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September 14, 2007

In Defense of Larry George

Back when I was involved in Oregon politics I saw some crooked dealings, but I also had the pleasure of working with some individuals who were steadfastly not crooked. In other words, though a few bad guys dominated my own experience, some good guys kept me from losing hope for a lot of years. Larry George was definitely one of the good guys. So imagine my surprise and dismay when I saw a post on Blue Oregon entitled, "Senator Larry George's Self-Payout." My dismay grew as I read about his "shady campaign finance decisions" and "questionable ethics." It peaked when I clicked through to the Land Use Watch website, where Sen. George's actions were called "self-dealing," "suspicious," and possibly illegal. I knew right away that unless Larry George had undergone a radical personality change in the last six years – not likely – somebody at Blue Oregon and somebody else at Land Use Watch was making a major fool of themselves.

The latest C&E filings are being poured over by anti-Measure 37 activists, and here's the supposed scandal. They have discovered that on numerous occasions, large expenditures of money have been paid by PACs controlled or partly controlled by Larry George to a company called George Advertising. And here's the incredibly surprising thing you would never in a million years guess:

“George Advertising” shares the same address as Senator Larry George. In fact, George Advertising is controlled by Senator Larry George: he is the President, Secretary, and Registered Agent.

Oh, the humanity.

People donate money to Senator Larry George. Senator Larry George then apparently decides to use George Advertising, and presumably he decides how much is paid out to his own advertising firm. Oh, and it’s not just his Senate campaign, but it’s also committees for which he is a director, including Oregonians in Action PAC, Oregon Sportsmens Association PAC (the statement of organization notes “Candidates controlling this committee: Lawrence George”), and maybe Oregon Family Farm Association (my transactions for using the site ran out).

This is just the tip of the ice berg because, in fact, this has been going on for years, and in broad daylight, too!

But here's the thing: it's not scandalous at all. The fact that it is being seen as scandalous is a result of the writers not having done any research, had any experience, or interviewed Larry George for this story, combined with their deeply held belief that all prominent Republicans must be corrupt and irresistibly drawn to money.

Larry George, like many other people, has his own consulting business. Lots of our elected Senators and Representatives do. And he makes some profit from it, as many others do. Not as much as others do, however, because in fact the whole reason he has a consulting firm is so he can provide affordable advertising placement to the causes he believes in – causes that are typically short on cash. So where one consultant might make half a million on a campaign, he might make a tenth of that. And on the campaigns he controls, when he hires himself to place advertising he doesn't make any profit at all. He does the work at cost. His firm is simply able to get better rates, so hiring himself saves the campaigns money.

I've seen the sort of activity that the writers involved in this non-scandal seem to believe is going on here. This is entirely different. In cases where illegal and scandalous behavior is occurring, efforts are undertaken to hide connections to key individuals. If that was occurring here, we wouldn't be talking about an ad agency called "George Advertising." You wouldn't easily be able to trace the organization to Larry George. Moreover, if something secretive was going on, you wouldn't have seen Sen. George introduce a bill last session requiring himself and all other legislators who have consulting firms to disclose their client lists – and when it failed, you wouldn't have seen Sen. George go ahead and fully disclose his entire client list on his ethics form anyway, even though it wasn't required. But he did. He did it because he knows that the problem with people making money representing paid interests is that if people don't know they have a conflict of interest, then they don't have to be accountable to the voters. Hence the whole business of declaring conflicts of interest. And Sen. George thought that if legislators were paid to consult for certain special interests, it would be a good idea if people knew about it so those legislators could be held accountable for decisions they might make that would benefit those special interests.

Every penny Larry George and his agency have received from a political campaign has been publicly reported. How it has been spent has been publicly reported. All of it is an open book and it has been for years. This scandal is simply an uneducated, conspiracy-minded overreaction to something that is completely above-board and honorably motivated, but which the parties simply do not understand.

I personally worked with Larry George on several political campaigns in the late 1990s and into 2001. I never once saw him do anything unethical or illegal. He is honest and dedicated to his cause. I've heard a lot of people on the left say they would like to see straight-shooting conservatives taking on straight-shooting liberals in honest debates. Well, here you have a straight-shooting conservative. Now is your chance to prove you mean it.

Let's focus on debating the issues surrounding Measure 49 and leave the personalities out of it. For once, let's look at this as a debate between fellow Oregonians who ultimately want the same thing – a bright future for Oregon – and simply have different ideas about how to get there. Let's start listening to each other instead of tearing each other down. Let's have some diplomacy here and end the war.

Posted by Becky at September 14, 2007 05:07 PM