Defenders circle state resources around Measure 110
Oregon Health Authority staff and advisors push hard to defend the unpopular hard drug decriminalization law in spite of laws against doing so
The Oregon Health Authority’s (OHA) Measure 110 Oversight and Accountability Council (OAC) operates unlawfully as a pro-Measure 110 advocacy body. As exclusively reported by the Oregon Roundup in September, OAC members last year prodded OHA staff to ramp up the state agency’s output of stories favorable to the imperiled drug decriminalizing measure on its press release, website and social media channels. A review of recent OAC meeting videos and Secretary of State filing records shows the prodding has intensified even as the filing of preliminary petitions to repeal or modify Measure 110 makes OAC efforts to defend Measure 110 unlawful.
OAC member Ron Williams was in September, when we last reported on this story, and remains the driving force behind the OAC’s efforts to direct public resources to defending Measure 110. Williams also happens to be Outreach Director for pro-110 advocacy group Health Justice Recovery Alliance. HJRA exists, literally, to defend Measure 110 using funds from George Soros’s pro-legalization Drug Policy Alliance.
What has changed is the legal ramifications of the efforts of Williams, other OAC members and OHA staff’s use of public resources for political purposes. Oregon law generally prohibits a public employee from promoting or opposing “the gathering of signatures on an initiative, referendum or recall petition,” and prohibits other people from coercing, requiring or commanding a public employee to do the same. That prohibition begins once a sponsorship prospective petition for a statewide measure is filed with the Oregon Secretary of State.
People who violate the prohibition on public employees engaging in political advocacy on the job are subject to a $1,000 fine per violation.
On September 19, 2023, three petitioners filed with the Secretary of State prospective petitions for two similar ballot measures that would overturn Measure 110’s hard drug decriminalization provision and make other changes to the law.
Nonetheless, the OAC and OHA staff have only intensified their efforts to defend Measure 110 since the petition filings.
In a September 20, 2023, meeting of the OAC’s media subcommittee, Williams and other subcommittee members heard directly from OHA’s Communications Director Robb Cowhie regarding what his office could do to help the OAC promote Measure 110. Cowhie’s presence at the meeting was due to questions at previous subcommittee meetings from Williams and others about what more OHA could do to promote the measure.
On September 20, Cowhie informed the subcommittee that there was one OHA communications staffer dedicated to Measure 110, that OHA had conducted an analysis indicating that media coverage of Measure 110 was largely negative and offered up OHA’s 185,000-subscriber email newsletter as a channel to reach many Oregonians with “Measure 110 success stories.”
Williams pointed out that OHA had only issued three press releases and few social media posts in support of Measure 110. Cowhie replied, “There’s more that we can do.”
Subcommittee member and Portland nonprofit founder LaKeesha Dumas lamented, “By the polls, over 70% are ready to repeal it already. So, we need to take back the narrative and show how impactful Measure 110 has been in saving lives.”
To which Jackie Fabrick, OHA’s Behavioral Health Deputy Director, replied:
That really aligns with some of the conversations we’ve been having. How do we build on those stories to show the successes that Measure 110 is having in local communities and just build on that. How the BHRNs are part of the behavioral health system now. Highlighting things like how Measure 110 has increased access to treatment. Prime opportunity to take a look at that information and really focus on the data and connect that back with communities and show how Measure 110 has saved lives and increased services.
OHA shared its efforts to better tout Measure 110 in later OAC meetings.
In the October 18, 2023, media subcommittee meeting Kristen Donheffner, OHA’s Measure 110 Engagement and Strategy Manager, said OHA had taken action on subcommittee’s wishes to “highlight Measure 110 stories.” She explained that since the September subcommittee meeting, OHA has had “pretty much a weekly story about Measure 110,” had beefed up Measure 110 success stories on OHA’s website, and had highlighting a story about a study (Ed. - badly tainted by conflict of interest) showing no connection between Measure 110 and a spike in overdose deaths.
In the OAC meeting of January 10, 2024, Williams urged the OAC to respond to a Secretary of State audit that was critical of Measure 110’s implementation. OHA had already responded to the audit, but Williams and other OAC members thought it important to add their voice to the effort to minimize the damage caused by the audit. Williams declined an invitation to draft the response on behalf of the OAC, deferring to fellow OAC member and tri-chair Onesha Cochran-dumas, who works for Portland nonprofit Miracles Club, which is a Measure 110 grant recipient. If the OAC’s response, which was due yesterday, has been made public, I have not yet found it.
A review of OHA social media channels shows the agency has followed through on its promises, including a January 11 Twitter/X post heralding the number of Oregonians who have received services funded in whole or in part by Measure 110. The OHA now has a page of its website inviting Oregonians to “See How Measure 110 Dollars Are Working in Oregon Communities.”
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Thanks so much, Jill!
Thank you for reporting on this egregious violation of law and ethics by OHA.
Back in 1986 I was a Deputy DA and was advocating (on my own time and dime) for what was then-called Measure 10 - the very basic statutory victims rights law that is now part of the Oregon Constitution. A powerful group of state officials threatened to file charges against any advocacy to change the law. It passed - overwhelmingly.
State law forbids state employees from engaging in political advocacy on government time (the "mini Hatch Act") and only elected officials are exempt from this prohibition.
There is little question the Attorney General's Office would have already filed charges if state employees had been promoting a ballot measure that was NOT sponsored by the radical elite that governs State and County government.
Almost as outrageous is the fact that "mainstream media" the O, OPB, the TV stations have studiously ignored this effort!
Great reporting, Jeff. You are filling a real media vacuum here. What this points to is the darkest secret (next to cartel influence) in OR politics--the nexus of government and nonprofits.
No one audits the nonprofits and the IRS is woefully slow at posting Form 990s--which are, themselves, a scandal of iffy numbers and no real sense of where the money is finally trickled down.
In addition, although federal laws are explicit that nonprofits should be nonpolitical, this is a joke. They are knee-deep in attaching their endorsements to political flyers, and endorsing candidates, including mobilizing their memberships for outright campaigning.
The state's media is deaf-and-dumb to this.
Keep at it. This is the--THE--major story in Oregon politics.