HD-54: House Republicans accuse Stiegler of violating campaign finance reporting

House Minority leader Bruce Hanna sent a letter to the Elections Division of the secretary of state’s office Friday with a complaint that state House candidate Judy Stiegler (D-Bend) was late in reporting campaign finance activity.

Hanna said in a release that the complaint is for Stiegler’s neglect to report television airtime the campaign purchased September 15. According to Oregon’ campaign finance laws that should have been reported in Stiegler’s ORESTAR report by last Tuesday. But as of Friday, there was still no listing.

“On September 15, Ms. Stiegler had an obligation to report this purchase either as an expense or as an accounts payable,” Hanna wrote. “In the spirit of disclosure and transparency, Oregon election law clearly requires any individual who receives a contribution or makes an expenditure supporting or opposing a candidate to file contribution and expenditure transactions.”

FuturePAC director Michele Rossolo said Friday that Stiegler had missed a reporting deadline. She added that the Oregon House Republicans were simply trying to make a big deal out of the issue because they were trying to distract voters from the attention Stiegler is trying to draw to Rep. Chuck Burley’s (R-Bend) 290 votes missed.

“This is their way of distracting from the issue,” Rossolo said. “Judy’s campaign is run almost completely on volunteers. She’s now reporting it and it’s not a big deal. This is just petty on their part.”

An earlier version of this article misstated FuturePAC's position, and said the group was trying to draw attention to Burley's record on the issues, when they are focusing on the amount of votes he missed. We regret the error.