OR-4: Leiken's statements don't match his C&E documents
Kari Chisholm
The ongoing saga of OR-4 congressional candidate and Springfield mayor Sid Leiken and his troubling behavior with campaign funds has taken another twist.
To briefly recap: Leiken's mayoral campaign paid $2000 to SWL Consulting, his own company. After the Register-Guard started poking around, Leiken amended his filings to note that the payment was really a reimbursement to P&G Marketing for polling services. When the DPO filed a complaint, noting that P&G Marketing didn't seem to exist, Leiken admitted that P&G Marketing was a company controlled by his mother - a real estate agent.
For now, let's set aside the question of why you'd hire a real estate agent to conduct political polling.
Leiken told the Register-Guard on June 25 that his mother's "polling firm" did the work for "far less than he would have paid other vendors."
And all the way back on May 23, Leiken told the R-G:
The mayor said that as the political leader of the city, he periodically commissions polls on city issues. ...That polling “has just been mine to kind of gauge on where things are,” he said. “That’s the way I’ve always operated with my past polling efforts as well. I don’t share it with the public.”
But here's the thing: I've reviewed all of Leiken's past campaign finance reports - both the electronic ORESTAR and handwritten pre-ORESTAR filings - and I can't find any evidence whatsoever that he's ever paid for any polling before.
Take a look for yourself. Here's a PDF (4mb) with 67 pages of pre-ORESTAR records. Check out his ORESTAR records.
As far as I can tell, the $2000 poll that's the subject of all these questions is the only poll he's ever done. So why the weird statements that he's done lots of polling before? Were those expenditures also mis-reported? Did he fail to report the expenditures completely? Was he doing polling with city funds?
The documents and his statements just don't match up.
One more thing: The deadline for Leiken to turn over the polling data to state investigators was yesterday at 5 p.m.
Update: Looks like Leiken got an extension until Friday at 5 p.m. He's also hired top GOP election lawyer John DiLorenzo, according to the R-G. This is getting interesting.
Stay tuned.
(Previous coverage is here, here, and here.)
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Jul 14, '09
Thanks for your work on this, Kari.
This is just weird and smells fishy.
As Jack Roberts pointed out on a previous thread, the dollar amounts are relatively small. Why would Leiken risk being caught (and election law violators are usually caught) over $2k? You have to wonder if this minnow is just a sign that there's a tarpon lurking out there somewhere.
Jul 14, '09
Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust" comes to mind.
This guy is no longer a candidate the voters could seriously consider for state-wide office.
Jul 14, '09
Or did he pay for the polling out of his own pocket? (which could explain why he hasn't previously felt obligated to share the poll results with the public?) If so, would he be required to report the expenditures at all then?
I don't know the guy and don't really care - just offering additional possible explanations (that don't imply some degree of nefarious wrongdoing...)
8:04 a.m.
Jul 14, '09
Or did he pay for the polling out of his own pocket? ... If so, would he be required to report the expenditures at all then?
Yes. That would be an in-kind contribution to his campaign committee.
Jul 14, '09
alcatross,
Doesn't it seem a bit odd for him to be polling about city government matters out of his own pocket? That seems weird, too. Why the need for secrecy?
If he's commissioning polls "as the political leader of the city", doesn't the city have the right to see the results of those polls?
Jul 14, '09
Bottom line: Springfield will soon have a new mayor. Oregon's fourth Congressional District will have The Faz for the foreseeable future, as long as he wants the job.
Jul 14, '09
Choosing Leiken in the first place shows how out-of-touch Republican leadership is with Oregon voters. He has absolutely no chance against DeFazio.
9:51 a.m.
Jul 14, '09
Or did he pay for the polling out of his own pocket? ... If so, would he be required to report the expenditures at all then?
Yes. That would be an in-kind contribution to his campaign committee.
I'm not sure that's true. If an office holder not currently engaged in an election campaign wanted to poll local issues to guide him or her on issues to champion or avoid as an office holder (as opposed to as a candidate), and paid for such polling personally, I don't think that qualifies as a campaign expenditure and would probably not have to be reported as an in-kind contribution.
Jul 14, '09
Jack,
Doesn't it strike you as weird that a governmental official would conduct personal polling? Since he's keeping the results secret, how do we know it wasn't exploratory polling for his Congressional run?
And if he's doing the polling to help guide him in doing his job as Mayor of Springfield, shouldn't that also be made public, regardless of who paid for it?
