Robocall in HD 30 against David Edwards--duck for the backfire

Last week, beleaguered constituents of House District 30 were treated to another ridiculously stupid phone call against Democrat David Edwards.

I have a .wav file of the call, but unfortunately I can't get it published on this Blogger format. If you'd like a copy of the call, I'd be happy to send it to you via email.

The call was left on the answering machine of an Edwards constituent. It begins thusly:

Hello. I'm calling with an important message about our State Representative David Edwards. First, David Edwards voted against a ban on accepting gifts from lobbyists.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzt. Nope. David Edwards voted against the minority report that the Republicans tried to pass on the changes to the House ethics rules. The minority report would have banned all gifts of any value--whereas the Dems bill made the limit a $10 maximum. Edwards voted for the Democratic bill (Edwards himself accepts no gifts from lobbyists whatsoever, according to his office). Misleading, at best.

Now he's being investigated for possible violations of rules prohibiting campaign contributions during the legislative session.

This is a complete fabrication. I called the SOS office this morning. No complaints have been filed against David Edwards. He's not under investigation for anything at all with the Secretary of States office or anyone else, that I can find.

A complaint was filed by the Oregon Republican Party with the Secretary of State's office against Our Oregon, who sent out a mailer inviting people to a legislative town hall in Edwards' district. Our Oregon isn't "under investigation" either. The Oregon Republican Party filed a complaint, which means that the SOS is checking the rules to see if there's a possible violation.

For Our Oregon to be "under investigation", the SOS would have to refer the issue to the Attorney General's office. I spoke with the Elections Division this morning. They're drafting a letter to the Oregon Republican Party on this complaint and sending it out later today. If I had to guess at the content of the letter, I'd say it says something like, "Stop wasting our time with your petty bullshit". Although I'm sure its more wordy and without the "bullshit" part. But I'll bet they wish they could say that.

The call then winds down:

Call David Edwards at 503-986-1430 and tell him to clean up his act. Thank you.

Interestingly, whoever made the call didn't leave their name. They also had their number blocked for caller ID--so they quite obviously don't want to be held accountable for what they're doing.

Clearly this doesn't pass the smell test. Which means it probably came from Republicans.