In a unanimous vote, the Board of Commissioners on May 1 gave final approval to an ordinance that establishes Multnomah County’s first-ever lobbying reporting requirements and other transparency measures, including new rules requiring Commissioners to post their calendars.
The vote followed an initial hearing on the ordinance April 10 and a detailed discussion and planning work session March 11.
The effort, led by Commissioners Julia Brim-Edwards and Shannon Singleton, aims to strengthen public trust and increase transparency.
“County residents expect their elected officials to act in the public’s best interest and be good stewards of taxpayer dollars,” Commissioner Brim-Edwards said. “Creating the County's first-ever Lobbying Reporting, Registration and Transparency Program is an important step forward to make the County government more transparent and accountable to the public we serve."
“Not only did we pass this lobbying registration, we also passed the necessary funds to implement this work,” Commissioner Singleton said. “This isn't about the community trying to give comment; this is about paid lobbyists who are trying to influence Commissioners and the budget — to make sure there is transparency and accountability.”
The ordinance will take effect July 1, 2026, to allow for time to create the necessary technology infrastructure and to educate community members, advocates, lobbyists and others about the change.
According to the ordinance, the County will:
- Require lobbyists register within three business days after exceeding 10 hours of lobbying activity and to report expenses over $50 per quarter.
- Require commissioners to post their calendars of official County activities each quarter.
- Establishes a “cooling-off period” that prohibits County officials from lobbying the County within one year after their County service ends.
Work to implement the ordinance will be led by Chief Operating Officer Christopher Neal and his staff. Initial recommendations on staffing, technology and funding are due by May 13, in time to ensure the work is included in the FY 2026 budget. An updated status report on the implementation work, including communications and outreach plans, is due Aug. 1. In the meantime, the Board approved $200,000 to begin the work.
“My team and I are ready to get to work immediately on a comprehensive assessment to look at what it’s going to take to stand up and develop a successful and sustainable program,” Neal said.
Notable revisions to the ordinance since the concept was first discussed in March include raising the threshold for reporting lobbying activities from five hours to 10 hours and adding an exemption to the definition of lobbying activities for parties who are merely responding to Board members’ requests for information.
The ordinance also outlines citations, penalties and appeals for non-compliance, including:
- In addition to any such penalties as otherwise may be provided by law, violations of this Chapter may be subject to a fine in an amount not greater than $500.
- Fines for a violation of the Chapter may be appealed. Appeals must be sent to the County and postmarked within 30 calendar days of the notice of fine.
- A series of proactive education and graduated penalties: warning/education, notice of violation and additional reprimand and increased fines.
“What we are going to focus on is proactive education, and how to share both with County staff and the Commission as well as community partners about the new reporting and registration requirements and how to comply,” said Commissioner Brim-Edwards. “The goal is compliance.”
“I again want to appreciate Chris and other staff who have been working on this, as well as Bryan [Hockaday], chief of staff for Commissioner Brim Edwards, and Quinn [Colling], my chief of staff, for all the work that has gone into this behind the scenes,” said Commissioner Singleton. “I know there’s more to come.”
“I'm supportive of the ordinance that we’re putting forward,” said Commissioner Vince Jones-Dixon, who also asked about the flexibility of the timeline and the decision to allocate contingency funding immediately, ahead of next year’s budget process.
“The short-term timeline is to make sure that we don’t lose a whole calendar year,” Commissioner Brim-Edwards said, “because standing up the infrastructure will take a fair amount of time, and if we don’t draft behind this budget year, then we’re waiting until next budget year.”
Commissioner Singleton added, “if we push that back, we won’t know what the [staffing] or budget needs will be for implementation.”
“I appreciate the work by Commissioner Brim-Edwards and Commissioner Singleton and your staff for bringing this forward, and I really appreciate the good conversation we’ve had as aboard on this issue,” said Chair Jessica Vega Pederson.
Discussion on Board rules and procedures
In a related discussion on updating the Board’s internal rules and procedures, proposals were presented by Regan Gray, chief of staff for Commissioner Meghan Moyer, and Brendan Finn, chief of staff for Commissioner Jones-Dixon, during a work session April 8.
Key proposals included treating Board meeting agendas as drafts that can be updated until they are adopted and clarifying the process for how Board members can place items on the agenda.
Their suggestions also included adopting and publishing Board rules every year (they were last approved in 2013), creating a publicly accessible list of terms and definitions, and the restatement that all Board meetings, work sessions, and briefings are open to the public.
Gray emphasized that “a lot of these rules are about over clarification, over transparency because that’s just good governance practice.”
