With the election over, Oregon lawmakers and Gov. Kate Brown are turning their attention to the 2019 legislative session a little more than two months away.

Raising billions of dollars in taxes to pour into improving schools is at the top of legislative Democrats' to-do list and there's one company in particular they see offering help: Nike.

The state's largest company played a central role in the election and is now poised to have significant impact shaping tax policy in 2019. Big companies go to great lengths to minimize their tax bills. By supporting Democrats' drive for revenue, Nike is in the catbird seat to push for tax policies that would be less of a financial hit to the company's bottom line.

Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, said he doesn't expect the broader business community to support lawmakers' push to raise business taxes. He accused businesses of burning him "very badly" when they stalled Democrats' attempt to pass a gross receipts tax in 2017 by insisting public pension savings were a prerequisite.

Enter Nike and a small group of other businesses that are meeting with public employee unions and soon also the governor's administration to craft tax policy for the 2019 legislative session.

At the center of the group is Julia Brim-Edwards, Nike's senior director of government and public affairs. It was Brim-Edwards who assembled a small group of businesses over the summer to fund a political action committee called the Common Good fund: Nike, Portland tech company Cloudability, an association that represents long-term care facilities, Genentech and Comcast also took part.

"Julia Brim-Edwards, to her credit, at Nike, is one of the ones we're really looking to ... They're really going to try to say, 'Alright, this is what we're going to do,'" Courtney said.

Brown's spokesman Chris Pair never responded to a request for comment.

Greg Rossiter, a spokesman for Nike, wrote in an email that "Nike works to find common ground with businesses of all sizes, community members and groups, public employees and elected leaders. We want Oregon to be a great place for our employees to live and work, and for businesses to grow and thrive, which includes strong, healthy schools, safe neighborhoods, places to play, and other essential public services."

Brim-Edwards' involvement dates back to June when she asked the governor to intervene to keep the public employee unions' so-called corporate transparency initiative off the ballot. It would have forced Nike and other companies to reveal closely held tax information in state filings, although they could have avoided doing so by paying a fine.

As public employee unions considered how to defeat four conservative ballot initiatives and re-elect Brown, Nike offered its support. The unions agreed to play ball, tossing out the thousands of signatures their contractor had collected to get the initiative on the ballot. Brim-Edwards formed the Common Good Fund and it chipped in to help re-elect the governor and defeat two anti-tax ballot initiatives: Measures 103 and 104. Those initiatives would have banned future grocery and soda taxes and made it more difficult for the Legislature to trim tax breaks.

In Oregon's no-limits campaign finance environment, Nike and the other Common Good Fund members' spending was relatively moderate. Nike has reported putting in $225,000, the bulk of the fund's roughly $300,000 in reported fundraising. The company also contributed directly to the political action committee Defend Oregon, which is affiliated with the unions, and spent more than $100,000 on Brown's campaign. The nursing home industry's political action committee reported giving $150,000 directly to Brown's campaign.

The group's bigger contribution could turn out to be their support for raising taxes. And they haven't just come to the table: Nike hired Paul Warner, the Legislature's well-respected former top economist, to help the group develop tax policy.

Brim-Edwards' strategy could benefit Nike in a couple ways. With Nike co-founder Phil Knight putting millions of dollars behind Republican Knute Buehler's campaign for governor, the company risked creating ill will with Brown who as a Democratic incumbent was the odds-on favorite to win re-election.

By helping to defeat the two anti-tax initiatives, Measures 103 and 104, Nike and the other Common Good Fund businesses were also able to keep more taxing options on the table going into 2019. Since the amount of tax revenue generated depends on both the rate and who pays, a low rate charged to broader base of businesses and other entities can generate the same amount of money as a higher tax rate on a smaller group.

According to Courtney, the two types of taxes Democrats favor are a gross receipts tax and a value-added tax. Both are similar to a sales tax in that they tax consumption, but they would be charged to businesses rather than consumers.

