A brand new political action group whose donors have yet to be disclosed has spent more than $1 million to oppose Portland Democrat Susheela Jayapal in her bid for Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District, according to federal disclosures filed Friday and Saturday.
In flyers and television ads, Voters for Responsive Government took aim at Jayapal’s record as a Multnomah County Commissioner. The group bashed Jayapal by pointing out multiple Multnomah County missteps on addressing homelessness, including leaving tens of millions of dollars aimed at the problem unsolved.
“Homelessness is a serious problem,” reads one flyer mailed to Portland area voters. “Why wasn’t Commissioner Susheela Jayapal serious about fixing it?”
Jayapal wrote on social media Friday, ”I am and will remain unabashedly progressive. Not a single foreign dollar is going to intimidate us or detract from our goal of winning this primary.”
Voters for Responsive Government was established as a political action committee in early April and has not yet had to disclose its donors, making it difficult to discern who is funding the attack ads. The next Federal Election Commission deadline disclosure for it and other groups spending for or against federal candidates is May 20, the day before Oregon ballots will be tallied.
Last week, Jayapal and a competitor for the 3rd Congressional District took the unusual step of holding a joint press conference condemning the enormous outside spending in the race. Their shared competitor, doctor and state Rep. Maxine Dexter, has benefited from $1.7 million in independent expenditure support from the 314 Action Fund, a group that supports liberal doctors and scientists running for office and is not affiliated with Voters for Responsive Government. Jayapal and candidate Eddy Morales called on Dexter to demand that the 314 Action Fund reveal who is funding their efforts to support Dexter now, rather than wait until May 20.
“At a time when MAGA Republican mega-donors are interfering in Democratic primaries across the country, particularly against qualified candidates of color, voters deserve to know who is trying to buy this seat,” the pair said in a joint statement.
When pressed by journalists at a press conference last week about what evidence they have calling the 314 Action Fund to Republican mega-donors, Jayapal and Morales couldn’t provide any. No major donors that the liberal-leaning pro-science political committee has disclosed have given to Donald Trump-aligned Republican campaigns or causes.
All of 314 Action Fund’s advertisements and texts have been limited to positive messaging about Dexter.
Dexter has defended his support from 314 Action Fund. The group, founded in 2016, has disclosed all its donors through March 31 of this year, as required.
Dexter took to social media Friday to condemn the campaign by Voters for Responsive Government. She wrote that the “newly founded dark money group” is an example of a broken campaign finance system that she hopes to fix if elected to Congress. Voters for Responsive Government is not in fact a dark money group. It is a federally registered Super PAC, which must disclose its donors by Federal Election Committee deadlines.
“A… group has recently attacked my opponent and I want to be clear, I don’t think a negative discourse has any place in this race,” Dexter wrote in a post to X, formerly known as Twitter. “I do not condone or support these negative ads in any way and remain committed to a positive conversation.”
The 314 Action Fund and Voters for Responsive Government are spending substantially more on the race than any individual candidate had reported raising through March 31. Jayapal had raised more than any other candidate in the race with $611,000.
The only other outside spending that’s been reported in the race is $59,000 from the National Association of Relators going to support Morales.
Jayapal said at a press conference Thursday that she has “known for some time” that groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee were planning to insert themselves in the race to oppose her. Nonprofit news organization The Intercept reported late last week that unnamed congressional insiders have said AIPAC-aligned donors are supporting 314′s efforts to back Dexter in a move to oppose Jayapal.
In a social media post this weekend, US Sen. Jeff Merkley raised concerns about the negative advertising by Voters for Responsive Government, given that it has not yet disclosed its donors.
“I strongly condemn the dark money campaign underway to smear Susheela Jayapal in OR CD3 and any other dark money campaigns that are underway or planned,” he wrote. “They are despicable and damaging to our democracy.”
Sami Edge covers higher education and politics for The Oregonian. You can reach her at [email protected] or (503) 260-3430.
