Portland

Former Portland Commissioner Rene Gonzalez has intensified an ongoing legal battle with the city and the office of its elected watchdog over campaign finance violations he faced last fall during his unsuccessful bid for mayor.

The auditor's pitch alarmed advocates who have worked to curb the influence of money in politics.

The bitter allegations mark the latest in a series of setbacks that have dogged Portland's Small Donor Elections.

The Portland Auditor's Office found that the campaign accepted 18 contributions that exceeded the legal limit, and fined the campaign triple the overage amount.

The city auditor's office says Gonzalez repeatedly failed to return donations that exceeded Portland’s contribution limits in a timely manner.

The auditor’s office also defended the impartiality of the investigation while faulting Gonzalez for interfering in the review.

The secretary of state is investigating 11 Portland City Council candidates and one candidate for mayor.

The official has personal and financial ties to a leader of the group pushing an election probe against Gonzalez.

Chief Deputy Auditor Reed Brodersen said the auditor’s office had received new information that prompted it to reconsider the matter.

Updated: 9:20 am Sept. 30 A short-lived political advocacy organization that ruffled feathers with downtown billboards targeting elected officials is reportedly calling it quits. As first reported by The Oregonian, People For Portland is shuttering its organization and its associated activities. That announcement comes six months after the state deemed the group violated Oregon election law in 2022 for failing to properly register its political expenditures with the Secretary of State. A separate investigation into...

An email thread obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive shows that at least 13 candidates explicitly agreed to trade contributions to reach the donor threshold to qualify for public funds.

The Portland City Auditor’s Office announced Monday that it found “insufficient evidence” to support allegations of campaign finance violations from City Commissioner and mayoral candidate Rene Gonzalez. The investigation was launched after the city’s Elections Office (a division of the Auditor’s Office) received two emailed complaints and one formal complaint last month about Gonzalez’s use of taxpayer money to alter his Wikipedia page. Complainants asserted the use of taxpayer funds by a sitting commissioner to...

The Oregon Secretary of State's office is investigating four candidates for Portland city council for swapping donatin

Commissioner Rene Gonzalez, widely considered a top candidate in the mayoral race, spent $6,400 to "refresh" his Wikipedia page.

Today on City Cast Portland, we’re talking about the bonanza of traffic violations that two leading mayoral candidates h...

Some of the candidates running for one of the new seats on the Portland City Council agreed to swap campaign donations in order to qualify for the city’s system of matching funds.

The agency could not provide a timeline for the investigation.

The announcement comes two months away from Election Day.

Willamette Week's Sophie Peel broke the story about messages between candidates suggesting they trade donations as they tried to qualify for public matching ...

Established outside interests are expected to make large, organized and well-financed pushes in the coming weeks.