A gross receipts tax, which is what unions proposed and voters rejected in Measure 97 in 2016, could apply to all goods and services sold in the state and thus expand the state's tax base to include companies from outside Oregon with sales in the state. The tax disproportionately hits companies that purchase a lot of goods or services from in-state vendors, since it is charged at each sale. A company with multinational manufacturing operations such as Nike is less likely to feel that impact.

A value-added tax can be formulated in many different ways, so its impact on Nike would depend on the specifics. Nicole Kaeding, an economist with the conservative leaning Tax Foundation in Washington, D.C., said New Hampshire is currently the only state with a value-added tax and it is calculated on multiple factors including compensation and dividends paid by the business.

"Under this sort of approach, you'd look at more than just sales in the state," Kaeding wrote in an email. "A firm with a lot of sales, but no compensation in the state would pay less than a firm with a lot of compensation and limited sales."

Nike opposed Measure 97, which would have added a relatively large gross receipts tax on top of Oregon's existing corporate income tax. But in 2017, the company joined other businesses in signing letters of support for lawmakers working on gross receipts tax proposals, including Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton, who wanted to replace the corporate income tax with a gross receipts tax.

Nike's history of obtaining a special tax agreement from the state six years ago is likely to breed skepticism among observers who see the company once again calling the shots. Courtney said he's unsure how to respond to those questions.

"I'm not going to have the luxury to say, 'You're not a saint, so I don't' want your help,'" Courtney said. "I'll take their help. The bottom line to me is the children."

In December 2012, then-Gov. John Kitzhaber ordered lawmakers back to Salem on four days notice to pass legislation allowing the governor to sign a contract guaranteeing the method of Nike's income tax calculation for 30 years to come.

Oregon currently uses a "single-sales factor" approach, which taxes profits on sales only within the state, for multistate corporations. The agreement enshrines that method for Nike, even if the state adopts a new calculation for other companies; a year later, the Legislature and Kitzhaber gave Intel the same deal.

Rossiter, with Nike, would not say whether the company's single-sales agreement with the state would impact its tax liability under tax policies the company and unions are discussing with the state. He pointed out Nike's headquarters expansion "far exceeded the commitment of new jobs created and capital investment" required in the state agreement.

It does not appear Nike's agreement would apply to a gross receipts tax. Chris Allanach, the state's legislative revenue officer, said it does not appear Nike's agreement would apply to the calculation of a value-added tax, but he could not rule it out.

"Conceptually, the issue of apportionment could arise with a (value-added tax), depending on how it's structured," Allanach wrote in an email. "But it's not clear to me that the current laws of the income/excise tax would automatically apply to a new tax. However, I can see the argument for structuring the policy that way."

Jody Wiser, a registered lobbyist with Tax Fairness Oregon, said she expects Nike would be subject to any tax plan that would come from the discussions. "There's nothing we could raise that they wouldn't pay," Wiser said.

Although just a handful of businesses are in Nike's discussions, the company remains a member of multiple business associations including the state's largest such group, Oregon Business & Industry.

"I'm sure they're going to have discussions with us in good faith," Oregon Business & Industry Chief Executive Sandra McDonough said.

Nike has four registered lobbyists in Oregon yet Brim-Edwards isn't among them, a reflection of how some of the state's most powerful political players aren't in the lobby's rolls. "Our registered lobbyists are those that are engaged in the day-to-day work with the Oregon Legislature," Rossiter wrote in an email.

Brim-Edwards Tweeted photos from a ceremonial bill signing earlier this year with the governor, Portland students, lawmakers and Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum.

A Portland school board member, Brim-Edwards has a strong connection to the public education system. Now a Democrat, she was a longtime Republican despite being married to Democratic state representative and then state treasurer Randall Edwards.

"She's formidable," Courtney said of Brim-Edwards, whose husband he served with in the Legislature. "And she has the trust of Nike and Phil Knight ... She goes wherever she wants within the Nike structure. She is that kind of player."

This story has been updated to reflect the following corrections: an earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Nike was a member of Business for a Better Portland in 2017, which the company did not join until 2018, and also incorrectly described Nike as a private company.

-- Hillary Borrud

503-294-4034; @hborrud