Part Four of Four The Oregonian/OregonLive After announcing she would retire from Oregon’s Legislature early last year, Rep. Deborah Boone freely spent her remaining campaign money — on herself. The Cannon Beach Democrat wasn’t on the ballot. She had no need for yard signs. But she had $13,000. Some legislators transfer all their leftover money to other candidates or causes. Boone spent her account dry. She bought tangible goods: A $2,799 Apple computer, $2,000 in Volvo repairs and a $700 set of tires. She double dipped, using campaign cash to pay bills that taxpayers also reimbursed. There was the $170 dinner during the legislative session, the multi-day $595 hotel stay in Salem, the gasoline and cell phone expenses after the session ended. Charging her campaign let her pocket some of the $10,000 in expense allowances the Legislature provided during her last year in office. “You know, it’s legal, it’s perfectly legal to do,” Boone told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “I’m not saying I should’ve done it or whatever.” The failure to limit campaign donations has turned Oregon into one of the biggest money states in American politics, an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive found. Corporate interests donate more money per resident in Oregon than in any other state. All that giving worked. Oregon now trails its West Coast neighbors on a long list of environmental protections. To understand how the vast sums of corporate money can influence lawmakers, it helps to see how they can spend the donations. The money buys more than consultants and mailers. Oregon allows lawmakers to spend campaign money on perks they’d otherwise have to pay for personally or justify on legislative expense reports. And, by permitting double dips, the state has created a conduit between the nation’s largest companies and legislators’ bank accounts. The result: Lawmakers owe donors for far more than their legislative seats. The newsroom combed through 114,000 transactions and $83 million in campaign spending by state lawmakers since 2008. The review found hundreds of cases of double dips that benefited lawmakers’ pocketbooks and other questionable spending that enhanced their lifestyles. The analysis also uncovered $2.2 million in spending that would have been illegal in at least one other state, including salaries to family members, capitol office furnishings, international luxury travel and penalties for campaign finance violations. “This is embarrassing for the whole Legislature,” said Robert Stern, a good government advocate and attorney who helped write California’s campaign finance controls. “It undermines the whole campaign finance system when you’re taking campaign money and using it for personal purposes. It appears almost like legalized bribery.” Lawmakers justified the expenses as essential to winning voter support, legislating or making their jobs pay a sustainable wage. Lawmakers were paid $24,000 in 2018. They collected another $22,000 in per diems during the last long legislative session, in 2017.

Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, used $5,000 in campaign money to pay for 105 visits to pubs and sports bars in his district. The Arena Sports Bar in Independence was a frequent destination. Some of the payments happened during legislative sessions, when taxpayers paid his living expenses. (Photos: Teresa Mahoney/staff, left; Denis C. Theriault/staff, right)

“I understand how someone unfamiliar with the schedule of a citizen legislator might be confused by the scale and scope of the meetings I have held over the last five years,” said Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, who used $5,000 in campaign money to pay for 105 visits to pubs and sports bars in his district. The dates of the payments included times when taxpayers were already reimbursing his meal costs. In an email, Evans said of his sports bar trips that he tries “to optimize available times during the week and/or weekends when people can meet” and that meetings over a meal “promote a constructive work environment.” He declined to say whether he purchased alcohol. Campaign cash saturates life in the state Capitol. You’ll see it everywhere when you walk in, past the inscription beseeching the state’s citizenry to eschew vice and be righteous purveyors of justice. It’s the bouquets on the floor of the House of Representatives and flowers on Senate desks. It’s the candy, coffee and water in Rep. Brian Clem’s office. It’s the ink and office supplies in Rep. Greg Smith’s office. It’s the souvenirs Rep. Sherrie Sprenger gives to children who visit her office. It’s flags and framed bills and commemorative pins and mugs and socks and end-of-session parties and all the hundreds of gifts that lawmakers give one another. Search the data: See how much current legislators have raised and from what source. Campaign money also bankrolls items that lawmakers can take home. Clem, D-Salem, bought a $399 Apple Watch in September, his latest campaign-funded accessory from the California company. He’s also purchased Apple’s wireless headphones, an iPad, an iPhone and a second Apple Watch. (One was for an aide, he explained.) “That’s all stuff I use here in the Capitol,” Clem said. His watch helps him keep track of meetings in Salem, he said. Clem said he needed wireless headphones because “when I’m driving and talking about legislative business, I can’t do it illegally.” He declined to explain why the wired headphones that come with every iPhone were insufficient for the task.

