A timely inquiry.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Oregon's constitution places no limits on the amount of money a candidate for public office in this state can spend. But the law does require disclosure of contributions and expenditures. But there are loopholes in the disclosure law that Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, the state's chief elections officer, wants a new task force to examine. Such an investigation is welcome.

The trigger for the investigation was the manner in which current Oregon Republican Party Chairman Kevin Mannix moved money around in his 2002 GOP gubernatorial campaign. An attorney general's investigation found no legal wrongdoing in a wealthy donor's gift of $50,000 to two Mannix-controlled political action committees and then those committees funneling that money into Mannix's campaign. As a result of that maneuver, the PACS were listed as the donors and not the original donor.

As Bradbury said in announcing his appointment of the bipartisan panel that will look into how Oregon's campaign finance reporting laws might be improved: "The point is so that people know before they vote who's contributing how much to various candidates."

Amen.

As The Register-Guard's David Steves noted in a recent news story, a complaint was filed against Mannix after the 2002 gubernatorial campaign by Richard Burke, an activist with the Libertarian Party. That party fielded a candidate, Tom Cox, in the gubernatorial contest, which featured Mannix as the GOP nominee against Democratic contender - and ultimate winner - Ted Kulongoski.

Attorney General Hardy Myers, who supported Kulongoski's gubernatorial bid, removed himself from the initial inquiry into Cox's complaint and asked a Bend attorney, H. Robert Hamilton, to look into the matter. Hamilton found that Portland businessman Robert Randall, now deceased, had made nine contributions totaling $50,000 to two non-candidate PACs controlled by Mannix and that, within 24 hours of receiving the money, the PACs contributed $24,000 each to Mannix's campaign. Other contributions to Mannix-controlled PACs also found their way into his campaign war chest.

As a result, voters knew only that the money came to Mannix's campaign from PACs, but they were unaware that the money originated from Randall. That sleight of hand bypassed full public disclosure of where the candidate's campaign money was coming from, an important consideration for many voters.

Mannix is right in observing that there's nothing illegal about this practice under Oregon law. That's why Bradbury's task force should delve deeply and thoughtfully into improving the state's campaign finance disclosure laws. The public deserves to know the sources of campaign funds.