Julie Rubenstein

On Becoming a Candidate

Last month in this column I urged readers to consider registering as Democrats – a radical move for some of you, I’m sure. If you’re already a Democrat, the most daring move you could make is to run for office – hurling yourself into the breach where few others have ventured to go in this county for many years. Shortly after writing that column, I decided to make that leap myself and declared my candidacy for state office.

Everything seemed so simple at first. You log on to the Elections Division at Secretary of State’s office, and a few clicks later you’ve got a short form to fill out, a small fee to pay (electronically, by credit card), et voila! - you’re an officially declared candidate. Their vetting process is simple too – they just ask your County Clerk if you really are registered for the political party under which you’ve declared. No pesky questions about name changes, educational background or work history. The only other thing they want to know is whether you’re going to raise or spend at least $300 in your campaign; under that amount and you’re home free in terms of reporting on your finances.

Ah, but then you learn that if you want to have a statement in the Voter’s Pamphlet, a minimal but essential way of communicating your positions to voters, the fee is – guess what — $300. Also, the state party won’t offer help unless you step up to the next level of campaign finance category, which is to raise or spend under $2000. At that level you have to complete more forms, including the Statement of Organization and the Certificate of Limited Contributions and Expenditures. There, you promise you’ll keep it under $2000 and in return you don’t have to file detailed statements about money in and money out.

However, there’s a Catch 22 on that one. You can’t file these forms until you have established a campaign bank account. And you can’t get a bank account in the committee’s name unless the bank can verify that the committee name is on file with the state. Apparently this was an oversight by the Legislature, which neglected to check with the state bankers’ association about procedures – oops! Every bank handles it differently, so you have to negotiate your way through a blind muddle.

Another delight of being an officially declared candidate is all the mail that starts flowing, both snail and electronic. I’m being bombarded by political consulting firms promising to make me as visible as Hillary Clinton, by polling firms urging me to set up those annoying robo-calls that disturb your peace at dinnertime (at the bargain price of only 3 cents per call), by printers wanting to sell me signs, campaign buttons and all manner of specialty products emblazoned with my name, and by the state party with constant reminders of filing deadlines which, thankfully, I won’t have to meet. But what’s really filling my mailboxes like snow flurries in January are the questionnaires from all those “special interests” we hear so much about. The gun lobby, the pro-life groups, the pro-choice groups, the anti-immigration reformers, the pro-immigration folks, and myriad labor unions are all clamoring to know whether I’ll cleave to their positions so I can win their much-coveted endorsements.

Ever dutiful, I go through the questionnaires and do my best at being erudite on issues that heretofore I never knew existed (“Would I support legislation to expand the State’s certificate of need process?” – what’s that, I wonder?). Before I’ve finished puzzling over the first one, three more have arrived.

All I really want to do is talk about the issues I think Oregonians care most about: having access to affordable health care, good transportation, a green environment and a robust economy with plenty of family wage jobs to go around. I’m hoping for the chance to square off on these issues with my Republican opponent once the primary is over, with opportunity for questions and answers in front of a live audience instead of some invisible group of questionnaire evaluators. If I can only get past all these clerical tasks and administrative hurdles, maybe I’ll get to do some actual campaigning somewhere down the road.