John Nelsen asks House Democrats to retract false statements

[John Nelson Press Release 9/26]
Nick Kahl Continues to Lie About John Nelsen in Advertisement
Nelsen makes second demand to Nick Kahl, House Democrats to retract false statements.

East Multnomah County — John Nelsen, candidate for State Representative in District 49, today made a legal request that Comcast stop airing an ad purchased by the Committee to Elect Nick Kahl because it contains lies about Nelsen’s position on a sales tax. Kahl’s TV ad falsely claims that Nelsen supports a sales tax. In the ad and three other mailings sent by the House Democrat’s political action committee, Kahl sites a statement made by Nelsen at a Gresham Chamber of Commerce forum as proof of Nelsen’s support of a sales tax. Footage of the forum shows that this is patently untrue.

Video footage, aired on Metro East TV, shows Nelsen’s true position on sales tax:

“The reality is that the people of Oregon have pretty much boo-hoo’ed sales taxes since I was a kid. I’d have to see some serious backing off of property taxes and income taxes before I would feel good at all about asking my neighbors just to throw more gold in the coffer. Part of that because of a philosophical thing but part of that is that, my experience has been that Salem hasn’t been very efficient or economical with the dollars they do have.”

Nelsen is a long time resident of East County and is currently the Chairman of the Reynolds School Board. He’s worked, raised a family and served his community in East County. Nelsen says he knows that a sales tax is not the way to solve any budget problems and the only way to fix the problem is to boost revenue through job creation and economic growth.

“I called on the House Democrats last week to retract the mailers they sent and issue a correction to East County voters. Not only have they not corrected themselves, Mr. Kahl continues to lie to us,” says Nelsen. “I’m renewing my call to the House Democrats and Mr. Kahl to retract the mailers and TV ad and have made a public legal request for Comcast to stop airing the ad.”

Under federal law, Comcast is not allowed to remove advertisements placed by candidates, but Nelsen says he was aware of the laws before making the official request and did so to make a point. “My goal is not to have the ad forced off the air by a third party””it’s for my opponent to do what’s right. The person who should be responsible for removing a dishonest ad is the person who put it up in the first place. Kahl and his supporters should be willing to step up to the plate, admit their ad is misleading and tell East County the truth””the voters deserve better.”
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