[CFR-Announce] Oregonian Article on Initiative Funding is Unfair to Campaign Finance Reform Supporters

[FairElections Oregon]

Today the Oregonian ran an article in the Metro section, entitled 
"Loopholes hide initiative backers ... 
*The people behind a casino proposal and limits on state spending remain 
a mystery"

*The article includes at least 3 pieces of incorrect information.

   1. The article states, "Only one [initiative campaign] names at least
      10 individual donors: a drive to replace party primaries with open
      primaries."  *This is false. * We gave the Oregonian a list of
      over 800 individual donors to our efforts to qualify Petitions 8
      and 37 for the ballot.  When we reported our individual donors to
      the Secretary of State in February, he refused to accept the
      filing because it was _too early_.  Thus, we reported our many
      hundreds of individual donors both to the Secretary of State and
      to the Oregonian.

   2. The article lists our "money raised" as $177,000.  This puts us
      far below the amounts being spent on the open primary measures,
      the judicial districting measure, the parental notification before
      abortion measure, and the limits on property condemnation
      measure.  And it is very misleading, because our funds are in the
      process of qualifying _two_ measures for the ballot, not just
      one.  If you cut $177,800 in half, you find that *we have spent
      $88,900 per measure, which is far less than any measure still
      seeking to qualify for the ballot* (next lowest is $110,600 on the
      insurance credit score measure).

   3. The Oregonian had no interest and never asked about the number of
      volunteers collecting signatures.  One reason our efforts costs
      less than the others is that *we have received signature sheets
      from over 500 volunteers*.  Perhaps the other campaigns have been
      less successful in attracting volunteers.

Any of these points would make good letters to the editor of the 
Oregonian (letters at news.oregonian.com).


Dan Meek
503-293-9021 phone
503-293-9099 fax
dan at meek.net

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