Title: Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S066445
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: April 23, 2020

No. 13	
April 23, 2020	
295
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE
STATE OF OREGON
In the Matter of Validation Proceeding to Determine 
the Regularity and Legality of Multnomah County Home 
Rule Charter Section 11.60 and Implementing Ordinance 
No. 1243 Regulating Campaign Finance and Disclosure.
MULTNOMAH COUNTY,
Petitioner-Appellant,
and
Elizabeth TROJAN, 
Moses Ross, Juan Carlos Ordonez, David Delk,
James Ofsink, Ron Buel, Seth Alan Woolley,
and Jim Robison,
Intervenors-Appellants,
and
Jason KAFOURY,
Intervenor,
v.
Alan MEHRWEIN, 
Portland Business Alliance,
Portland Metropolitan Association of Realtors,
and Associated Oregon Industries,
Intervenors-Respondents.
(CC 17CV18006) (CA A168205) (SC S066445)
En Banc
On certification from the Court of Appeals under ORS 
19.405.*
Argued and submitted November 14, 2019.
Katherine Thomas, Multnomah County Attorney’s Office, 
Portland, argued the cause for appellant Multnomah County. 
Jenny M. Madkour, Multnomah County Attorney, filed the 
briefs. Also on the briefs was Katherine Thomas.
______________
	
*  On certified appeal from a judgment of the Multnomah County Circuit 
Court, Eric J. Bloch, Judge.
296	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
Daniel W. Meek, Portland, argued the cause and filed 
the briefs for Intervenors-Appellants Moses Ross, Juan 
Carlos Ordonez, James Ofsink, Seth Alan Woolley, and Jim 
Robison.
Linda K. Williams, Portland, argued the cause and filed the 
briefs for Intervenors-Appellants Elizabeth Trojan, David 
Delk, and Ron Buel.
Gregory A. Chaimov, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, 
Portland, argued the cause and filed the brief for Intervenors-
Respondents.
Adam Kiel, Kafoury McDougal Law Firm, Portland, 
filed the briefs on behalf of amici curiae Derek Cressman, 
Sightline Institute, Asian Pacific American Network of 
Oregon, Bernie PDX, League of Women Voters of Oregon, 
League of Women Voters of Portland, Portland Forward, 
Portland Jobs with Justice, Alliance for Democracy, and 
Unite Oregon.
Carson L. Whitehead, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, 
filed the brief on behalf of amicus curiae Kate Brown, 
Governor. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum, 
Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General.
Cody Hoesly, Larkins Vacura Kayser LLP, Portland, 
filed the brief for amici curiae Independent Park of Oregon, 
Oregon Progressive Party, Pacific Green Party, and Honest 
Elections Oregon.
Kelly K. Simon, ACLU Foundation of Oregon, Inc., 
Portland, filed the brief on behalf of amicus curiae American 
Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon, Inc. Also on the 
brief were Katherine McDowell, McDowell Rackner Gibson 
PC, Portland, and Daniel Belknap Bartz, Eugene.
Denis M. Vannier, Senior Deputy City Attorney, Portland, 
filed the brief on behalf of amicus curiae City of Portland. 
Also on the brief was Naomi Sheffield, Deputy City Attorney.
Steven C. Berman, Stoll Stoll Berne Lokting & Shlachter 
P.C., Portland, filed the brief on behalf of amicus curiae 
Planned Parenthood of Oregon. Also on the brief were Nadia 
H. Dahab and Lydia Anderson-Dana.
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
297
Kyle Markley, Hillsboro, filed the brief on behalf of amicus 
curiae Kyle Markley.
Owen Yeates, Institute for Free Speech, Alexandria, 
Virginia, filed the brief on behalf of amici curiae Taxpayers 
Association of Oregon and Taxpayers Association of Oregon 
Political Action Committee. Also on the brief was Allen 
Dickerson.
WALTERS, C. J.
The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed in part and 
reversed in part, and the case is remanded to the circuit 
court for further proceedings.
Case Summary: The county initiated a validation proceeding over its cam­
paign finance ordinances. The trial court held that the county’s campaign contri­
bution limits, independent expenditure limits, and disclosure rules were uncon­
stitutional. The Court of Appeals certified the appeal to the Supreme Court. Held: 
(1) Vannatta v. Keisling, 324 Or 514, 931 P2d 770 (1997), is overruled; (2) the 
county’s contribution limits are not facially invalid under Article I, section 8, of 
the Oregon Constitution; (3) the case is remanded for the trial court to decide 
whether the contribution limits violate the First Amendment to the United 
States Constitution; (4) the county’s independent expenditure limits violate both 
constitutions; (5) a subsequent amendment to the county’s disclosure rules makes 
the question of their validity in their prior form moot.
The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed in part and reversed in part, 
and the case is remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings.
298	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
	
WALTERS, C. J.
	
