Tag Archives: Jennifer Williamson

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Shemia Fagan and Oregon’s Political Rot

Political parties “…are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government…” said George Washington. 

Washington may have preferred that the United States go forward with no parties, but since we’ve got them, the next best thing is to prevent one-party rule that strangles wise and fearless public policy and emboldens the perpetual winners.

That’s where Oregon has failed over a long time and all at once.

The Shemia Fagan scandal is just the latest illustration of rot in the body politic.

Secretary of State Fagan wouldn’t have signed up for a $10,000 a month consulting contract with Aaron Mitchell and Rosa Cazarest, owners of the La Mota chain of cannabis dispensaries, if she hadn’t thought she could get away with it.  The cannabis entrepreneurs are, after all, high-profile Democratic donors.

Before the Fagan scandal erupted, the Democratic recipients of La Mota funds happily accepted them. Willamette Week’s Sophie Peel did some spade work, revealing La Mota contributions to the following Democrats:

Gov. Tina Kotek – $68,365

Secretary of State Shemia Fagan – $45,000

Senate President Rob Wagner (D-Lake Oswego) – $12,500

Senate Democratic Leadership Fund – $10,000

State Treasurer Tobias Read – $1,800

Rep. Andrea Valderrama (D-Portland) – $500

Labor Commissioner Christina Stephenson – $7,500

Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson – $1,000

Rep. Dacia Grayber (D-Tigard) – $1,000

Rep. Hoa Nguyen (D-Portland) – $500

Rep. Annessa Hartman (D-Gladstone) – $500

Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt – $2,000

U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer – $3,500

Prior to the Fagan scandal, none of the Democrats who were recipients of La Mota money were  apparently bothered by the fact the company was failing to pay its bills and taxes, according to an investigation by Willamette Week. Only after the Fagan scandal erupted did Democrats decide campaign contributions from La Mota were dirty money and scrambled to show their purity by pledging to donate those contributions to other worthy charitable causes.

Oregon’s Democratic Party also wouldn’t be so cavalier about all the campaign contributions it took from disgraced executives at FTX, the now bankrupt crypto company if they didn’t think they could get off scot free.

In their unbridled pursuit of power, Tina Kotek and the Democratic Party of Oregon chose to keep company with Nishad Singh, the 27-year-old wunderkind director of engineering at FTX. They welcomed his $500,000 contribution to the party’s campaign coffers in 2022. 

But the wheels of justice have turned since Singh made the contribution. On Feb. 28, 2023, he pleaded guilty to six criminal counts, including conspiring to commit securities and commodities fraud, during a hearing in federal court in Manhattan. 

He also pleaded guilty to defrauding the U.S. in a campaign-finance scheme in which he made illegal donations to political-action committees and candidates using funds from disgraced cyypto manager Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto hedge fund Alameda Research.

John Ray III, the new boss of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, wants the $500,000 back, but the Democratic Party of Oregon has so far refused. 

Fagan’s behavior is also reminiscent of the sudden downfall of Jennifer Williamson, a former House majority leader and a leading contender to be Oregon’s next secretary of state in 2020. Williamson suddenly dropped out of the race, attributing her action to a forthcoming story in Willamette Week about questionable expenditures of campaign funds when she served in the House.  

Then there was Democrat Governor John Kitzhaber, who resigned in February 2015  amid a growing influence-peddling scandal involving him and his fiancee, Cylvia Hayes, becoming the state’s first governor to resign in disgrace.

 

Gov. Kitzhaber and Cilvia Hayes

Kitzhaber ‘s resignation came in the face of a state criminal investigation and a string of demands from top state officials to step down.

There have also been questionable actions by other Democratic leaders. 

At one extreme, there was Neil Goldschmidt, a former governor, former Secretary of Transportation under President Jimmy Carter and ex-mayor of Portland. Goldschmidt, while Portland’s mayor during the mid-1970s, had sex on many occasions with a 14-year-old girl. Goldschmidt tried to define his actions as “an affair”. 

