Council exchanged campaign donations this year as 76 candidates sought to qualify for matching taxpayer dollars from the city.
Unlike several City Council candidates who explicitly agreed to reciprocate donations with one another (which campaign finance experts say is likely a violation of Oregon Revised Statute 260.665), there is nothing to suggest that most of these candidates (including mayoral candidates) agreed, either in writing or verbally, to swap donations on the condition of reciprocity. Experts say if a candidate-to-candidate donation is mutual but is not predicated on the condition of reciprocity, nothing in that exchange is considered a violation of state law.
Still, the data, compiled from publicly available information provided by the city’s Small Donor Elections program and analyzed by longtime elections watchdog Seth Woolley, shows that mutual transactions between candidates were frequent and heavy. Most of the donations occurred in the months leading up to the Aug. 27 deadline to qualify for matching taxpayer dollars through the program. That program required that a candidate receive donations from 250 individual donors in order to unlock at least $40,000 in taxpayer dollars.
The intent of the Small Donor Elections program is to provide candidates without deep pockets the ability to demonstrate grassroots support by collecting small donations from supporters, which are then multiplied by taxpayer dollars. Creators of the program fashioned it to give first-time candidates the ability to run a competitive campaign, leveling the playing field for candidates who aren’t backed by deep-pocketed business groups, labor unions and other big donors. It’s unlikely, however, the creators intended for candidates to swap donations in an attempt to help one another reach the 250-donor threshold.
Daniel DeMelo, a City Council candidate running in District 3, says the Small Donor Elections program “was never intended to be a tool for political insiders to game the system.”
“Every matched dollar in the small donors election fund comes from the pockets of hardworking Portlanders,” DeMelo said in a statement. “Any attempt to exploit this system is an affront to the values of integrity, innovation and community that make our city great.”
Susan Mottet, the director of the program, says that donations made between candidates under the explicit agreement of reciprocity are not eligible for matching funds. (The Small Donor Elections program matches small donations by up to a 9-to-1 ratio.) Yet the data obtained by WW would suggest that nearly all the candidate-to-candidate donations were marked by candidates as eligible for matching funds.
Mottet says the onus is on candidates to identify any noneligible donations when they submit contribution lists to the program. It was not immediately clear if the Small Donor Elections program ultimately matched the swapped donations; some are still being processed.
Among the front-runner candidates who received the most mutual contributions (meaning Candidate A made a donation to Candidate B, and Candidate B made a donation to Candidate A) include former Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith and transportation planner Timur Ender in District 1, and public school teacher Tiffany Koyama Lane in District 3.
According to Woolley’s analysis, over 970 mutual transactions occurred between city candidates this election cycle.
Below are a list of candidates who had the highest number of mutual transactions.
Update: The original data listed, provided by Seth Woolley, has been updated to include contributions logged under candidates using name variations.
Loretta Smith in District 1: 43 mutual transactions
William Mespelt in District 2: 40 mutual transactions
Luke Zak in District 3: 35 mutual transactions
Keith Wilson, candidate for mayor: 35 mutual transactions
Timur Ender in District 1: 31 mutual transactions
Chad Lykins in District 4: 28 mutual transactions
Sarah Silkie in District 4: 26 mutual transactions
Bob Simril in District 4: 24 mutual transactions
Nat West in District 2: 23 mutual transactions
Theo Hathaway Saner in District 3: 23 mutual transactions
Tiffany Koyama Lane in District 3: 22 mutual transactions
Steph Routh in District 1: 22 mutual transactions
Bob Weinstein in District 4: 22 mutual transactions
Debbie Kitchin in District 2: 21 mutual transactions
Liv Osthus, candidate for mayor: 20 mutual transactions
Eric Zimmerman in District 4: 20 mutual transactions
Chris Flanary in District 3: 20 mutual transactions
Cayle Tern in District 1: 20 mutual transactions