Ethics complaint filed: Jamie Damon concealed govt job income

Dem candidate Jamie Damon

The Leadership Fund

Jamie Damon concealed government job income on mandated disclosure form – complaint filed with Government Ethics Commission

Salem, OR – Jamie Damon, candidate for State Senate, did not disclose income received from working as a state bureaucrat over the last year on an ethics disclosure form required of all state candidates. John Savory, a voter in Senate District 20, filed a complaint with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission (OGEC) Wednesday and asked for a full investigation into Damon’s deceptive report.

“The law says candidates must regularly disclose their income so voters know the financial interests of their representatives,” said John Savory. “It’s a common sense rule that Jamie Damon didn’t follow.”

To encourage transparency and accountability for elected officials, Oregon law requires that candidates for office file an annual Statement of Economic Interest (SEI), including disclosure of large investments and ALL significant sources of income.

When Damon filed her current SEI with Oregon Government Ethics Commission on April 14, 2014, she was still employed as a state employee working for Governor Kitzhaber as a Regional Solutions Coordinator, where she has worked since 2013. While Damon’s exact salary in her former position is not known, her position was classified as a Principal Executive/Manager F, with a salary range of $79,170 to $103,356.

The SEI required Damon to “identify the sources of income received by you or a member of your household, who is 18 years of age or over, during the 2013 calendar year that produced 10% or more of the total annual household income.” In response to this question, Damon wrote “N/A” which appears to be a violation of her ethical duty to fully and accurately report all sources of income she and members of her household received in calendar year 2013. Not only did Damon omit her State of Oregon employment as a source of her 2013 income, Damon also failed to identify or list her husband’s source of self-employment income.

“Either Jamie Damon held a job of ‘political patronage’ where she wasn’t expected to show up or do any real work for her paycheck, or, she was one of a cadre of paid political advisors to Governor John Kitzhaber. Either way, the law requires that she fully disclose all important sources of family income in the Annual Verified Statement of Economic Interest which is part of Oregon’s political “sunshine” law,” said Senate Republican Leader Ted Ferrioli (R-John Day).

“Willful failure to disclose significant sources of family income is punishable by a fine of up to $5,000, but the fine isn’t the point. The first obligation of a candidate seeking public office is to be truthful about the sources of their income. It really doesn’t matter whether Damon wants to conceal her role as an insider in the Kitzhaber administration, or whether she did not want voters to know she is a professional bureaucrat. Oregonians had a legal right to know and Damon failed to deliver,” said Ferrioli.