Rep. Caddy McKeown, D-Coos Bay, spent $690.24 in campaign funds in November 2013 for a stay at the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel during a conference. Unlike some states, Oregon allows campaign money to pay for travel related to being a legislator. (Photo: Jon Sullivan, left; Stephanie Yao Long/staff, right)

Eleven days before she resigned to lead the Oregon Home Builders Association, Rep. Jodi Hack, R-Salem, used $99 in campaign cash to pay her Amazon Prime membership. Hack said she was representing her constituents and doing outreach until her last day in office. Amazon was where she bought thank-you notes before she left, she said. In 2016, Gail Whitsett, a former Republican representative from Klamath Falls, spent $817.94 at a Salem Best Buy on a computer and printer for what she called “official use.” She left office three weeks later. In an email, Whitsett said she keeps the computer in a room at her home that she describes as her campaign committee office. It has been two years since she quit the Legislature. Oregon’s permissive campaign finance laws and their weak enforcement give lawmakers wide latitude in how they spend donors’ money. Although Oregon says candidates can’t spend the money for personal use, legislators get a huge loophole. Campaign money can pay expenses connected with a lawmaker’s official duties. Lawmakers can pick their excuse. Perhaps they needed a lavish dinner, posh resort stay, car wash or even dry cleaning because they hold office. Or because they’ll run for office again. Either way, they can pay the bills with campaign money. Other states make it harder. Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Maryland and Connecticut prohibit campaigns from covering the costs of holding office: no conference travel, no mileage to and from the state capital, no furniture for Capitol offices. “At least in Kentucky, the Legislature has decided that they want their official duties paid for officially, not through their campaigns,” said Emily Dennis, general counsel for the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance. Other states prohibit a variety of other expenses that Oregon allows. In Louisiana, it’s illegal to pay a family member’s salary with campaign money. In New Jersey, a campaign account can’t pay a legislative aide’s salary. New Mexico explicitly says campaign money can’t be used for living expenses during sessions. Oregon lawmakers say voters can keep them honest by monitoring expenditure reports posted online. Oregon’s system leaves legislators to decide “what they’re willing to have printed on the front page of the paper about them,” said John Huffman, a Republican who represented The Dalles for a decade. “That’s the judgment call they make.” But the money is not all out in the open. Legislative candidates paid more than $3 million in staffing costs without naming the person who did the work. Only the payroll vendor was listed. Lawmakers also listed $1.3 million in miscellaneous expenses of $100 or less, the legal threshold for reporting how they spent the money. When Oregonians call attention to questionable spending, regulators don’t always investigate. Oregon law says any election complaint must be signed by a registered voter. Records show since 2014, the Oregon State Elections Division has tossed two complaints because they were filed anonymously. When regulators do open a case, they don’t always follow through. The elections division, overseen by the Secretary of State, does not use its authority to subpoena records. Instead, compliance specialists write letters asking candidates for information. More than once, they dropped an investigation because no one wrote back. In California or Washington, a single newspaper story revealing shady spending can prompt regulators to start digging. Eric Jorgensen, deputy director of Oregon’s elections division, said his office takes a different approach. “Do we have to be reading every story trying to find things?” Jorgensen said. He said the late Secretary of State Dennis Richardson and other election officials told the staff “we should be complaint-driven, so we’re not out there as a gotcha organization.” A particularly blatant form of spending for personal gain, the double dip, gets the elections division’s blessing. A 2005 legislative effort to bar the practice failed. The Legislature pays lawmakers $149 each in per diems for food and lodging when they’re in session. It happens automatically, even if they live in Salem. Legislators living outside the capital can also turn some or all of the money into extra income by charging hotels and meals to their campaigns. Since 2008, legislators’ campaigns paid $186,000 for lodging and meals while the Legislature met. Twenty-three lawmakers used at least $500 in campaign money to pay rooms in Salem, a double reimbursement for living costs paid for by taxpayers. (Photos: Oregon Legislature) Senate Majority Leader Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, Sen. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay, former Rep. Bill Garrard, R-Klamath Falls, and former Rep. Sal Esquivel, R-Medford, all spent more than $10,000 in campaign cash on lodging during sessions in the last 10 years. Another 19 current and former lawmakers spent at least $500 on lodging while the Legislature met: House Speaker Tina Kotek, former House Majority Leader Val Hoyle, current House Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson, Sens. Bill Hansell, Chuck Riley, Chuck Thomsen, Dallas Heard, Dennis Linthicum, Jeff Kruse, Shemia Fagan, Tim Knopp and Reps. David Brock Smith, Duane Stark, Greg Smith, Jessica Vega Pederson, Judith Stiegler, Matt Wand and Mike Schaufler. And Deborah Boone. “It’s why people can do away with their full-time jobs and just become legislators,” said Jim Myron, a former policy adviser to Gov. Ted Kulongoski and now a lobbyist for Willamette Riverkeeper. “They’re living very fine on their campaign contributions and puny salary.”

