The Multnomah County Circuit Court last week upheld parts of a measure approved by voters, requiring political candidates to disclose the largest sources of their campaign funding.
Specifically, candidates must “prominently disclose” their five largest campaign funding sources in political advertisements.
The court also upheld that people must register as political committees if they spend more than $750 in an election cycle and that employers who allow payroll deductions for any purpose must also allow deductions for campaign contributions.
Deborah Scroggins, Portland’s city elections officer, said the city is still figuring out how to implement the changes and that the upcoming 2020 elections will act as a test run.
“We want to see what happens first, what kind of rules and procedures will be necessary in various situations before we set up this whole infrastructure to do that,” Scroggins said.
She also said her office is limited by staffing.
“We also have limited capacity and there wasn’t funding passed with this charter change petition, so just keeping these things in mind, we’re going to uphold this the best we can to the voters’ will,” Scroggins said.
Notably, the court struck down campaign finance limits on both contributions and expenditures, citing them as unconstitutional according to the Oregon Constitution.
The Oregon Supreme Court may be reconsidering that decision, with oral arguments scheduled for Nov. 1.