The other dark money

The Weed's got a story up this week that's more important than most, and of course it's already being buried in hamburger reviews. It's about how Multnomah County has no disclosure rules regarding lobbying. The game is, the nonprofits wine and dine the politicians, and that's how they get the pork. Nobody has to disclose anything. Supposedly state ethics laws are enough to stop any wrongdoing. Sure. Sure they are.

[U]nlike the state of Oregon, the city of Portland, and many large counties on the West Coast—Multnomah County doesn’t require contractors or their lobbyists to register or report hours spent pitching their services to public officials.

A half dozen people familiar with the county’s operations tell WW that the lack of lobbying requirements opens the door for abuse....

Multnomah County paid out $1.2 billion to contractors in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2023. That constituted more than a third of its total $3.3 billion budget.

The Joint Office [on homelessness], which is operated in conjunction with the city but is controlled and largely funded by the county, is set to spend $282.2 million—or 82% of its total $342.5 million operating budget—on contractors in the fiscal year ending June 30.

The allotments are large because the county, unlike the city, performs most of its work (housing the homeless, running health clinics, treating addiction) by paying nonprofit contractors....

The lack of lobbying rules at the county stands in stark contrast to Metro and the city of Portland, which do less business with outside contractors. Both Metro and the city require lobbyists to register, giving their own names, phone numbers and addresses as well as information about the people or agencies that employ them.

Metro also requires lobbyists to report expenses for food and entertainment purchased for the purpose of lobbying, and the names of any Metro officials who partook in it, once a year. The city requires lobbyists to file those reports quarterly. 

There's plenty more in the story, by Anthony Effinger, but the part that really got a rise out of me is when he wheeled out Eric "Opie" Sten, the former wiz kid of the Portland City Council, for a money quote.

“The absence of graft is not an argument for no disclosure,” says Erik Sten, who served on the Portland City Council from 1997 to 2008. “There is no doubt that if you’re going to err, as you always do in human affairs, you should err on the side of reporting. The only person you inconvenience is the lobbyist.” 

That is so, so Portland. "The absence of graft" is always taken as a given. As if human nature didn't exist in our dirty little state.

If you're waiting for the county to come up with meaningful transparency rules, you'll be waiting a long time, as you do whenever you're asking them to do anything intelligent. They'll never get anything done unless the state forces them to. And given the makeup of the state legislature these days, that's too much to ask for.

Then there are the prosecutors, who I'm sure could have a field day with the Portland homeless industry, and the county in particular. Maybe the Trump U.S. attorney wil bust some chops. One can hope.