The Role That Corporations Play in Oregon’s Elections
Do private special interests have an undue influence on election outcomes? Short answer: yes.
When you and I donate to candidates, it’s because we believe in the candidate’s ideas and want to see them make a positive change in government. But when corporations donate to candidates, it may be because that corporation believes that candidate’s policies would align with the company’s bottom line. Our current campaign finance laws (or lack thereof) give corporation-backed political candidates a huge leg up over the other candidates who Americans might otherwise prefer.
This might not seem like a huge problem until you realize that political candidates with the most money overwhelmingly win their races. Although corporations aren’t able to cast a ballot, they can assure that a candidate has enough funds to reach more people than their opponent.
You can see for yourself which special interests are donating to which candidates this year with this public database. If you haven’t been checking who the donors are of which each candidate when casting your ballot, don’t worry: very few people do. The task itself is very daunting and time consuming; that’s why it's so easy for corporation-backed politicians to squeeze by and win a seat in office.
Thankfully, work is already underway here in Oregon to remedy this issue. A recent Constitutional Amendment passed in 2020 (Measure 107) authorized the state to create laws limiting campaign contributions and requires that candidates disclose their contributions. This measure passed with nearly 80% support with the help of Patrick Starnes, the Independent Party’s nominee in the 2018 gubernatorial race and a current candidate for the 2022 gubernatorial race. While lobbying for the amendment, Starnes learned that there was a surprising amount of support among Oregon legislators for this amendment as well; Republicans were worried about big PAC donations while Democrats were worried about large corporate donations.
If this is true, why doesn’t Oregon have Campaign Finance Reform yet? The truth is that it simply isn’t a priority for many legislators. It’s easy for them to say that they support it, but almost none of them walk the walk. However, many states have already taken initiative by either completely banning corporate and PAC donations or limiting the individual contribution limit to $1,000 per person per year.
This is exactly what candidates like Starnes are doing to model Campaign Finance Reform here in Oregon. It both highlights which candidates are supported by corporation's, and builds momentum for reforming how campaigning is done. The tricky part is that creating campaign finance laws requires the cooperation of legislators, who themselves benefit from the lack of these laws. Measure 107 has paved the road for reform in Oregon, but the hard work isn’t over yet. One of the only ways to create tangible finance laws is to either pressure our own legislators, elect leaders who refuse corporate donations, or through ballot measures initiated by Oregonians.
Jared is a Politics, Policy, Law and Ethics Major at Willamette University, aspiring to bring Oregon together to achieve more representative elections and a sustainable energy program to brag about.
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What/who are considered a "special interest"?
Unions own Democrats so it will not happen.