Big spenders keep giving late in game.

Byline: David Steves The Register-Guard

SALEM - Battles over ballot measures are still drawing big contributions as Tuesday's election nears, according to the last batch of campaign-spending disclosures filed Friday.

Those so-called "supplemental" reports, the second round of two such disclosures made this week, are meant to keep the public informed of late-in-the-game contributions of $500 or more since the last reporting deadline on Oct. 17.

And there have been plenty of big-dollar contributions, according to the latest disclosures. Among the various campaigns for and against state ballot measures, most of the money went to pay for consultants and advertising.

Seneca Jones Timber Co., owned by Eugene businessman Aaron Jones, continued its big-spending ways on behalf of Measure 37. The initiative requires compensation from the government for regulations that limit the use and value of property - or to waive such rules.

Seneca Jones Timber gave $60,000 on Tuesday and $70,000 on Oct. 20, bringing the company's total contribution to the pro-37 campaign to $243,000.

Other timber companies joined in the late giving, with $25,000 apiece coming from Swanson Group of Glendale, DR Johnson Lumber of Riddle and South Coast Lumber of Brookings.

Opponents of the measure got late help, too. The Nature Conservancy of Portland contributed $100,000. Winery owner Eric Lemelson of Dundee gave $50,000 on top of his previous contributions totalling $500,500. The Service Employees International Union Local 503 gave $40,000.

In many ways, the latest contribution reports reinforced the patterns already established this campaign. Liberty Northwest Insurance, which has almost single-handedly bankrolled the Measure 38 campaign to abolish its rival workers compensation insurer, state-owned SAIF Corp., gave $229,832 within the last two weeks. It already had spent $5.4 million on the campaign. The effort to defeat Measure 38 drew a big, late contribution of $100,000 from Associated Oregon Loggers, a SAIF customer.

The money wars behind Measure 35 continued to pit doctors and the rest of the medical industry against lawyers who represent plaintiffs in lawsuits over malpractice. The measure would cap at $500,000 the awards for pain and suffering in such lawsuits.

In the past two weeks, lawyers and law firms were the biggest contributors to the campaign to defeat the measure. They included Barton & Strever PC of Newport ($25,000), attorney Arthur Johnson of Eugene ($22,500) and Peggy Jo Wobbrock of Lake Oswego, whose husband, Lawrence Wobbrock, is a trial attorney ($25,000).

On the pro side, the biggest contributions the past two weeks included $50,000 from the Mid-Valley Independent Physicians Association, $40,000 from the Oregon Association of Hospitals & Health Systems, $25,000 from PacificSource Health Plans in Eugene and $20,000 from Eugene doctor Catherine Gallo.

The Measure 34 campaign to set aside half of the Tillamook State Forest for conservation and allow logging on half drew $110,000 from the National Wildlife Federation in Seattle and $25,000 from Seattle-based Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, who already had contributed $200,000.

The campaign to defeat Measure 34 was boosted by three big donations in the past two weeks from timber companies: Weyerhaeuser ($50,000), Boise Cascade ($25,000) and Plum Creek ($15,000).

The Measure 36 campaign to limit marriage to one man and one woman attracted a pair of big out-of-state contributions on Monday: $60,000 from Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Colo., which already had contributed $60,770, and $50,000 from the Christian Values Fund in Muscaline, Iowa.

The campaign to defeat the measure was helped in the past two weeks by a combined $100,000 from Basic Rights Oregon and its education fund, and $23,000 from the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C.