Since taking office in 2015, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has almost continuously been on the campaign trail.

The unusual circumstances of her rise to the state’s highest office — she became governor when John Kitzhaber resigned amid an influence peddling scandal — meant she had to run for election twice in the last four years.

And strikingly, instead of taking a break after winning re-election last year, Brown has continued raising money for her political action committee and spending it on campaign efforts including polls, ads and political advisers. That’s despite the fact she can’t seek re-election in 2022.

She’s logged more than 50 hours this year on what her state staffers describe in her official calendar as “campaign” time or “personal political activity,” with a flurry of such appointments in recent weeks.

Much of the $800,000 Brown’s political action committee had on hand as of Friday was left over from her 2018 gubernatorial race. However, Brown also raised $355,000 in the first seven months of 2019 and reported spending even more: $460,000, according to state campaign finance records. Those figures might not show the full picture, since Oregon allows candidates 30 days to report transactions.

While House members are barred from accepting donations when the Legislature is in session and many senators also refrain from it, Brown raised $238,000 during the session that ran from January through June, with more than $40,000 of that from small donations of $100 or less.

The governor wouldn’t agree to an interview to discuss her campaign strategy or why a sitting term-limited governor who is not running for another office should engage in “private political activity” during the work week. But her political consultants told The Oregonian/OregonLive that at least part of that work is to accomplish her policy priorities as governor.

Brown’s deputy communications director, Kate Kondayen, also repeatedly suggested that a reporter go through Brown’s privately paid political adviser, consultant Thomas Wheatley, to ask such questions.

“State government employees do not participate in or discuss with the governor her political activity,” Kondayen wrote in an email.

In practice, Brown’s state staff do interact with her political action committee and political consultants.

One of Brown’s most veteran staffers, communications director Chris Pair, has functioned as a conduit to her campaign, notifying Wheatley when a reporter from The Oregonian/OregonLive sought a response from the governor’s office last month to Republicans’ effort to recall her.

Nikki Fisher, the governor’s taxpayer-paid deputy press secretary who plans Brown’s events and handles messaging on topics including climate change and energy, confirmed last week that she worked as a volunteer for the governor’s political action committee as recently as July. The committee reported reimbursing Fisher $56 on July 20, which Fisher explained was reimbursement for lunch she bought while volunteering with the committee. Fisher didn’t respond to a question about whether any other members of Brown’s state staff volunteer their time working for the governor’s political action committee.

Wheatley has declined to explain what he does on a day-to-day basis as the governor’s political adviser. Brown’s committee reported paying Wheatley’s consulting business $32,000 during the 2019 legislative session, campaign finance records show.

Kevin Looper, who described himself as a strategic consultant to Brown, explained the work this way: “I literally answer the phone and give advice as it’s requested.” Brown’s political action committee reported paying Looper’s consulting business $18,000 during the 2019 legislative session.

As for the many hours Brown recorded in her calendar as “personal political activity,” Wheatley declined to say how much of it the governor spent fundraising for her committee or other entities. He did cite a couple specific examples of time Brown logged as personal political activity: attending a Pride festival event hosted by Human Rights Campaign, which endorses political candidates, speaking at a fundraiser for an environmental group and speaking at an “event with the disability community that raised money for the Democratic Party's work on disability issues.” And Wheatley pointed to Brown’s time spent as a member of the board of advisers to Let America Vote, a national organization focused on voter rights that has touted its work electing Democrats in the New Hampshire and Nevada legislatures.

Wheatley also said Brown is working to try to help pass a couple of proposals voters will likely see on their ballots in November 2020.

“Given that they are issues that voters will decide, she uses personal time to support these efforts, not making this part of her official duties,” Wheatley wrote in an email. “Two examples: Campaign finance reform requires a voter-approved constitutional amendment and the Legislature referred the cigarette tax to the ballot. The governor actively supports both of these proposals and is spending personal time in this regard.”

A significant chunk of the governor’s political spending during the Legislative session was on polling: nearly $70,000, according to state campaign finance records.

John Horvick, political director of DHM Research in Portland who was not involved in that polling, said it’s uncommon for clients to request polling during a legislative session. More typically, he said, polling begins six to nine months earlier, as clients seek public opinion research to demonstrate there is voter support for — or opposition to — a policy proposal lawmakers will likely consider in the upcoming session.

