By JULIA SHUMWAY/Oregon Capital Chronicle
SALEM — A Republican candidate for an Oregon legislative district covering Lincoln County lied about endorsements in the state-issued Voters’ Pamphlet, a political action committee for House Democrats alleged Tuesday.
In an online version of the pamphlet, restaurant owner Celeste McEntee of Newport includes education advocacy group Stand for Children and the Oregon Farm Bureau on a list of endorsers.
The erroneously included endorsements will not appear in the printed version of the Voters’ Pamphlet when it’s mailed to voters, according to emails shared with the Capital Chronicle after this article’s publication.
Stand for Children has endorsed McEntee’s Democratic opponent, incumbent Rep. David Gomberg of Otis, and gave his campaign $5,000 in mid-September, according to state campaign finance records. FuturePAC, the House Democrats’ committee, also said it received confirmation from the Farm Bureau that it hadn’t endorsed McEntee but the bureau’s lobbyist didn’t return a call or text from the Capital Chronicle on Tuesday.
“It is an egregious violation of the public trust to tell voters you have endorsements from trusted community organizations when that’s simply not true,” FuturePAC Communications Director Andrew Rogers said in a statement. “It is deeply disturbing that McEntee would make these misleading claims.”
He said the PAC requested that McEntee’s false endorsements be removed from the printed version of the pamphlet before it is mailed to voters next month.
That’s already been done, according to the political director of a PAC for House Republicans. After publication, Dru Draper shared emails from the Secretary of State’s Office confirming that those endorsements, as well as one from Crime Victims United, had been removed.
Ben Morris, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s Office, initially said candidates are responsible for the contents of their statements, and they had until Aug. 30 to request edits.
“The Elections Division does not edit or censor the content of a voters’ pamphlet statement,” Morris said.
He clarified Wednesday that the Elections Division does verify whether endorsements are accurately listed. It requires organizations and individuals endorsing candidates to submit forms confirming those endorsements. If a candidate lists endorsers who haven’t submitted those forms, state election workers confirm whether the endorsements were listed in error. They don’t make corrections before an initial version of the Voters’ Pamphlet is sent to military and overseas voters and posted online.
McEntee did not return a call or email to Oregon Capital Chronicle. On Thursday issued a news release blaming the error on a paperwork miscommunication that was quickly corrected when brought to her attention by the state. She also attacked Gomberg and the House Democrats campaign committee for trying to make an issue out of it.
Last month, McEntee received a “letter of education”, or written warning, in lieu of a $1,500 fine from the Oregon Government Ethics Commission for failing to file required paperwork disclosing her sources of income, debts and investments before an April 15 deadline for legislative candidates.
McEntee and her family own and operate two Mo’s restaurants in Newport and one in Otter Rock. She recently opened a restaurant in Salishan with her son, Carter McEntee, who is a candidate for Lincoln County commissioner.
It’s a class C felony to lie about educational or professional backgrounds in the Voters’ Pamphlet – which has tripped up everyone from former Oregon Republican Congressman Wes Cooley to a Yachats woman elected to the local fire district board.
But there aren’t such rules governing most information provided for the pamphlet. Former state Rep. Julie Parrish, R-West Linn, introduced a bill in 2017 that would have made providing any untrue information for the pamphlet a crime punishable by five years in prison and a $125,000 fine, but it stalled because of concerns about free speech.
- Oregon Capital Chronicle is a news partner of YachatsNews and is a nonprofit Salem-based news service that focuses its reporting on Oregon state government, politics and policy.