Willamette Week April 12, 2006
Yes, there are big problems with publicly financed elections. But consider this: about half the cash raised by its two biggest critics, City Council candidate Ginny Burdick and the First Things First Committee, comes from two sources: monopoly utilities and the large downtown businesses that control the Portland Business Alliance. Take Comcast, which has a local cable TV monopoly, as but one example of shared donors. Comcast is Burdick's biggest donor at $10,000. And it also gave $5,000 each to two committees that gave most of the money they raised to First Things First, which failed in its recent attempt to repeal public financing. One last factoid: the Portland Business Alliance on Tuesday became the first group to endorse Burdick, who is running against Commissioner Erik Sten.
The $150,000 question
City Council candidate Emilie Boyles breaks her silence about the money she received in public financing and whether she's responsible for her own campaign's screw-ups.
City Council candidate Emilie Boyles, who sprang up almost overnight from Portland's Slavic community to political legitimacy by virtue of public campaign funds, sent an email to reporters last week.
In it, Boyles stated that she's in the May 16 race for good and won't let a state investigation into her campaign hamper her challenge to unseat Commissioner Erik Sten.
The investigation began after The Oregonian's Anna Griffin uncovered irregularities in the signature gathering that qualified Boyles for $150,000 in taxpayer dollars to spend on her campaign. Boyles promised in her email not to spend any more of the disputed $150,000 than she had already "obligated" for her campaign.
Griffin found that some of the signatures were of people who said they had not signed—and some signatures were duplicates. She also identified a mysterious individual named Volodmyr Golovan, who purportedly gathered the signatures needed for Boyles to receive public financing—with the agreement that she'd pay him.
Boyles' first fund-raising report Monday showed she'd spent about half the $150,000, including $15,000 in payments to Golovan, who's since been terminated by her campaign. Incredibly, the report also showed Boyles paid $12,500 to her 16-year-old daughter, an early high school graduate who takes classes at PortlandCommunity College, for campaign work as an "Internet marketing specialist."
During the past week, Boyles, who has emphasized her deeply religious roots (she is an ordained minister of the Celtic Anabaptist church) and her humble circumstances (she says she lives in a mobile home on an income of $600 a month), has clammed up faster than a hothouse flower in a Moscow winter.
No interviews, no media, no returned phone calls.
Until last Thursday, when she came into our office for our endorsement interview with Sten and fellow candidates Ginny Burdick and Dave Lister. We pulled Boyles into our closet, which the good folks at Public Media Works had converted into a temporary film studio. There, we filmed an interview with Boyles (and followed up Tuesday with a phone interview) and challenged her to respond to charges that she has tainted, if not ruined, the ideals of so-called "voter-owned" elections.
WW: Your campaign stands for the idea that you're more connected with the average Portlander, yet you're the one charged with having supporters who claim not to even know you.
Emilie Boyles: It goes back to the cultural history of this particular group, and the fact that this is targeting me, that I'm a threat. If this weren't a viable campaign, we wouldn't be sitting here.
Let's, for the sake of conversation, assume you spent $75,000 and that the investigation finds you need to return that money. How are you going to come up with $75,000?
I can't comment on anything about that until the investigation is completed.
What did your daughter do for $12,500?
She's coordinated hundreds, if not thousands, of avenues that Portlanders get information from on-line about our campaign. She works at least 40 hours a week. We're not talking about your average 16-year-old.
But why hire her when it looks like you're using public money to get $12,500 to your teen-age daughter?
She needed a job and she understands the concepts of our campaign.
Can't you see how that makes this public-finance system look crooked?
I understand that criticism. But this type of marketing is unique and this is a process that would take more time to train somebody else.
Do you still believe in "voter-owned" elections?
I believe in the concept. The biggest challenge is that it wasn't thoroughly thought through by the people who crafted it.
What do you mean?
Things such as resources available for verification. They didn't take a look at the difference between a seasoned politician and someone who's not, and is new to those techniques.
What responsibilities do you bear for the signatures themselves?
When it's determined what happened and whether those situations need a second look, then I can answer. What I can say is that I've never shied away from taking responsibility for things that were my obligation.
What do you mean "when" it's determined? Aren't you responsible to determine the signatures' validity?
We did due diligence. We firmly believe we did the best we could according to the rules. I won't say any more.
How should voters react to you saying you don't want to respond about your conduct in a central election issue?
To the best of our understanding, we followed what we were told. We were in correspondence with the city. I got permission beforehand.
And who from the city told you that was OK?
The elections officer [Susan Francois].
And she said it's fine to pay somebody for collecting those signatures?
Right.
Editor's note: City Auditor Gary Blackmer, who supervises the elections office, says the city isn't commenting on answers it provided to Boyles' questions because of the ongoing investigation, but he does say officials always advised Boyles to read the actual law.
How long have you known Golovan?
I've been a part of the Slavic coalition for a number of years, and he's been a leader in the coalition for as long as I've been involved. We served on a couple of the same committees, so I knew him through that and through his leadership. He was well-known by a number of people who I respect. I have generally checked everybody's background and records. I'm a single person, and I run background checks on the people I go out with. You can't be too careful.
Do you believe the comments from Slavic people quoted in The Oregonian who essentially said, "We wouldn't sign this because we come from a place where you never put your name on anything because we lived in a police state"?
I do know from working with the Slavic community that it's a very difficult thing to say no to your friends.
Should you bear any responsibility that your campaign may torpedo the larger notion of "voter-owned" elections?
We don't know yet if this has taken away from that.
If it's determined you violated the spirit of the law, do you think people should still vote for you?
Yes, because I'm willing to take responsibility, and I'm also willing to say this is exactly why we need change in our government.
And if it's determined that your campaign broke the law, should people still vote for you? [Kevin Neely, with the state Attorney General's Office, says most campaign finance violations are class C felonies, which carry a potential penalty of five years in prison and a maximum $5,000 fine].
Absolutely, for the same reason. Because it's still part of a systemic issue. As you said yourself, this is not about Emilie Boyles, this is about a bigger issue, an issue about a system that's broken. Who's been running this system longer than any other elected official? The incumbent.
Is this keeping you awake?
No. I can't change those circumstances. What I can do is just continue to live my life and live it well.
—HENRY STERN and MARK ZUSMAN
Editor's note: For another take on this controversy, check out the recent blog on , the website for keeping up with events surrounding the May 1 political forum at the RoselandTheater.