He started having sex with the girl when he was 35 and married. She was a babysitter for his young children and the daughter of a neighbor who worked in his office. 

A key element tying all these scandals together is the long Democratic rule in Oregon. It has led too many in the party to act with impunity, just as Richard J. Daily and the Democratic political machine ran Chicago with bare-knuckle politics for 21 years as dozens of politicians fed on the city’s political corruption.

Oregon hasn’t elected a Republican governor since 1982, when Gov. Vic Atiyeh won re-election.  Republican s have also failed to achieve majorities in the Senate and House for ages.

Oregon has been ill-served by the concentration of political power in Democrat’s hands for so long that the party has an overpowering stench to it. As former U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) put it, “Unchecked power pushes parties to excess regardless of which party is in power.”

In Oregon, it’s been the Democrats for far too long.

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Shemia Fagan: Another Oregon Democrat Takes A Fall

What is it about some politicians who just can’t behave?

I remember a saying I was told growing up in New England, “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want your parents to read about the next morning in the paper.” 

Former Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, who resigned under pressure today, should have followed that advice.

If she had, she certainly wouldn’t have signed up for a $10,000 a month consulting contract with the owners of the La Mota chain of cannabis dispensaries at the same time her office audited state regulations on cannabis businesses. Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) has pointed out that the cannabis entrepreneurs are also high-profile Democratic donors.

According to OPB, Fagan, a single mother with two children, justified taking the consulting job by saying she simply could not pay her bills on her $77,000-a-year state salary.

Some of this behavior, unfortunately, has a precedent among Oregon Democrats.

In 1993, I wrote a story for The Oregonian spelling out how John Kitzhaber, when he was State Senate President, pulled in about $90,000 in speaking fees around the country during his last three years as a legislator.

Kitzhaber had earned approximately $35,000 in honoraria in 1990, about $20,000 in 1991 and about $35,000 in 1992, with payments ranging from $100 to $3,000 per speech, plus expenses. As Senate president, Kitzhaber also was paid a monthly salary of about $1,976 during those years.

Kitzhaber ‘s draw was his advocacy of the Oregon Health Plan, a proposal to reform Oregon’s Medicaid program to broaden the number of people covered by limiting the types of procedures eligible for reimbursement. Kitzhaber authored the plan and shepherded it through the Legislature in 1989.

Fagan’s behavior is also reminiscent of the sudden downfall of Jennifer Williamson, a former House majority leader and a leading contender to be Oregon’s next secretary of state in 2020. Williamson suddenly dropped out of the race, attributing her action to a forthcoming story in Willamette Week about questionable expenditures of campaign funds when she served in the House.  

When will politicians learn?

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Hypocrisy Lives:  Shemia Fagan’s embrace of union money

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State Sen. Shemia Fagan announcing her entry into the Democratic primary race for Oregon Secretary of State

Rabid liberal Democrats like Secretary of State candidate Shemia Fagan rail against the power of corporations and their donations to political campaigns.

In that vein, she’s a critic of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that the government cannot restrict corporations, associations, and labor unions from making independent expenditures in support of or opposition to candidates.

But in a display of raw hypocrisy, Fagan is a big fan of political donations by labor unions, apparently considering union money more virtuous. In fact, union donations  were the lifeblood of her 2020 primary campaign, even though unions represent just 14.4% of Oregon workers.

A late entrant to the Democratic primary for Secretary of State, after Rep. Jennifer Williamson dropped out, Fagan quickly gained the support of unions and amassed a substantial campaign war chest. Public employee unions, in particular, backed Fagan because she voted against Senate Bill 1049, which limited PERS benefits

According to the Oregon Secretary of State, reported union contributions to Fagan’s campaign from when Williamson dropped out on Feb. 10, 2020 to May 15, 2020 totaled at least $796,775.68.

I guess Fagan’s worries about undue influence don’t apply to unions, only to businesses.

