It's a question we've received
at least from a dozen of you,
including one just as recently as last night.
Lucinda asked, hey,
what happens when the money leftover
from the candidates campaign after
the election a few weeks ago?
Kenneth asked. Kind of the same thing.
Could you explain what happens with the
candidates donation money if they have
any leftover after the election ends?
Well, great questions both of you.
And tonight we're going to answer that now.
It's no secret.
That these midterm elections were expensive.
Actually, it's looking like it was
the most expensive midterm ever.
A lot of your questions came in response
to our stories on campaign finances
in the race for Oregon governor,
where Tina Kotek is the projected winner.
By the way,
Christine Drazen has not conceded yet.
Let's see what's leftover in
each candidate's bank account.
Two days removed from the election,
Christine Drazen has just over $157,000.
That's a drop in the bucket,
though,
compared to what was spent over
the course of the campaign.
About $22 million by her campaign,
Tina Kotek has nearly $900,000 leftover.
Her campaign spent more than 28 million to
get her elected if the projection holds,
and Betsy Johnson still has over $400,000.
Her campaign spent nearly 17 million
in her bid as an unaffiliated
candidate that fell short.
So back to the question of what
can be done with that money.
Well,
the Oregon Secretary of State's office
tells us the short answer is it can
be used for pretty much any lawful
purpose other than personal use.
And what is personal use include?
Well, that's things like paying for
your groceries or a mortgage or tickets,
tickets to the concert,
loan payments, stuff like that.
All right, let's take a look at
examples of what it can be used for.
It can be used to defray any
expenses incurred in connection with.
The candidate's duties as
a public office holder.
It can also be contributed
to another committee.
It can also be given to charity.
And the final bullet point in the
campaign finance manual is it can be
used for any other lawful purpose,
which, I got to tell you,
seems incredibly vague, don't you think?
So?
For some clarity on exactly what that means,
we asked Republican strategists who deals
with the issues all the time like this.
You'll probably recognize Rebecca Tweed
from our coverage on election night.
If I'm a candidate and I decide
that I need to start getting
massages or hairstyling done to help
with my legislative performance,
is that something I can use campaign funds
for? I will just say a lot of
them need to be doing that.
We could use some makeovers and legislature,
you know, technically they could,
but it's it's very rare that it ever happens.
I mean, I think most folks want
to be really respectful of how
that money was contributed.
Oftentimes people will use their
PAC dollars to attend conferences
so that they're not using state
funds or tax dollars means.
So there's always a little
bit of discretion there.
Now, I'm
not sure exactly who she was talking
about needing a makeover there,
but OK, and I want to clarify,
by the way, we're talking about
candidates for state office here.
The federal rules are similar,
but they're a little different.
So state office,
she said most candidates will either
hold on to their money for their next
campaign or maybe donate it to another
candidate's campaign in the future.
They cannot put it in their
pockets unless, that is,
they personally loaned the campaign money.
Then they can pay themselves back.
And by the way,
they can also buy furniture for their office.
And they can also hire a family
member for staff with campaign money.
But yeah, they can buy furniture.
I mean, again, you know,
there's some pretty strict examinations
from the Secretary of State on it,
you know, to approve those expenses.
Treasurers kind of know the rules,
but there's a little bit of leeway,
but certainly can't pay for
trips to Hawaii, unfortunately.
Can they hire family members to be
their legislative staff members?
They can. There are some laws against that.
You know, over the last 15 years,
there have been a few things that have
tightened up sort of that nepotism,
which I think is a really negative term.
It has a lot of negative connotations.
But for a lot of legislators, you know,
they're spending six months away from home.
They're not going back every day unless
you live in the Portland metro area.
So their spouses, you know,
decide to move to Salem with
them or move somewhere nearby.
And and can work in the legislature,
certainly they can use
campaign funds for that.
All right. Well, and some
candidates will have money leftover,
as we've seen with the governor's race.
But Rebecca Tweed says
if your candidate lost,
you should have spent every last dollar
you had trying to find that win.
Sort of a rule from being a strategist
side is you don't want to have any
money leftover like unless you're
for sure that you're going to win.
But as we go through,
you know some of the campaign finance
on some of these competitive races,
if any of the folks lost that thought they
would win and they have any money left,
somebody made a mistake.
Strategically you should get that, you know,
spend everything that it takes to win.