Lonsdale leads effort to collect signatures for campaign reform

A Sisters area resident is promoting a statewide drive to limit political campaign contributions in Oregon. Harry Lonsdale, founder and former president of Bend Research, is encouraging the gathering of signatures for two campaign finance reform initiatives for the November 2006 ballot.

Lonsdale was a three-time unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate in the 1990s.

The signature-gathering drive to place the two initiatives on next fall’s ballot was announced in Lonsdale’s letter to the editor in last week’s Nugget.

“Oregon is one of only five states with no limits on campaign contributions,” Lonsdale said. “As a result, big money flows from wealthy people, corporations, and a variety of special interests to people running for office in our state, most of the money flowing to incumbents. And that money buys something, including access and favorable treatment on legislative measures.”

The statewide effort is being conducted by a coalition of concerned citizens calling itself Fair Elections Oregon, Lonsdale explained. Individuals from Portland, Salem, Bend, Medford, Eugene and Sisters are supporting the effort by collecting the required 230,000 to 240,000 signatures to get the initiatives on the ballot.

“We already have 130,000 signatures collected. I have been a political activist for a long time and now as a retiree, I continue in that role,” Lonsdale added.

“One initiative would amend the Oregon Constitution to state that the voters of Oregon or a vote of both houses of the Oregon Legislature can limit or prohibit certain types of campaign contributions,” Lonsdale said. “The second initiative is a statute that implements the amendment. It imposes limits on individual contributions and prohibits all corporate and union treasury contributions to all candidates for in-state offices, limits how much a candidate can spend on their own race, and establishes reporting and disclosure requirements.”

One feature of the proposed statute would allow “small donor committees” to contribute all they want to any candidate, provided that individual committee members contribute not more than $50 a year, Lonsdale explained.

Voters approved similar legislation in 1994, but three years later, the Oregon Supreme Court stated that the law was a violation of free speech and it was discarded. Lonsdale disagrees with that decision and believes it can be overcome with the passage of these initiatives.

“U. S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said it best recently,” Lonsdale explained. “‘Money is property; it is not speech.’”

“We commissioned a poll last summer and asked Oregonians if they would favor or oppose campaign contribution limits,” Lonsdale said. “Of those polled from all walks of life and political affiliation, six out of seven supported limits and four of seven strongly supported limits. If we can obtain enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot, I am convinced the measures should pass easily.”

The Web page of Fair Elections Oregon lists examples of how they see unlimited campaign contributions hurting Oregonians. Among examples listed are keeping video poker commissions high through campaign contributions by the restaurant association and major tax cuts given corporations during the state’s 2003 budget crisis.

For more information call 1-800-939-0811 or visit http://www.fairelections.net.