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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on October 8, 2007 7:23 AM. The previous post in this blog was More nice words about Portland. The next post in this blog is You knew this was coming. Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

E-mail, Feeds, 'n' Stuff

Monday, October 8, 2007

Pushing the envelope

At what point does this violate this?

ORS 260.432 [A]ctivities of public employees during working hours.

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(2) No public employee shall solicit any money, influence, service or other thing of value or otherwise promote or oppose any political committee or promote or oppose the nomination or election of a candidate, the gathering of signatures on an initiative, referendum or recall petition, the adoption of a measure or the recall of a public office holder while on the job during working hours. However, this section does not restrict the right of a public employee to express personal political views.

Comments (13)

Before he actually kicked off his campaign against Saxton, Kulongoski was all over the early morning news in a "public service" announcement concerning protecting the elderly. It was shot in a nursing home and paid for by DHS dollars. These spots went on for weeks. It was amazing, considering the governor had gone out of his way to remain unseen during most of his first term.

Pretty cagey.

The Governor is not a government employee, he is an elected official. Thus, he can say what he wants when he wants. The line would be crossed if he ordered state employees to use state resources to advocate on behalf or against any measure. I would say, however, if he is using the state paid phone making calls, this could be construed as a violation of state statutes.

It hardly matters, the state AG will not even inquire.

TK could be off the job, barely breathing, before the Secretary f State would notice, but again no action will be taken.

Tom Potter lent his publicly paid staff to "guide" the Committee to rename Interstate Blvd. Out tax dolalrs were put to use AGAINST the neighborhoods.

How many dollars did outgoing Metro Councilor Newman steer to his former employers Parsons-Brinkerhoff for light rail consultation and design work? Did he even excuse himself from votes that might have any bearing in these matters?

Of course, as long as Oregon has partisan hacks like Bill Bradbury and asleep at the wheel Hardy Meyers don't expect anything to happen.

An elected official, yes. And also a public employee. However, he sets his own "working hours", unless you would want to make the argument that as Governor, he's always "working".

Outside of working hours, he is free to express his political views. As long as he doesn't use public buildings, phones, cars, etc. to do so.

Jack, you should have kept reading. ORS 260.432(4)(a) says:

(4) As used in this section:
(a) "Public employee" does not include an elected official.
* * *

260.432 Solicitation of public employees; activities of public employees during working hours.

(4) As used in this section:

(a) "Public employee" does not include an elected official.

Link to ORS Chapter 260:
http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/260.html

Read even further down, they have another exemption:

260.432 Solicitation of public employees; activities of public employees during working hours.

(4) As used in this section:

(k) "Public employee" does not include Fire Dept public employee Mark Bunster, nor his blog handle torridjoe, nor his political blog LoadedOrygun.

Link to ORS Chapter 260:
http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/260.html

I believe Bunster's daytime blogging activities may be over (scroll down to comments).

The exception for elected officials, which indeed I had not noticed, is incredible.

Hey Jack - your R-G link has gone dead.

Ah, well... Governor Ted is spending afternoons raising money for Measures 49 and 50. But he's not covered by the law that forbids such things, so who cares?




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