In the November 2016 election, Multnomah County 
voters approved Measure 26-184, an amendment to the 
Multnomah County Home Rule Charter containing campaign 
finance provisions. Multnomah County then adopted new 
ordinances, Multnomah County Code (MCC) §§ 5.200-203, 

mirroring and implementing those charter provisions. The 
first substantive section, MCC § 5.201, restricts campaign 
contributions. It limits the amount of money that donors 
may contribute and the amount that a candidate or cam­
paign organization may receive from a particular donor. The 
second section, MCC § 5.202, limits what are known as inde­
pendent expenditures. It sets a cap on the amount that indi­
viduals, acting independently of a campaign, can spend on 
communications supporting a candidate and forbids entities 
from spending any amount on communications supporting a 
candidate. The third section, MCC § 5.203, contains disclo­
sure rules, which require that disclaimers about the sources 
of funding be attached to communications in support of a 
candidate.
	
We consider the validity of those ordinances under 
the free speech provisions of both the Oregon and United 
States Constitutions—Article I, section 8, and the First 
Amendment. As we explain, we reach four conclusions: 

(1) the county’s contribution limits do not, on their face, vio­
late Article I, section 8, of the Oregon Constitution; (2) we 
must remand this case to the trial court for factual findings 
and to consider, in the first instance, whether the contri­
bution limits violate the First Amendment; (3) the county’s 
expenditure limits are invalid under both constitutional 
provisions; and (4) the parties’ dispute with respect to the 
disclosure provisions is moot.
I.  PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
	
In May 2017, Multnomah County initiated this val­
idation action in the circuit court. Under ORS 33.710, the 
county sought judicial examination of MCC §§ 5.200-203, its 
new campaign finance ordinances, and a judgment uphold­
ing their legality. Two groups of intervenors joined in that 
court proceeding. See ORS 33.720(3) (permitting interested 
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
299
parties to appear in the validation proceeding). Respondents1 
appeared in the action to contest the validity of the county’s 
ordinances, arguing that they violate Article I, section 8, of 
the Oregon Constitution and the First Amendment of the 
United States Constitution. Trojan2 intervened in the action 
to support the county’s position that the county’s ordinances 
are valid.
	
Article I, section 8, provides that “[n]o law shall 
be passed restraining the free expression of opinion, or 
restricting the right to speak, write, or print freely on any 
subject whatever; but every person shall be responsible 
for the abuse of this right.” With respect to that provision, 
respondents’ arguments centered on Vannatta v. Keisling, 
324 Or 514, 931 P2d 770 (1997) (Vannatta I), a decision in 
which this court struck down limits on campaign contribu­
tions and expenditures. The proponents acknowledged that 
Vannatta I was unfavorable precedent but urged the trial 
court to reject its reasoning in light of this court’s decision 
in Vannatta v. Oregon Government Ethics Comm., 347 Or 
449, 222 P3d 1077 (2009) (Vannatta II), which had distin­
guished Vannatta I and upheld restrictions on the receipt of 
gifts by public officials.
	
The trial court ruled that, under Article I, section 8,
all three sections of the county ordinances were facially 
invalid. The trial court considered Vannatta  I controlling 
on the contribution and expenditure limit issues. Because 
the court resolved the case on state constitutional grounds, 
it did not address the ordinances’ validity under the First 
Amendment. State v. Copeland, 353 Or 816, 821, 306 P3d 610 
(2013) (“[W]e consider state constitutional issues before we 
consider federal claims.”). The county and Trojan appealed, 
and the Court of Appeals certified the appeal to this court. 
See ORS 19.405. We begin with the question of whether the 
county’s contribution limits violate the Oregon Constitution.
	
1  Alan Mehrwein, Portland Business Alliance, Portland Metropolitan 
Association of Realtors, and Associated Oregon Industries (respondents).
	
