Oof.

Nifty, ready for a coronation of Scamway Tramway Sam?

Leaving aside any politics, the law here was very clearly against Sho. Blackmer's reasoning was just plainly contrary to the statute, so the administrative law judge did the only thing he could.

Nifty, ready for a coronation of Scamway Tramway Sam?

How about a coronation with him roping down from the tram?

Why did Sam Adams find it necessary to spend $10,000 of his own campaign funds to challenge Sho Dozono?

Why didn't Sam just let the administrative law judge reach his own conclusions?

And then Sam has the audacity to blame Sho that Sam spent $10k prosecuting his only qualified challenger?

PORTLAND'S experience with voter owned elections has been nothing more than just damned embarrassing. For those of us that support the concept of VOE on local and national levels, I can't imagine these continued scandals haven't set the cause back here locally, and inadvertently, Oregon too.

"If systems that have been in place for many, many decades still reveal flaws, why be so impatient as to give up on one that hasn't even been in place for two cycles yet?"

Because it is so screwed up it will get eve more worse.\

VoE was set up to support the insider/incumbent who has all day to read the rules. So, guess what, we'll just keep getting the same tired-status quo incumbents.

No one has ever explained why it is even necessary. If it is to keep politicians pure - good luck, there are so many ways around buying a politicians favor you would have to be naive to think this city code cant be convtravened. Heck, they can't even figure how to enforce it the same way.

"to allow those candidates, once in office, to not be big money-beholden office-holders."

OK< Mr Adams is not on VoE (probably to make sure he won't get outspent.) So who's he beholden to? IF you say no one, then again why do we need VoE?

I hope Sho either appeals the decision or runs with private money. He's the best candidate in the race and he's got my vote.

Dan P. Bravo! Well put! Before folks rush to declare the system at fault here, had Dozono been allowed to continue as a publicly financed candidate after having accepted such a large private contribution above the in-kind limits, this would itself have been slammed as a fault in the system.

We should also keep in mind (a) the overall success of the new system this cycle, with six other candidates qualified and now running in two Council races, and (b) the many problems and inequities inherent in the existing system of privately financed elections. If systems that have been in place for many, many decades still reveal flaws, why be so impatient as to give up on one that hasn't even been in place for two cycles yet?

Giving Voter Owned Elections a chance is the way to go. We're not going to get it perfect this cycle, but soon, you all wait. It'll be great!

I'm sick to death of volunteering for candidates who have to whore themselves out to get their messages out to corporations who then expect favors and/or access when some something or another comes down the pike. It is my sincere hope that someday, Oregon's legislative positions will also be run with public money.

To me, I see VOE as the equivalent of Oregon's bottle bill.

What I find hard to ignore, is that in this go-round of VOE, a number of candidates far less known, and probably far less politically experienced than Sho Dozono, seemed to have managed to follow the rules for qualifing for VOE funds just fine. Yet somehow, Sho Dozono, the person some people consider to be the best person for the next mayor of Portland, couldn't. Maybe Sho should have called up some of those other candidates for campaign advice before getting his own campaign rolling.

Can you imagine the taxes Portlanders will get clobbered with if "Tax 'em Sam" Adams becomes mayor? It's blood-curdling.

Can you imagine the conditions the streets will deteriorate to if Portland residents get clobbered with Sho Dozono as Mayor? Here's a guy that can't even follow the rules to put together a political campaign properly. How that suggests he could handle the job of mayor is hard to fathom.

I've got a lovely 3 bed 2.5 bath home in South Burlingame that goes on the market the day after Tram Adams wins the mayor's race.

1,938 square feet, fresh exterior paint with Eldorado Stone accents, new high capacity h/w weater, A/C and forced air gas heat, natural gas/modular fireplace, newly remodeled kitchen, and $5,833/year in property taxes. Mary Rieke/Wilson school district. First $525k w/o contingencies buys it. 3% courtesy to brokers.

Anybody know a good realtor in Vancouver?

Kari,

It was actually the authors of VOE who called it clean money, stating: We propose a solution: Portland should adopt Clean Money Campaign Financing. The system levels the playing field by giving candidates who demonstrate real grassroots support the financing they need to run an effective campaign. Candidates, particularly incumbents, tend to rely on large contributions from a few contributors.

Letter from Blackmer and Sten link to letter on Portland Online (7/12/04)

In fact the whole proposal in that link on Portland Online is splattered with the term “Clean Money.” While it’s true that the original proposal did not specifically cite the stemming of corruption or “dirty money,” as you said in your address to City Council, “After all, nobody will just give $1000. Ya gotta romance 'em.” Certainly in all the text behind the VOE proposal, there was plenty of room in there to explicitly state that this wasn’t about corruption, but use of the term “Clean Money” certainly conveyed the existence of “dirty money” to the “strong majority” of 57% of Portland voters (from the state wide ballot four years earlier) that Sten and Blackmer cited as support. I will bet that if you surveyed THEM, many of those voters would have cited stopping corruption and “dirty money.”

So the original proposal states that candidates “tend to rely on large contributions from a few contributors” and you say “ya gotta romance ‘em” to get the money. The news these days is rife with instances in which elected officials reward their campaign contributors. Even the City Club of Portland’s endorsement of Measure 6 in 2000 (which was cited as support for passing VOE) stated that many candidates “do not want to be beholden to special interests” as a reason for supporting it. Oregon Action, one of the main organizations that spearheaded Measure 6, spoke of the “corrosive effects of money on public policy.”