Former Rep. Deborah Boone, D-Cannon Beach, used more than $1,000 in campaign funds to pay for dry cleaning, mainly at The Cleanery in Salem. (Photos: Teresa Mahoney/staff, left; The Daily Astorian, right)

The Oregonian/OregonLive spent 18 months examining how and why Oregon has fallen behind on so many important environmental fronts. The answer? Money. Oregon is one of just five states with no limits on campaign donations. No one has given more to state lawmakers in Oregon than Corporate America. Companies and industry groups contributed $43 million to winning candidates in elections from 2008 to 2016, nearly half the money legislators raised. Corporate donations promoted an easy regulatory climate where industry gets what it wants, while people threatened by pollution struggle to be heard. Few lawmakers spent campaign cash like Boone. She used it to pay more than $1,000 in dry cleaning bills. She spent it on car washes, wiper blades, snow tires, picture frames and a holiday wreath. But her fundraising was typical: 60 percent from corporations, just 4 percent from individuals and small, unnamed donors. When residents in Boone’s district turned to her for help in 2013, they were confronted with a reality that is all too common in Oregon. They hadn’t given a dime. 2004 2013 The first image is a Google Earth rendering of the Jetty Creek watershed in 2004, the second a 2013 photo showing the extent of logging in the area. The stream, which supplies drinking water to Rockaway Beach, turned muddy after the area was logged. (Photos: Google Earth, Don Best Photography) Nancy Webster first noticed something was wrong when the brown patches began appearing on the forested hills above the coastal town of Rockaway Beach, one clearcut after the other. Then came the helicopters, spraying weed killers. Webster could smell the chemicals at her home, a half-mile away. The most striking change was in Jetty Creek, which collects rainfall from the hills that had been logged. The creek provides drinking water to the town of 1,350 people. It was so full of mud, Webster said, it looked like chocolate milk. Timber companies own the entire 1,300-acre watershed and cut almost all of it over the past 15 years. City notices began showing up in the mail. They warned that chlorine, which the city uses as a disinfectant, had reacted with the muddy water to create high levels of a cancer-causing byproduct. State tests of creek water also found traces of a potent herbicide, sulfometuron methyl, that had been sprayed to control weeds so replanted trees could grow. One company that logged the Jetty Creek watershed said workers installed sediment traps to catch runoff and avoided spraying near the town’s drinking water plant. Another said it left wider buffers along streams than the law requires. For Webster and other residents, it wasn’t enough. They wanted safe drinking water, and they hoped Boone would help. Webster recalled driving to Salem for a citizen lobbying day and running into Boone on the Capitol steps. She told the veteran lawmaker what was happening. “It felt like she was not interested at all,” Webster said. “All she wanted to do was talk about the winery she visits in her rounds of the district.”

Nancy Webster on a tour of the Jetty Creek watershed in 2018. Logging roads and barren hillsides can create silty runoff in streams.