2  Elizabeth Trojan, Moses Ross, Juan Carlos Ordonez, David Delk, James 
Ofsink, Ron Buel, Seth Woolley, and Jim Robison. On appeal, Trojan, Delk, and 
Buel raise assignments of error relating to the contribution and expenditure lim­
its while Ross, Ordonez, Ofsink, Woolley, and Robison principally raise assign­
ments of error relating to the disclosure rules. 
300	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
II.  CONTRIBUTION LIMITS
A.  Article I, Section 8
	
MCC §  5.201 limits the amount of money that 
donors may contribute in county elections and the amount 
that a candidate or campaign organization may receive 
from a particular donor. Much of the briefing in this case, 
from the parties and the 11 amici curiae, focuses on the 
role of campaign contributions in our political system and 
the asserted harms that are remediated, or not, by the 
county’s ordinance. Under the First Amendment, it is not 
unusual for courts to approach campaign finance cases in 
part by weighing those harms, and the government’s inter­
est in abating them, against the importance of campaign 
contributions and expenditures to political expression. See 
Buckley v. Valeo, 424 US 1, 19-22, 26-27, 96 S Ct 612, 46 L 
Ed 2d 659 (1976) (adopting that approach); Citizens United 
v. Federal Election Comm’n, 558 US 310, 364, 130 S Ct 876, 
175 L Ed 2d 753 (2010) (discussing the effects of corporate 
expenditure limits in light of circumvention and changing 
technology). We need not wade into that thicket, however, to 
determine the validity of the contribution limits under the 
Oregon Constitution. In this validation proceeding, the only 
question that is before us is whether MCC § 5.201 is uncon­
stitutional on its face. As we will explain, not all laws are 
subject to a facial challenge under Article I, section 8, and 
we have an established framework for determining which 
laws may be so challenged. Using that framework, the ques­
tion presented is whether the contribution limits are “writ­
ten in terms directed to the substance of any ‘opinion’ or any 
‘subject’ of communication.” State v. Robertson, 293 Or 402, 
412, 649 P2d 569 (1982).
	
In considering that question, we do not write on a 
clean slate. Respondents rely, as they did in the trial court, 
on Vannatta I and on our determination that the limits that 
we considered in that case were subject to a facial challenge 
and our holding that those limits were unconstitutional. We 
agree that, if the analysis and the holding in Vannatta  I 
are controlling, then the contribution limits at issue here 
also are subject to facial challenge and unconstitutional. To 
decide whether to adhere to that aspect of Vannatta I we 
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
301
must examine not only Vannatta I and Vannatta II, but also 
the Robertson framework and the limited category of laws 
that we have held to be subject to facial challenge under 
Article I, section 8. That, therefore, is where we begin.
1.  The Robertson framework
	
Under Robertson, a law restricting speech falls into 
one of three categories. The first Robertson category encom­
passes any law “that is ‘written in terms directed to the 
substance of any “opinion” or any “subject” of communica­
tion.’ 
” State v. Babson, 355 Or 383, 393-94, 326 P3d 559 
(2014) (quoting Robertson, 293 Or at 412). Laws in that cat­
egory are unconstitutional on their face, “unless the restric­
tion is wholly confined within an historical exception.” 

Id. at 394. In State v. Moyer, 348 Or 220, 230 P3d 7 (2010), 
we examined the validity of such a law—a statute that 
makes it an offense to make a campaign contribution in a 
name “other than that of the person who in truth provides 
the contribution.” ORS 260.402 (2003). We reasoned that 
“the falsity that the statute prohibits can only be achieved 
through expression—through one person’s communication 
of a falsehood to another person,” and, for that reason, we 
concluded that “the statute must be classified as a Robertson 
category one law.” Moyer, 348 Or at 232 (emphasis added). 
Although we ultimately concluded that the law fell within a 
recognized historical exception, and upheld it on that basis, 
id. at 237-38, that case nonetheless provides a good example 
of a law that is directed at expression and only expression 
and therefore falls within the first Robertson category. The 
first category is, by design, a limited one, as it includes only 
laws that expressly prohibit speech.
	
