(C) Common Dreams
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An opaque PAC spending big on attack ads in Portland congressional race releases much-anticipated donor list. It’s blank [1]
['Sami', 'Edge', 'Sedge Oregonian.Com', 'Sami Edge', 'The Oregonian Oregonlive']
Date: 2024-05-21 00:27:17.080000+00:00
An obscure political group that has pumped at least $3.25 million into ads attacking Susheela Jayapal, a former Multnomah County commissioner running for Congress, released a much-anticipated federal filing disclosing its April donors on Monday.
The form lists no donors or donations.
That means Voters for Responsive Government, which formed as a political action committee in April, must have taken in all of the donations fueling its multi-million dollar campaign against Jayapal in the three weeks before the election – past the April 30 deadline that would have required the group to disclose its backers before Oregon’s May 21 primary.
Jayapal is facing state Rep. Maxine Dexter, Gresham City Councilor Eddy Morales and attorney Michael Jonas in the Democratic primary for the 3rd Congressional District, a seat long held by retiring U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer.
“It is despicable and the height of hypocrisy that a group called Voters for Responsive Government would use loopholes (to) ensure Oregon voters don’t know who is behind their $3 million of smears and unfounded lies,” Andrea Cervone, Jayapal’s campaign manager, said in a statement on Monday evening.
To put its $3.25 million into perspective, the candidates have raised and spent about $600,000 to $900,000 apiece for their own campaigns.
Voters for Responsive Government must have received more than $1 million in the first two days of May. On May 2, the political group paid just over $1 million for ads against Jayapal. It has since made several more media buys against the candidate, funding commercials and mailers accusing Jayapal of poor leadership when she was on the Multnomah County Commission.
The negative ads are incendiary and somewhat misleading. They attempt to pin the failings of the Multnomah County Commission and its powerful chair on Jayapal alone. Jayapal was one of five commissioners in charge of county business between 2019 and her resignation in late 2023.
One flyer shows a picture of caged dogs and draws from The Oregonian/OregonLive’s coverage of neglect at the Multnomah County animal shelter while Jayapal was on the commission. Another says Jayapal and the county commission gave “crack pipes, straws and tin foil to drug addicts,” in response to the area drug crisis.
In fact, the county’s plan to provide smoking supplies to fentanyl and meth users as a method of harm reduction never happened before it was put on hold last summer. And the problems at the county animal shelter existed long before Jayapal joined the commission.
Cary Davidson, a California lawyer who is listed as the treasurer for the PAC, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sami Edge covers higher ed and politics for The Oregonian. You can reach her at
[email protected] or (503) 260-3430.
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[1] Url:
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2024/05/an-opaque-pac-spending-big-in-portland-congressional-race-releases-much-anticipated-donor-list-its-blank.html
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