Essentially, Portland’s VOE movement called on a lot of secondary research that was several years out-of-date to make the case for “Clean Money,” and that support that existed for Measure 6 came in part by promulgating messages of the “corrosive effects” and “special interests” that need to be addressed with “Clean Money.” Do you not associate those messages with corruption or dirty money?

So I reject your argument that this was never about “dirty money” in the system. Implicitly if not explicitly, it had been all along. To use an IT analogy, if you call one module or table, you attach yourself to all those attributes that are inherited from that key information. Portland’s “Clean Money” was always concatenated with Measure 6 and the argument for it called up data that supported Measure 6. It was a poor methodology to base diversion of $1.3 million (I think it’s probably costing a lot more than that each election cycle, given all the problems). Sure it’s less than one-thousandth of Portland's budget, but what is the opportunity cost? Just walk through your average park (on the east side) and many potential answers to that question will come to mind.

Your argument was solid to City Council, since it was your personal view and probably taken as expert opinion, but I don’t think your view of what the “Clean Money” proposal was all about was necessarily what the average voter saw it as. Ultimately, however, I think your best point to City Council was at the end.

There are, of course, a lot of implementation and enforcement details to be worked out, and I'm happy to help, but ultimately this proposal is a very good thing for Portland.

Too bad all (or at least most) of the implementation and enforcement details were never effectively worked out. Somebody needs to be held responsible for that. “Clean Money” may eventually be a good thing for Portland, but it hasn’t been yet. I support the idea, but I admonish the way it’s been handled. Maybe “Clean Money” needs to go to the ballot and you can buy an Argument in Favor page that tells voters they should expect nothing in the way of eliminating corruption for their investment in public elections. Tell the public they are just "buying back" their politicians' time. I’d be interested in seeing how well that goes over.

To supporters of VOE:

If you want to save this system, and I do, it is incumbent upon us to remove it from City Council/Auditor control. The Auditor has proven inept at managing the program starting with Emily Boyles and continuing two years later with Sho Dozono. The "issues" that are still being worked out are so basic, it's inexcusable that it's taken this long. As for Council, there is no reason they should be in charge of a program that impacts their own elections, or the elections of those they have endorsed. Look at the Middaugh/Fish debacle, where those who have endorsed Middaugh (Sten) are working to give him an advantage, while those supporting Fish (Leonard, Potter) are working in the opposite direction.

VOE should be administered by an independent citizens commission with authority to write and interpret the rules, verify candidate eligibility, and otherwise run the program. That's the only way VOE will survive its scheduled referendum in 2010.

Miles,

Independent administration could be a good idea, but to work it would need to be truly independent of elected officials, have the resources necessary to do the job independently, and have some mechanism to assure accountability to the people. If not, such a citizens commission might become another tool of special interests.

Sam does not want to be the Mayor of the City of Portland – he wants to be crowned the Dictator in Chief of the Republic of Portland, controlling the people’s lifestyle, housing and transportation choices. Just like stuffing town halls, public hearings and citizen advisory committees with cronies to control the outcome, Sam’s double talk of leveling the playing field is to mow down his primary opponent at the last minute using the flaws in a voter owned election policy he as a wonk should have known were there when he voted for it. Sam is sticking to his lack of credibility by playing dirty politics. He has never been one to play on a level field. If that were true, he would have already leveled the playing field when it comes to transportation taxes by supporting a bicycle tax to pay for bicycle infrastructure, and support a requirement the only revenue source for of streetcar service come from the ridership through the farebox instead of poaching the funds from parking meter fees and other motorist paid taxes that that should only be used for roads and street maintenance.

Hopefully Sho will stay in the race, run a grass roots campaign and beat the bicycle boots and toy trolley kid gloves off of Sam.

I would like to know how people imagine the skills Sho Dozono has are going to translate into someone qualified to lead the city.

Dozono's major achievement seems to have been some years back, in helping to raise a considerable sum of money to help offset a school budget deficit. Other than that, his experience in government seems to generally consist of having been from time to time, an intermediary of sorts between city government and certain parts of the community. Except to a seemingly small number of ardent supporters, he's more of an invisible figure, and surely an almost invisible candidate for mayor.

People's comments here in support of Dozono are quick to rabidly criticize Adams record as commissioner and how that anticipates his performance as mayor, but are notably thrifty in offering anything of substance suggesting how Dozono is going to accomplish anything positive whatsoever as mayor of Portland.

"Hopefully Sho will stay in the race, run a grass roots campaign and beat the bicycle boots and toy trolley kid gloves off of Sam." Terry Parker

Don't hold your breath.

I don't know the exact timeline of the poll and Sho's knowledge of it, even though I believe this has been clearly reported. What I gather, the key points that this controversy revolves around are, has to do with when Dozono knew about the poll, and then his failure to report the date of that knowledge within the starting date of his campaign.

If Sho is such a well known figure and popular choice for a potential mayoral candidate in town, why would anyone even waste $2500 on a poll to see if he was in demand? I thought the $5 from 1500 contributors was supposed to be validation in itself that sufficient demand existed for a person to run for office. How many of the other candidates working within this VOE system had someone that would effectively front them $1500 for a pre-campaign poll to hedge their chances of winning a seat?