Testimony in Support of SB 762
Respectfully submitted by Joe Baessler, Political Director Oregon AFSCME
My name is Joe Baessler and I work for Oregon AFSCME. We represent over 24,000 working
people throughout Oregon. One of the most difficult issues we grapple with internally is
campaign finance reform. The difficulty stems from the fact that there are rarely good
solutions with predicable results. Our members want to have less money in politics but money
is so ingrained in the process it is impossible to eliminate and hard to even decrease. Laws that
are designed to decrease the influence of money often just push the money out of the sight of
the public. There are restrictions on what are possible because of recent U.S. Supreme Court
decisions. Legislation on these issues is forced to be imperfect as it tries to thread the needle
between their goals and federal restricts. This creates a situation where while we support the
goal of much campaign finance ideas we are often forces to question or oppose them and it
cause a great deal of internal conflict within our membership. However the one issue that we
all can support is the idea of more and better disclosure and making sure that everyone; unions,
advocacy groups and individuals are following the rules that do exist. It might not be the
system we would create if we had the power but it is imperative that the rules apply equally to
everyone that participates in politics. This is the only way we can ensure a fair election for the
citizens of Oregon.
SB 762 is about eliminating a possible loophole or worse method of evading the rules
that we must all follow. The exclusion from Contribution and Expenditure report for small
donors exists to make sure that those that give a small donation are able to do so easily and
decrease the paper work for a campaign in accounting for the five dollar or forty-nine dollar
donation that might happen one time. However, campaigns and political action committees
are required to track those donations because if they combine with later donations to reach
over the fifty dollar threshold then the entire donations must be reported. There is a very real
fear that an unscrupulous committee could take in unlimited dollars from an small number of
large donors and simply report them as many thousands of donations under the fifty dollar
threshold. They could hide their donors and it would be very difficult for anyone to know. This
bill requires committees submit the names of their small donors, who they have to track
anyway because they might aggregate over the threshold later in the year, and give those
names not to the public but to the Secretary of State to track and confirm they are following
the rules.
We believe this bill makes sense and it should not be onerous on committee’s that are
following the rules. It still protects smaller donors that don’t want to be solicited but it makes
sure that we are all on a level playing field. We ask that you support SB 762 and thank you for
your time.