The second category shares that limitation. To fall 
into the second category, the law also must expressly regu­
late speech but do so only insofar as that speech is linked 
to a particular harm—that is, where “the actual focus of the 
enactment is on an effect or harm that may be proscribed, 
rather than on the substance of the communication itself.” 
State v. Stoneman, 323 Or 536, 543, 920 P2d 535 (1996) 
(emphasis in original). For example, in State v. Moyle, 299 
Or 691, 705 P2d 740 (1985), we considered the constitution­
ality of a law that forbids making a threat that is expected 
302	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
to and does cause alarm. We concluded that “[s]peech and 
writing are merely the means, albeit the only prohibited 
means, of achieving the forbidden effect—actual and rea­
sonable alarm.” Id. at 699. Laws that fall within the second 
category are analyzed for overbreadth and are held facially 
invalid if they are overbroad. Compare Robertson, 293 Or at 
435-37 (striking down a second-category law as overbroad), 
with Moyle, 299 Or at 704-05 (concluding that the statute 
under consideration was not overbroad).
	
Most laws fall into the third Robertson category—
which includes laws that do not expressly restrict speech 
but that may have the effect of prohibiting or limiting it. 
Robertson third-category laws are not facially invalid, but 
they are subject to as-applied challenges. Babson, 355 Or at 
404. We have considered the difference between laws that 
expressly restrict speech—those in the first two Robertson 
categories—and those that do not—placing them in the 
third Robertson category—on many occasions. This case, 
too, requires particular attention to that distinction, and it 
behooves us to examine it in greater detail, beginning with 
our 1992 decision in State v. Plowman, 314 Or 157, 838 P2d 
558 (1992).
	
In Plowman, the defendant was convicted of first-
degree intimidation, a crime then defined as “two or more 
persons, acting together, [who] ‘[i]ntentionally, knowingly, or 
recklessly cause physical injury to another because of their 
perception of that person’s race, color, religion, national ori­
gin or sexual orientation.’ 
” Plowman, 314 Or at 159 (quot­
ing ORS 166.165(1)(a)(A) (1991)). The defendant had, during 
an assault, exclaimed racial slurs at the victims and loudly 
yelled “white power” or “white pride.” Id. at 160. He argued 
that the law was facially invalid under Article I, section 8, 
because it provided for an enhanced punishment—relative 
to the lesser offense of fourth-degree assault—on the basis 
of his beliefs. Id. at 163.
	
This court recognized that the relevant question 
was whether the law was “ 
‘written in terms directed to the 
substance of any “opinion” or any “subject” of communica­
tion’ 
” and concluded that it was not. Plowman, 314 Or at 
165 (quoting Robertson, 293 Or at 412). We explained that 
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
303
the law did not proscribe opinion or speech, that “[p]ersons 
can commit that crime without speaking a word, and hold­
ing no opinion other than their perception of the victim’s 
characteristics.” Id. at 165. Instead, we explained, the law 
proscribed a forbidden effect:
“the effect of acting together to cause physical injury to a 
victim whom the assailants have targeted because of their 
perception that that victim belongs to a particular group. 
The assailants’ opinions, if any, are not punishable as such. 
ORS 166.165(1)(a)(A) proscribes and punishes committing 
an act, not holding a belief.”
Id. Thus, in Plowman, any proscription of speech was not 
express. Although the law certainly punished conduct that 
could be expressive in nature—as the defendant’s conduct in 
that case appears to have been—the possibility, or even cer­
tainty, that the law would punish some expressive conduct 
did not bring the law within the first Robertson category.
	
We reached an analogous conclusion in 2014, in 
Babson. That case concerned a challenge to a rule prohib­
iting overnight use of the steps in front of the state capitol. 
355 Or at 386. The defendants were protestors who had con­
ducted a vigil on the steps after 11:00 p.m., in violation of the 
rule. Id. They argued that the rule was an express restric­
tion on speech and either facially invalid as a Robertson cat­
egory one law or overbroad as a Robertson category two law. 
Babson, 355 Or at 394. This court rejected both contentions.
	
First, this court explained, the rule was not “ 
‘writ­
ten in terms’ directed at expression or the content of expres­
sion.” Id. at 395. Although the rule had the effect of prohib­
iting the defendants’ vigil, it was not written in those terms; 
it was written to bar all use, including nonexpressive use, 
of the capitol steps during certain hours. Because a person 
could violate the rule without engaging in any expressive 
activities—by, for instance, using the steps as a shortcut 
while crossing the capitol grounds at a time when the leg­
islature was not conducting business—the rule was not a 
Robertson category one law. Id. at 396-97.
	