10:44 a.m.
Jul 14, '09
I concur with fbear, it's weird that a person would pay for polling out of their own pocket. What's the point of this? To not let the public know what you're doing because you don't have to disclose it?
I dunno..it doesn't seem to make much sense.
Is it possible? Sure. But within the realm of likely? I don't see it.
Jul 14, '09
Maybe this was the question:
I don't care if elected public officials obey the law.
Agree Disagree Not Sure
11:25 a.m.
Jul 14, '09
I actually don't know of any elected officials who have paid for polling out of their own pockets, so my example was hypothetical.
I do remember hearing that when Kitzhaber was governor he did a lot of polling and even focus groups on things he did or was considering doing, including whether too sign or veto certain bills.
I dististinctly remember an insider in that administration telling me that their focus group was very positive about his snub of Bill Clinton when the president visited Oregon and Kitzhaber refused to cancel or cut short his vacation to greet him.
I don't know who paid for that but I certainly don't recall the results being made public.
Jul 14, '09
Jack,
Can you cite a source about the focus group re. Kitzhaber and Clinton?
Jul 14, '09
fbear says: Doesn't it strike you as weird that a governmental official would conduct personal polling? Since he's keeping the results secret, how do we know it wasn't exploratory polling for his Congressional run?
No, it doesn't strike me as weird - I just Googled 'officeholder commissioning private poll' and got a number of references... the concept isn't unheard of and perhaps not even uncommon. We don't know if it wasn't exploratory polling for a Congressional run - and as long as he hadn't declared and officially set up a campaign, so what? Politicians look to seek higher office all the time.
1:51 p.m.
Jul 14, '09
Can you cite a source about the focus group re. Kitzhaber and Clinton?
It was a personal conversation I had at the time with someone who worked for Kitzhaber and was in a position to know. I don't feel that it would be appropriate for me to identify the person so anyone is free to dismiss it as unverified hearsay if you wish.
Jul 14, '09
Jack,
The thing that has me wondering about this is, you're an experienced politician, yet you seem to recall only one similar instance.
alcatross seems to think this happens all the time. It seems like it's more of a case that it's not unheard of, but rare.
Interestingly, the first hit I got on alcatross's google search was from Ghana.
2:25 p.m.
Jul 14, '09
I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt. That said, this clearly calls for investigation. Members of the Oregon make such a low salary that I could easily see someone violating ethics for relative nickels and dimes.
The real fix is to pay the legislature a real salary, but so long as that is subject to demagoguery (more often than not by conservatives), then we're going to have legislators paying their relatives just to try to make ends meet.
Jul 14, '09
fbear says: alcatross seems to think this happens all the time. It seems like it's more of a case that it's not unheard of, but rare.
Interestingly, the first hit I got on alcatross's google search was from Ghana.
fbear, instead of knee-jerk misquoting and casting aspersions, might want to read my post more closely. Again, I said: 'the concept isn't unheard of and perhaps not even uncommon.' That's not 'thinking' or even 'seeming to think' it happens all the time.
And the first rule of doing a thorough Google search is don't just stop with the first entry. More interestingly, if you'll bother to look farther you'll find Sen Robert F Kennedy commissioned a private poll back in 1968, Arlen Specter did it just recently, and even a citation of a 1966 'Contemporary Use of Private Political Polling' article from Public Opinion Quarterly that says private polling is widely used... and that's just on the first page.
8:04 p.m.
Jul 14, '09
"No, it doesn't strike me as weird - I just Googled 'officeholder commissioning private poll' and got a number of references... the concept isn't unheard of and perhaps not even uncommon. We don't know if it wasn't exploratory polling for a Congressional run - and as long as he hadn't declared and officially set up a campaign, so what? Politicians look to seek higher office all the time."
Well, federal law is different than Oregon law - but it's quite clear that "exploratory polling" would have to be reported somewhere. See the Sho Dozono poll in the mayoral race...
As for jack's question about policy polling funded personally, that might an interesting exception. Given that there would be no advantage in failing to disclose it as an in-kind donation, I'm not sure I'd want to be the test case.
8:05 p.m.
Jul 14, '09
There's one sure way to test his theory--stand there while his mom compiles a brief statement on her methodology for the call...how she got her universe and sample, whether and how she weighted it, what her MoE was, number of contacts. She should be able to do most of it right off the top of her head if she really conducted a poll.
Or anything, actually--who did she call? How did she get the numbers?
Jul 16, '09