“They want to put public pressure on the Legislature for that,” Horvick said, noting clients also want to know how best to line up public support behind their approach. Lawmakers and advocates can use that wording when discussing an issue with journalists and other public forums, so that a tested message is repeated to the public, he said.

Clients can also use polling to pressure lawmakers or other elected officials to support or oppose a bill, by showing them how voters might react.

“It’s not unusual to ask in a survey if a legislator did x or y, would you be more likely to vote for them,” Horvick said. “Sometimes you want to be able to privately say to a legislator, ‘Hey, voters are going to hold you accountable for this.’”

His firm did conduct a poll about the proposed $1 billion-a-year tax for schools for the state school boards association during the 2019 session.

Wheatley, Brown’s political adviser, would not identify the issues on which the governor commissioned polling. “We like to hear directly from the public on a wide variety of issues, whether that is through social media, email or public opinion research,” Wheatley wrote in an email. “We don't comment on the specifics.”

However, two of the governor’s polling expenditures were at the point in the legislative session when Democrats were deciding the form of their number one priority: the bill to institute the business tax and direct its spending on education. Her political action committee spent $13,000 with Washington, D.C.-based polling firm GBA Strategies on March 19 and $37,5000 with New York City-headquartered polling firm Global Strategy Group on April 29, according to campaign finance records.

Supporters knew it was crucial to design the tax-and-spending plan in a way that would appeal to voters, given the potential that opponents could refer the tax to voters. Indeed, a group of Oregon industrial companies announced it would ask voters to overturn the tax before abandoning the effort in mid-July.

The governor’s third polling expenditure during the session, $19,000 with the California firm Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates on May 12, was logged the day after Senate Republicans returned from their first boycott of the Capitol, which briefly prevented a vote that was the final hurdle for the tax for education bill. Lawmakers were also turning their attention to a couple other contentious proposals at the time: a bill to require public employees to begin contributing to Oregon’s public pension fund and a controversial climate change plan.

Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat who served as Oregon’s governor from 2003 through January 2011, said he used polling conducted before a legislative session as one of the tools to convince the Legislature to pass hospital taxes to expand state health care coverage for children. He said he paid for it with money left over from one of his gubernatorial campaigns. Kulongoski said he commissioned the poll before the legislative session to help figure out what voter-supported “revenue stream we could come up with.” He presented the findings to lawmakers, he said, “and it worked.”

In 2019, Brown’s political action committee has continued to spend robustly on other items, including $61,000 on payroll and $2,700 on health insurance during the 2019 legislative session, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive’s analysis of state campaign finance records.

Keeping the governor’s supporters engaged and donating is another major expense for Brown’s campaign. She reported spending $5,600 during the legislative session on Blue State Digital, a company that provides online fundraising and other digital services, and $3,000 on Rising Tide Interactive which also helps clients keep supporters engaged online to boost activism and fundraising. Her PAC spent $4,500 on access to voter or donor databases and $1,500 for social media and other online advertising with a company called Blueprint Interactive.

Wheatley said the governor did not solicit political contributions during the legislative session, yet still the money continued to roll in as lawmakers met in Salem, in increments of $10 as well as $5,000 and $10,000.

Nationwide, Democrats’ 15-year-old powerhouse fundraising platform, ActBlue, has made it easier for candidates like Brown to raise large amounts through small contributions. Once someone saves their credit card information with ActBlue, donating to a Democrat takes just one click on their smartphone. Emails sent out periodically by Brown’s political team prompt people to give money.

Brown’s political action committee reported spending $1,746 on credit card processing fees with ActBlue during the legislative session, meaning the company likely helped her bring in roughly $44,000 in contributions (the company charges a flat 3.95 percent fee on transactions).

Sarah Bryner, director of research and strategy at the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks the influence of money in politics, said the governor’s continued fundraising could mirror what U.S. lawmakers who are not seeking re-election often do: continue accumulating campaign cash so they can ultimately “share the wealth with other politicians.”

— Hillary Borrud | hborrud@oregonian.com | 503-294-4034 | @hborrud

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