| Update, Tuesday 1pm-- Janice Thompson at Democracy Reform Oregon reminded me that there's an excellent, longer-term report on this kind of stuff that they published earlier this year. The more the better! ------ I just got a really sweet report detailing the 2008 Oregon elections and how the $55 million spent on them was spread around--including who did the spreading. Here's the press release from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, colloquially known as "FollowtheMoney.org": The report found the average Oregon legislative race raised $124,000 in 2008, a 51 percent increase from 2004. But even as the total amount increased, the actual competitiveness of the races decreased: Incumbents running for re-election were likely to hold on to their seats and fundraising was often lopsided. Legislative candidates weren’t the only ones raising money in 2008. Ballot measure committees also raised significant amounts. Unions, which gave one of every three dollars in the state overall, contributed the most to ballot measure committees. While the amount of money contributed to elections raised dramatically in 2008, the number of people giving did not. Only 0.1 percent of Oregon’s population gave money to a candidate, party, or ballot measure during the election cycle. We'll dig into the details, below the fold... |
Here's a helpful graphic, albeit a little blurry in the copying. Sorry. I'll explain it afta: 
The vertical Y axis is millions of dollars raised, and across the bottom the amount raised by candidates, parties and ballot measures, respectively. What jumps out at you? Party revenue was virtually the same, or a bit lower in truth if you factor in around 10% dollar inflation from 2004-2008 (because these numbers aren't inflation-adjusted). Otherwise, candidate spending was sizably up while ballot spending markedly down. Within that candidate total is a major jump in legislative contributions, which you might expect as the Republicans left several seats open and the prospect of getting to 36 revenue-raiseable Democratic seats seemed within grasp if everyone was well-funded. The report has more: The National Institute on Money in State Politics began collecting Oregon data in 1990. Since then, Senate races have raised substantially more than House races. However, in 2008, the average House race raised $130,490—beating the Senate average of $95,831. The sharp drop in 2008 Senate averages may be due to fewer candidates on the ballot (29 in 2008 versus 40 in 2006), which would normally raise averages, but can also indicate a lower level of competition. There were zero competitive Senate races and eleven competitive House races. The numbers are pretty eye-opening, but what should be more compelling is the ridiculous advantage incumbents, particularly well-monied incumbents have. Even if it's an open seat, if you've got the cash in the general you'll probably get the seat: Across the country, the majority of state races are won by incumbents and those who raise the most money (for a detailed analysis, see the Institute's report Advantage, Incumbent). This is especially true for those running for office in Oregon. 94 percent of incumbents running for re-election were victorious. Candidates who raised the most money enjoyed a 96 percent success rate. Candidates who had both the money and incumbency advantage enjoyed a 100 percent victory rate. From the other perspective, only 3 of 52 challengers won their races, all of whom raised more money than the incumbents they were challenging. To compound the incumbent advantage, the current office holder often raises the most. The Institute's PULSE tool shows the clear fundraising advantage that incumbents hold – 90 percent of the incumbents were able to raise more money than their opponents. In open races, where no incumbent is running, money is often the kingmaker. The candidate who raised the most money won in 13 of 15 open races. [emphs mine] Chicken or the egg? Does money talk so loudly because fundraising is unlimited, or was protecting money's loudness the reason we're stuck (Constitutionally!) with endless money supply? It's a hell of a question, and while clearly the power of money is seen at all political levels across the US, it's pretty hard not to draw a straight line between our utter freedom to contribute and the devastating twin powers of money and incumbency in Oregon. If Democrats had to give away the farm (almost literally) just to get a simple corporate and high-end tax increase passed, you can forget a fundamental change in campaign finance any time soon. Contrasted to candidate funding, ballot measure fundraising was down, and pretty much came down to a battle of Loren Parks vs the Oregon Labor Movement. As you can guess by the complete washout suffered by Sizemore and Mannix at the polls, Labor beat the pants off Pervy Parks in fundraising--by a factor of 10, $15.5mil to $1.4mil. Nonetheless, Parks remains the recordholding individual contributor in Oregon political history. AND HE DOESN'T EVEN LIVE HERE. Jeee-sus. The last two pages of the report, four and five, have some great detailed tables that I won't bollocks by trying to reproduce them here, so head over there to look. Page four covers contributions by sector broken down by party, and despite the very real monetary influence of corporations and lobbying groups, by far..by FAR the biggest spenders in Oregon are the labor unions--$19mil out of $55mil. Most of that went to kill Sizemore and Mannix, and I think most of Oregon owes labor a huge debt for raising that kind of cash to do it. I bet they thought if they flooded the zone with so many initiatives, Defend Oregon couldn't keep up. (Of course it helped that half their measures were literal retreads from campaigns past). On the other hand, it's hard not to be concerned about one sector dominating fundraising in a campaign, no matter how benevolent the results. (And to some they weren't so benevolent). Of course, the bulk of it could fairly be called "defensive money," directed at citizen legislation and much less to influence candidates--although Dems got $3mil from labor in 2008, compared to not even a quarter mil for the GOP. After the unions, come the parties and political PACs, followed by the "general" business community and the finance/property and health industries. Page five breaks the contributions down to specific givers, ten of which gave to at least 70 of the 90 in the Leg last cycle. You know who the hidden assassins are in this state? There's the usual suspects in banking and home building and telecomm and of course beer and restaurants--but who's also on the ultimate jing-spreaders list? If you guessed the optometrist's lobby, you're right!--go see a therapist, you're sick for knowing that. You can forget a statewide public option on vision care, I guess. The report really is worth a read and is not too heavy; I borrowed liberally from it because I'm assuming their intent is for public dissemination. I hope so, because they did a lot of work there at Follow the Money, and it's highly illuminating--some might say depressing--stuff on why the state works(-ish) like it does. |
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