On Dec. 12, The Observer published a letter to the editor from Anna Stever on behalf of Wes Williams’ judicial campaign regarding campaign donations. Within that letter she made the claim that the Oregon Code of Judicial Conduct does not require judicial candidates to know who donates to their campaign. There is no such rule within the Oregon Code of Judicial Conduct.

Oregon election law and judicial ethics rules both actually require the opposite. There is no way for a judge to fulfill their obligations to avoid the appearance of impropriety on a case if they are not aware of who is making campaign donations. The actual rule on point states that judges are required to keep informed of their economic interests and recuse themselves from cases where that would be an issue. (OCJC (3.1(D))

Campaign donations are required to be filed with the state and are public record and a candidate is ultimately responsible and personally liable for those filings. (ORS 260.037) And judicial candidates are allowed to personally solicit funds in limited circumstances. (OCJC 5.1(E))

Most important, there is a rule in the Oregon Code of Judicial Conduct for candidates to not knowingly or with reckless disregard for the truth make any false statement concerning any material fact that relates to the judicial campaign of the candidate. (OCJC 5.1(D)) They must also not allow anyone on behalf of their campaign to do so. (OCJC 5.2)

Publicly misquoting ethics rules to justify the behavior of a person’s campaign certainly seems, at best, to brush the line of making a false statement. I would encourage both Wes Williams and those working on his campaign to reread the Oregon Code of Judicial Conduct. If a campaign does not know what the ethics rules actually say, they may have a hard time following those rules.

Jared Boyd

La Grande

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