Thatcher: Senate President Views on Jessica`s Law Coincide With Polling Expenditures

Thatcher is also leading a "Protect Our Children" rally on the capital steps during special session on Thursday.

Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney Photo By: Tim King

(SALEM) - It was revealed Wednesday that Democrats in the Oregon Senate have spent over $22,000 on polling over the past month, leading up to this week`s special session of the Oregon Legislature.

During the same time period Senate President Peter Courtney and other democrats have flipped in their opposition to tougher penalties for sex offenders who prey on children.

Copies of campaign finance reports filed last week show that Democrats might be feeling political heat for opposing tough new penalties on sexual predators.

Proponents of the idea say they "have been forced" to take the idea to the ballot in the form of an initiative.

"It was unconscionable when Peter Courtney and the Democrats in the Senate blocked tougher penalties for sex offenders," said Jared Thatcher, a Salem Republican running for the Oregon Senate.

"It is more unconscionable that it took $22,000 in polls for them to change their minds."

Democrats say the Republicans are only using the issue for political grandstanding, obvious by the timing of the move.

Thatcher has been going door-to-door collecting signatures to put Jessica`s Law on the November ballot.

He is also leading a "Protect Our Children" rally on the capital steps during special session Thursday, from 11:30 to 12:30 PM.

He and other Oregonian parents will be asking the legislature to pass Jessica`s Law without using it as a political pawn.

Courtney and other democrats have been taking heat since last August for bottling up a bill known as "Jessica`s Law" that created mandatory minimum sentences of 25 years for sex offenders who prey on children.

The bill sat on Courtney`s desk for five days at the end of last year`s legislative session and was never referred to a Senate committee.

The move would according to many, overburden a corrections system in a state where stingy voters rarely up the ante for their society's needs. At this time, sex offenders are incarcerated without treatment by Oregon, then booted back to the streets years later, where they are more of a danger to children than ever.

Some say the Republicans should concentrate their energies on providing treatment and seeking solutions that don't strain taxpayers so badly with long prison sentences. A "just lock 'em up longer" attitude does little in reality, to address the problems and truly make Oregon a safer place.

During the final weeks of March, Senate Democrats wrote two checks to a Portland pollster totaling $8683.39 and to a Virginia based firm for $13,600 in which they characterized the nature of the expenses as "Surveys and Polling."

Democrats reported on disclosure reports that payments to the Virginia firm were to benefit Senators Vicki Walker and Rick Metsger, who like Courtney, face strong challenges from Republicans who look to gain seats in this year`s elections.

It was not clear which Senate candidate, or candidates, the payment to the Portland pollster benefited.

Courtney is the largest contributor to the political action committee that paid for the polls.

The Salem Democrat`s re-election campaign contributed $30,000 to the Senate Democrat Leadership Fund in the days following the polling expenditures.