Editorial: Oregon’s vicious circle of money and influence

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, March 15, 2016

One of the powerful messages in this election year from the two leading Democratic presidential contenders is their focus on getting big money out of politics.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said it is a “corrupt” system of “legalized bribery” that has candidates “begging for contributions from the wealthy and powerful.”

We don’t know if he’s right. But look at Gov. Kate Brown’s campaign for governor. In January, the election cycle for Oregon governor had barely begun. Brown had nearly $900,000 in the bank.

And just look at what came in. Brown collected a $100,000 contribution from the national wing of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees labor union. AFSCME represents thousands of employees in the state of Oregon.

Brown supports many of the union’s issues. The state employee contributions, in turn, support her. The unions push for higher taxes and more government spending. That creates more public employees to contribute to campaigns to push for higher taxes and more government spending, feathering their own nest.

Don’t we have in Oregon the very system Sanders described as corrupt?

Corporations, wealthy people and not-so-wealthy people also donate money to Brown and to other candidates. If you look at the contributions of businesses and industry groups, though, they are much more likely to split donations between parties. Unions, depending on taxes, pour it at Democrats.

Don’t expect any change any time soon. But it would be a start for the U.S. Supreme Court to declare that unions could not require workers, including those who don’t join a union, to pay for representation.