FILE - Portland Mayoral Candidate Rene Gonzalez, at his election night party held at Kell’s Pub in Portland, Ore., Nov. 5, 2024.
Troy Brynelson / OPB
Former Portland city commissioner Rene Gonzalez is suing the city for its handling of campaign finance complaints made against him during his 2024 mayoral run.
In the lawsuit filed Monday, Gonzalez claims the city violated his due process rights by not giving him a chance to defend himself against accusations that he violated campaign finance rules.
“Government has an obligation to enforce the law,” wrote Gonzalez’s attorney D. Angus Lee in a statement shared with OPB. “But when it imposes penalties and damages reputations without a meaningful opportunity to be heard, it raises serious constitutional concerns—especially when those actions occur in the middle of an election.”
The litigation comes eight months after a Multnomah County court made this same determination, requiring Portland to refund Gonzalez for the fines levied through what it determined was an unconstitutional process. City council has since adjusted the city’s campaign finance rules to address the issues identified in that court ruling.
Gonzalez, who is also an attorney, said his lawsuit is not meant to “relitigate” the outcome of the 2024 election, which he lost to Mayor Keith Wilson.
“This is about making sure that the process continues to improve,” said Gonzalez, who now works as a general counsel for Jubitz, a local trucking and fuel delivery company. “This was a mammoth distraction in the last election, and it took away from more substantive discussions about challenges and opportunities we have as a community.”
Gonzalez has requested monetary compensation — to be determined at trial — for the reputational and financial harm he says this experience caused him.
In an email to OPB, City Attorney Robert Taylor declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
In Portland, if a member of the public believes a candidate has violated the city’s campaign finance rules, they can send a complaint to the city auditor’s office, which then investigates and determines its validity.
The lawsuit focuses on two headline-grabbing complaints made against Gonzalez’s campaign in 2024.
In October 2024, days before the mayoral election, Portland City Auditor Simone Rede ruled that Gonzalez had violated the city’s campaign finance law by using taxpayer money to edit his Wikipedia page. She determined that he had been using public dollars to make edits that benefitted his campaign, not his work as a city official. Auditors fined Gonzalez $2,400.
On Nov. 14, he received another penalty from the auditors’ office. That ruling accused Gonzalez of receiving dozens of campaign donations that exceeded the city-mandated contribution limits.
Gonzalez — and his fellow top mayoral candidates — participated in Portland’s public matching funds program in 2024. Under that program, candidates must decline or return any individual contribution over $350 within seven days.
According to the ruling, penned by Chief Deputy City Auditor Reed Broderson, Gonzalez’s campaign waited months to return some of those illegal contributions. Broderson’s finding came with a $9,180 fine.
Gonzalez was not allowed a hearing to contest either of these findings, which his lawyers argue violates his constitutional rights.
“The Auditor instead acted as investigator, accuser, and adjudicator, and assessed a monetary penalty based on a paper process that lacked the procedural safeguards required by the Fourteenth Amendment,” reads the lawsuit.
Gonzalez’s lawsuit names Rede and Broderson as defendants. Along with accusing them of violating Gonzalez’s rights to due process, it claims they intentionally turned a blind eye to similar campaign finance issues made by Gonzalez’s top opponents in the race — Wilson and former Commissioner Carmen Rubio.
“The selective enforcement was not accidental,” the suit reads. “It reflected a deliberate choice to deploy the enforcement process against Plaintiff while declining to use the same interpretation or enforcement tools against Plaintiff’s similarly situated opponents and other campaigns.”
The auditor’s office didn’t immediately respond to OPB’s request for comment.
Gonzalez’s argument relies heavily on a recent court decision.
In July, Judge Melvin Oden-Orr ruled that the city’s campaign finance rules were unconstitutional, since they stripped candidates of their due process rights. Oden-Orr ordered the city to return the $11,580 total in fines levied against Gonzalez.
The city has since changed its process for investigating complaints.
“My priority is to have an enforcement system that is fair, just and constitutional,” said Rede at a March council meeting on the proposed changes.
Under those changes, candidates can request a hearing to challenge any complaints levied against their campaign. And the auditor’s office allowed more time to review a complaint to see if it’s actually worth investigating, and not just a baseless attempt to publicly smear a candidate.
City councilors voted to adopt the new code change March 18.
Gonzalez said he’s happy to see the city update its campaign rules to reflect the court’s ruling. But, he said, his lawsuit is still needed to bring accountability to the auditor’s office.
“There are other foundational constitutional issues with the current city process that goes beyond the court’s ruling,” he said, pointing to problems with conflicts of interest in the office, among other things.
“We need to create a process that is going to be fair to all participants all the way through it.”
Gonzalez said he has no immediate plans to run again for public office.
