 |
Oregon
Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg
Wooldridge speaks at 2018
Dorchester Conference.
He beat Rep. Knute Buehler with 40 percent
of the vote in a straw
poll there. |
Anonymous
campaign donations are banned in Oregon, but nearly half the money
raised by a leading Republican gubernatorial candidate cannot be
directly traced because it comes from two out of state corporations.
The
two corporations have donated $125,000 of the $288,000 raised so far by
candidate Greg Wooldridge, who lists “the sunshine of accountability”
as part of his campaign platform.
What
the functions of the corporations are — and who is behind them — was a
mystery only partly cleared up by the campaign after the donations were
made. One is tied to a California real estate executive, but the other,
listed as a Nevada firm, had its business license yanked, an Associated
Press review found.
The
cloaking of campaign funds reveals a loophole in Oregon law: Anonymous
donations from individuals are illegal, but donations from
anonymously-run corporations are not. A company’s name alone satisfies
Oregon laws requiring candidates to list sources of donations, even if
company documents don’t list the actual owners.
The
result is that people who want to donate anonymously to political
campaigns can get around the ban on anonymous individual donations
simply by using an anonymously-held corporation, said Jay Steinmetz, a
political science professor at the University of Oregon.
“The
corporation becomes a kind of black box in that way — it’s hard to know
what goes in or what comes out,” said Steinmetz. “The spirit of the law
is what’s being violated here.”
Asked
about the donations last week, Wooldridge said the larger of the two
donations — $100,000 — was from a friend who had routed it through a
corporation to protect their identity.
The
campaign listed the source as Daybreak Investments, a business
originally registered anonymously in Delaware, then re-registered
in California.
A
spokesman for Wooldridge’s campaign later said the donation came from
John Ryan, a California real estate executive. On California documents,
Ryan is listed as the manager of a company which itself is listed as a
partner of Daybreak, but not as the owner of either.
Asked
about the donation, Ryan confirmed he had originally wanted to remain
anonymous, but added that logistical considerations also drove him to
donate through the company.
“Most
of my money is in Daybreak,” Ryan said. “It’s just easier to write a
check out of that, than it is to transfer it and put it under my name.”
Ryan
said he has supported other candidates in similar fashion, mostly in
California, and that he donated to Wooldridge out of friendship and a
shared affinity for veterans’ issues. Woolridge is a former Navy pilot.
Heading
into the May 15 Oregon primary, Woodridge is competing for his party’s
gubernatorial nomination against two others considered front-runners,
Knute Buehler, a state legislator, and businessman Sam Carpenter.
The
Wooldridge campaign’s second-largest donation, $25,000, originates from
a Nevada-registered firm called Wingate Enterprises. Donation records
include a note that the firm does business under the name Pacific
Bottling services.
But neither company appears to exist in that state as a legally functioning business.
Wingate’s
Nevada business license is listed as permanently revoked, the AP found,
and no business named Pacific Bottling Services is registered
in Nevada.
The
owner of an Oregon business named Pacific Bottling Services said they
rent equipment from Wingate, but are a separate company.
“Pacific
Bottling Services and myself are not connected to the political
activities of Wingate Enterprises,” wrote Noel Arce, the Oregon
company’s owner, in an email Thursday.
In
an email Thursday, Wooldridge campaign spokesman Jonathan Lockwood
wrote the donation came from Wingate’s CEO, but wouldn’t say who that
was, explain why the two firms were listed together, or comment on the
fact that neither appeared to be a functioning business in Nevada.
Multiple requests for further comment were not returned by Wooldridge or Lockwood.
Listing
a business that isn’t legally registered isn’t a violation of campaign
rules so long as it’s done in good faith, said Deb Royal, chief of staff
for Oregon Secretary of State Dennis Richardson.
“It’s not a campaign’s responsibility to research everyone that gives you a contribution,” Royal said.
Part
of the challenge of identifying who’s behind corporations comes from
state licensing laws, which often allow corporations to be set up
without listing who their actual owners or beneficiaries are.
Under
Nevada law, corporations are allowed to list “nominee officers,” who
are not actually involved in running the business but allow the company
to use their name for a fee. Before its license was revoked, Wingate
Enterprises appeared to have taken advantage of that: According to a
Las-Vegas Sun report, the same person named as president in its early
corporate documents was also named as an officer of nearly 4,000 other
companies in the state.
