Ruthless and stupid: your Oregon House Speaker

We already knew that Karen Minnis was a partisan hack who is grasping for her tenuous hold on power in the Oregon House. But I never thought she was stupid until now.

We here at Loaded O have already reported on the Oregon GOPers and Minnis pimping their offices and workspace for a campaign fundraising video.

The response from the Minnis campaign has been priceless--for her opponent, Rob Brading.

Minnis is stating that her campaign didn't violate House rules with the fundraising video. Technically she's correct. It doesn't. But what she doesn't tell her constituents is that there are no House rules that cover partisan political activity.

Unfortunately for Minnis..there are other rules governing this sort of thing.

The Oregon Secretary of State provides a rule book on political activity by public employees, based on Oregon law(PDF) which states:

"If the governing body allows one political group
to use public facilities, all groups should have the same opportunity. The
same building policy should be used for everyone, including charging the
same fee or requiring the same permit."

That looks an awful lot like Rob Brading gets to use Minnis' office to film a campaign fundraising video for himself.

I had no idea that Minnis was this freaking stupid.

It also appears that Minnis may have violated State Capitol building policies which state that the chambers and the gallery outside the chambers are "for legislative purposes only".

Future PAC Executive Director Jon Issacs has sent a letter to Capitol Administrative Services Director, Dave Henderson outlining the issues on the use of the Capitol in this manner. If I don't hear back from Jon in a few days as to what he heard, I'll email Henderson myself and find out.