In last week’s debate on KGW, Saxton refused to pledge that he would not take, and would not let his staff take, any gifts from lobbyists, including travel, lodging, and meals. Saxton claimed that he had put out a "similar" proposal, albeit with a loophole to allow gifts up to a certain dollar amount. According to Saxton, his proposal had "some common sense limits – I think we said $40 or something like that."

Based on a review of the plan, it’s not clear where Saxton thinks he proposed that gift limit. The press release announcing the plan and Saxton's white paper on ethics mention nothing about such a gift ban. The only ban he proposes is on out-of-state trips funded by most third-party organizations. And that’s it.

Saxton said, "people do not have confidence in their elective leaders," and that’s why he put forward his "tough proposal." Yet how does he expect Oregonians to have confidence in him when he claims to have proposed a ban on gifts that appears nowhere in his proposals?

It certainly provides an interesting contrast to Governor Kulongoski, who did not hesitate to raise his hand and take the pledge.

From the October 17 debate:

Vince Patton: I have a question about influence peddling. Thanks to the work of the Oregonian, voters now know that a number of lawmakers were treated to all-expense-paid luxury trips to Hawaii courtesy of lobbyists with the beer and wine industry. Well, Ron Tammen, the respected head of the Hatfield School of Government at PSU, has a proposal. And I wondered if you might be willing to take his pledge tonight and say that: I will not take any gifts from lobbyists, including travel, lodging, and meals, nor will my staff.

Ron Saxton: Well, I've put a proposal out this week that's very similar to that. I think there are some commonsense limits – I think we said $40 or something like that. But within that limit, I absolutely don't intend to take travel and so forth and, you know, I don't intend to take gifts whether there's some modest, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40 dollar limit, I don't know the answer to that. But what happened in the legislature is shameful, it's wrong, people shouldn't be taking those gifts. They shouldn't be, you know, taking the more expensive meals and so forth. And what we absolutely have to have is very strict enforcement of the penalties. And I'll tell you, beyond what the professor has suggested, what I called for in my proposal was that when there is a wrongdoing, when somebody violates those rules, they need to pay the penalty out of their own money. Today the law allows them to pay for those penalties out of their campaign funds. That's wrong. So, I've got my own proposal, we put it out this week. It's on the website. I think it's tougher than the one you're proposing and I absolutely support it.

Governor Kulongoski: First of all, I didn't wait for this crisis because when I became the Governor, I actually went to the legislature and got the Oregon Law Commission to actually undertake a review of the ethics laws and they're gonna report back on December 1 with proposals of what they think the state should do to actually provide a more fair ethics system. The other thing is that I actually got $224,000 from the legislature to actually have them do that. So, I've been on the forefront of this issue. What I will tell you is: I will raise my hand and I will take your pledge because I believe it is the right thing to do.

Ron Saxton: Let's be clear, we've got a crisis in this state of confidence. People do not have confidence in their elective leaders. The legislature's approval rating is unbelievably low; the Governor has one of the lowest approval ratings in the country. People don't have confidence. And so we have to have complete, total disclosure. We have to limit anything in terms of significant gifts. I'm there. We're gonna have tough proposals. We've put out a tough proposal. And we have to do it if we're gonna restore confidence because the confidence is not there today.