Second, this court concluded that the rule was not 
subject to an overbreadth challenge as a Robertson category 
304	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
two law. Id.  at 398. Again, the terms of the rule did not 
include “expression as an element or ‘proscribed means’ of 
causing targeted harm.”3 Id. We rejected the defendants’ 
argument that apparent applications to speech were suffi­
cient to make the rule one that “directly refer[s] to speech” 
within the second Robertson category:
	
“Similarly, here, although the guideline does not directly 
refer to speech, the guideline does have apparent applica­
tions to speech, as defendants contend. A restriction on use 
of the capitol steps will prevent people like defendants from 
protesting or otherwise engaging in expressive activities on 
the capitol steps overnight. That fact alone, however, does 
not subject the guideline to Article  I, section 8, scrutiny 
under the second category of Robertson. The guideline is 
not simply a mirror of a prohibition on words. The guideline 
also bars skateboarding, sitting, sleeping, walking, storing 
equipment, and all other possible uses of the capitol steps 
during certain hours. Thus, because the guideline does not 
expressly refer to expression as a means of causing some 
harm, and it does not ‘obviously’ prohibit expression within 
the meaning of Moyle, it is not subject to an overbreadth 
challenge under the second category of Robertson.”
Babson, 355 Or at 403-04; see also State v. Illig-Renn, 341 Or 
228, 236-37, 142 P3d 62 (2006) (“In summary, the state is 
correct that only statutes that by their terms proscribe the 
exercise of the constitutionally protected rights of assembly 
or expression are susceptible to a facial overbreadth chal­
lenge under Article I, sections 8 and 26.”). In so holding, we 
noted only one exception, that where a law used “creative 
wording that does not refer directly to expression, but which 
could only be applied to expression, would be scrutinized 
under the first two categories of Robertson.” Babson, 355 Or 
at 403 (emphasis in original). As a result, laws that restrict 
conduct that only sometimes has an expressive component—
and that do not refer to the expressive component in defin­
ing the conduct that is restricted—are not laws directed at 
speech.
	
3  The first two Robertson categories require an express restriction on speech. 
We need not decide, in this case, whether those requirements are identical, 
because we think it clear that the requirement attendant to the first Robertson 
category is at least as demanding as that applicable to the second.
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
305
	
We now turn to an examination of the Vannatta 
cases, and this court’s application of the Robertson frame­
work in those cases. We first analyze whether Vannatta I 
correctly applied the Robertson framework, considering both 
the reasoning of that court and the reasoning of the court 
in Vannatta II. As we explain, we conclude that Vannatta I 
erred in treating the campaign contribution limits at issue 
there as Robertson category one laws. We then apply stare 
decisis principles and conclude that that reasoning must be 
abandoned and that Vannatta  I’s holding that those laws 
were unconstitutional on that basis must be overruled. 
Finally, we apply Robertson to the county’s contribution 
limits at issue here and conclude that the text of the ordi­
nances does not expressly refer to speech and that they are 
not facially invalid under Article I, section 8.
2.  The Robertson framework and the Vannatta cases
	
In Vannatta I, this court considered challenges to 
several campaign finance laws, including laws limiting both 
contributions and expenditures. The state conceded that the 
expenditure limits were express restrictions on expression, 
but it made no equivalent concession as to contributions. 
Rather, the state “argued that campaign contributions 
merely are gifts which in themselves are devoid of political 
expression and, as such, constitute conduct that permissibly 
may be regulated.” Vannatta I, 324 Or at 521. Vannatta I 
rejected that argument, concluding that the campaign con­
tribution limits fell into the first Robertson category.4
	
Vannatta I began its analysis without reference to 
Robertson, instead considering, in the abstract, whether 
contributions to political campaigns and candidates “are a 
form of expression under Article I, section 8.” 324 Or at 522. 
The court concluded “that many—probably most—are.” Id. 
In laying out the principal reasoning supporting that con­
clusion, the court again emphasized that “[w]e think that it 
	
4  Vannatta  I also considered and rejected several other arguments about 
the validity of the contribution limits, including arguments resting on consti­
tutional provisions other than Article I, section 8. In this opinion, however, we 
reconsider Vannatta I only to the extent that it placed the contribution limits in 
the first Robertson category, and we therefore do not summarize the portions of 
Vannatta I that do not bear on that issue. 
306	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
takes little imagination to see how many political contribu­
tions constitute expression.” Id. at 523.
	
