Portland city council candidates swapped donations, raising campaign finance questions

Think Out Loud

Portland voters will decide 12 city council races and choose a new mayor this November. Willamette Week’s Sophie Peel found that some of the candidates running agreed to swap campaign donations in order to qualify for the city’s system of matching funds. That practice violated campaign finance law, according to attorneys and experts quoted in the stories, although the secretary of state’s office had declined to weigh in without having done its own full investigation. After inquiries, Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade has now directed the Elections Division to open an investigation. We talk with Peel about what she found and why it matters as Election Day approaches.