 

Union contributors to Committee to Elect Shemia Fagan

      Feb. 10 – May 15, 2020

  • SEIU – Citizen Action for Political Education – $239,389.86
  • Oregon AFL-CIO – $35,696.16
  • SEIU/American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees – Oregonians for Ballot Access – $47,500.00
  • AFSCME Local #328 – $200.00
  • International Assoc. of Firefighters – $25,000.00
  • SEIU Local 503, OPEU – $3,825.91
  • Oregon Education Association – OEA PAC – $115,275.00
  • Iron Workers District Council of the Pacific Northwest – $1,000.00
  • Oregon Laborers Political Action Committee – $11,000.00
  • Lane Professional Firefighters Assoc – $1,000.00
  • Local 48 Electricians PAC – $7,500.00
  • Sheet Metal Contractors National Association (SMACNA) PAC – $1,000.00
  • American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME) – $75,000.00
  • Portland Metro Fire Fighters PAC – $5,000.00
  • National Education Association – NEA Fund for Children and Public Education PAC – $25,000.00
  • Oregon State Firefighters Council – $5,000.00
  • Oregon AFSCME Council 75 – $91,638.75
  • Oregon School Employees Association – Voice of Involved Classified Employees – $25,000.00
  • Plumbers & Steamfitters PAC – $15,000.00
  • Local #1159 FirePAC – $1,000.00
  • SEIU Local 49 COPE Fund – $5000.00
  • Professional Firefighters PAC – $750.00
  • Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters -$2,500.00
  • Sheet Metal Workers International Association Local 16 -SMART Local 16 PAC – $5,000.00
  • Service Employees International Union Local 503/ American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 75 – Oregonians for Ballot Access – $47,500.00
  • Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council – Building Trades PAC – $5,000.00

*All organizations noted above are as identified in campaign finance information provided by the Oregon Secretary of State.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Brad Avakian and his party are worried

With polls showing Republican Dennis Richardson leading Democrat Brad Avakian in the Oregon Secretary of State race, it looks like Avakian’s supporters are worried.

avakianfrown

Why isn’t this man smiling?

Just in the first three days of this month they pumped $398,915 into his campaign, according to state filings.

Although union members account for just 14.8 percent of wage and salary workers in Oregon, they play a big role in Avakian’s campaign. Union donations in the first three days of November included:

  • The NEA Fund for Children and Public Education – $50,000
  • AFSCME – $30,000
  • Local 48 Electricians PAC (4572) – $15,000
  • American Federation of Teachers-Oregon Candidate PAC (113) – $10,000
  • Ironworkers Political Action League Muti Candidate Committee – $5,000
  • Our Oregon – $5,000
  • Oregon AFSCME Council 75 – $4,000

Some donors to other Democratic candidates may be surprised to learn that another significant source of recent donations to Avakian is the campaign committees of fellow Democratic candidates. In a move that should be prohibited, those committees simply took contributions to them and, in effect, passed them on to Avakian.

These donors include:

  • Friends of Tobias Read – $5,000
  • Sara Gelser for State Senate (4680) – $1,000
  • Blumenauer for Congress – $2,000
  • Friends of Mark Hass (11487) – $1,000
  • Rosenbaum for Senate (Diane) (1430) – $1,000
  • Friends of Lee Beyer (14049) – $5,000
  • Friends of Tina Kotek (4792) – $5,000
  • Reardon for Oregon (15621) – $3,000
  • Kurt Schrader for Congress – $5,000
  • Elect Ellen Rosenblum for Attorney General (15406) – $5,000
  • Friends of Jeff Barker (4270) – $2,000
  • Friends of Jennifer Williamson (15145) – $2,500

Other large contributors to Avakian’s campaign in early November included the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians ($10,000) , the Oregon Health Care Association PAC (275), $5,000) , Cain Petroleum ($5,000) and James D. Fuiten, President of Metro West Ambulance ($5,000).

These recent contributions brought Avakian’s campaign committee total to $2,216,482.79 as of Nov. 3, 2016, substantially more than the $1,490,837.52 raised by Richardson, as of Nov. 4.

We’ll see whether all this loot can pull Avakian ahead.