Newberg Leftist nearly break money recall record…yet voters said NO WAY

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

$140,000 on a Small Town School Board Race. Pro-Recall Groups Spend Huge in Newberg, Still Lose

In the Spring of 2020, Portland political groups set an Oregon record spending $158,578 failing to recall Oregon State Senator Chuck Thomsen. That figure amounted to roughly $1.21 per registered voter.

On January 18 2022, a total of six leftist PAC’s combined for $140,839.57 in campaign finance failing to recall two Newberg-Dundee school board members. Adjusted for population, that equals $4.26 per registered voter. It also amounts to a shocking $20.69 for every voter they ultimately convinced to vote yes on the recalls.

This reporting does not include money the New York-based ACLU and the Oregon Education Association (teachers’ union) have spent in legal fees suing the Newberg Public Schools, or the free one-sided promotion from the biased local Newberg print paper.

This whole effort started when the liberals lost their majority on the School Board during the May primary.  This allowed the Board to focus on raising both test scores and graduation rates.  The liberals responded by trying to dismantle the whole process by launching two recalls.  They failed.

Despite the massive spending, these first two (of a rumored six) recalls against Yamhill County non-partisan officials were still voted down on Jan. 18th by over a 4% margin each.
Newberg School Board members were targeted by Portland special interests, Hollywood donors, and a New-Left group of Yamhill County residents for attempting to slow the promotion of politics in classrooms. Dave Brown and Brian Shannon favored a return to prioritizing student achievement and test score performance.

According to the Yamhill County News, “Late votes broke for the ‘No’ campaign at a much higher rate than early votes. It appears that the ‘No’ message won the final days.”
The article continued, “Some point to the comments from an Oct 29, 2021 Yamhill Democrat meeting where recall organizers stated they were seeking ways to ‘completely destroy Dave Brown.’” The stunning threats seemed to shock voters during the election’s final weekend.

The recall advocates were financed directly by six PAC’s: Recall Dave Brown (Portland), Recall Brian Shannon (Portland), Voices of Newberg (Portland), Petition Recall Brown (Portland), Petition Recall Shannon (Portland), and Save Yamhill County (Carlton).

$175,667.63 appears to be the total amount raised by all six PAC’s when added together, but adding up intra-PAC donations and in-kinds, a total of $34,828.06 should be subtracted to avoid double counting.

The top three donors were the Portland-based Oregon Teacher’s Union (OEA-PAC), and two Hollywood, CA insiders.

The combined total of all 6 PAC contributions is at least $140,839.57. Importantly, this figure does not include any late reporting amounts. It also assumes all contributions and in-kind support from OEA-PAC were reported transparently.

The question that everyone has been asking: Why would these interests spend so much money in the small town Newberg on two non-partisan school board members??

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