Vannatta  I reached that conclusion in two ways. 
First, the court explained that a campaign contribution is 
expression by the contributor, the equivalent of a citizen 
standing on a street corner and announcing “ 
‘I support can­
didate X.’ 
” Id. at 524. Second, it reasoned that, just as an 
individual’s purchase of a newspaper ad in favor of a can­
didate was speech, so was an individual’s contribution to 
a “collective ‘pot’ 
” that could be used for such expression. 

Id. at 523-24:
“We assume, for example, that no one would deny the right 
of a citizen to purchase individually a newspaper ad that 
urges others to support a particular candidate or cause. 
And, if the individual can persuade enough neighbors 
and friends to join in the effort, the resulting spending 
power may produce much larger ads or television or radio 
commercials. No one, we take it, would gainsay the right 
of the individual to amplify his or her voice through col­
lective buying power—gaining adherents for one’s views 
is the essential purpose of political advocacy. It then fol­
lows ineluctably that the contribution of the collective 
‘pot’ thus collected is expression, just as the individual’s 
ad was. Indeed, it does not even matter if the money goes 
directly into an ad created by the contributors themselves 
or, instead, the money goes to professionals who create the 
ad for a fee. The outcome is the same—‘expression,’ for the 
purposes of Article I, section 8.
	
“Viewed in the foregoing way, expenditures and contri­
butions can be better seen for what they are—not opposite 
poles, but closely related activities.”
Vannatta I, 324 Or at 523-24.
	
It is significant that, in setting out the two prongs 
of its reasoning, this court did not assert that campaign con­
tributions are always expressive. With respect to the first 
prong, the court stated somewhat categorically that a “con­
tribution, in and of itself, is the contributor’s expression of 
support for the candidate or cause—an act of expression that 
is completed by the act of giving and that depends in no way 
on the ultimate use to which the contribution is put.” Id. at 
522 (emphasis in original). But the court also qualified its 
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
307
conclusion, stating only that “many—probably most” con­
tributions are expressive. Vannatta I, 324 Or at 522. And 
the court also acknowledged that a contribution may not be 
intended as speech, as when money is given to a politician 
without anticipating that it will be put toward a political 
campaign. Id. at 522 n 10.
	
In the second prong of its reasoning, the court made 
it even more clear that “many political contributions con­
stitute expression.” Id. at 523 (emphasis added). The court 
did not say that campaign contributions can only be used 
to express the views of the contributor. After all, campaign 
contributions may be used to amplify one’s voice, but they 
also may be used for other purposes, such as currying influ­
ence with a candidate.5 Moreover, the court acknowledged 
that a contribution “may never be used to promote a form of 
expression by the candidate; instead, it may (for example) 
be used to pay campaign staff or to meet other needs not 
tied to a particular message.” Id. at 522. Nevertheless, the 
court concluded, from the fact that “many” campaign con­
tributions are expressive, that “campaign contributions” are 
expression. Id. at 523-24.
	
Only after that abstract consideration of the nature 
of campaign contributions did the court turn to Robertson. 
Although the court could have concluded, as it had in 
Plowman, that a person can make a contribution to a can­
didate without saying a word and without expressing any 
opinion, it did not. Instead, without discussing Plowman, 
the court stated its conclusion in two short sentences:
“All the listed provisions of Measure 9 either expressly 
limit, or ban outright, campaign contributions that may be 
given to or that may be accepted by a candidate. By their 
terms, those provisions are targeted at protected speech.”
Id. at 537-38. That is, relying on its prior conclusion that 
campaign contributions are speech—a conclusion itself 
	
5  The United States Supreme Court has observed that, 
“in 1996 and 2000, more than half of the top 50 soft-money donors gave sub­
stantial sums to both major national parties, leaving room for no other con­
clusion but that these donors were seeking influence, or avoiding retaliation, 
rather than promoting any particular ideology.”
McConnell v. Federal Election Comm’n, 540 US 93, 148, 124 S Ct 619, 157 L Ed 
2d 491 (2003), overruled by Citizens United, 558 US 310 (emphasis in original).
308	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
premised on an observation that many or most contributions 
are expressive—the court concluded that limits on contribu­
tions fall into the first Robertson category.
	
That reasoning was erroneous. As was established 
before Vannatta I in Plowman and reaffirmed afterward in 
Babson, a law that is directed at conduct that is only some­
times, rather than necessarily, expressive is not subject to 
a facial challenge as a law “written in terms directed to 
the substance of any ‘opinion’ or any ‘subject’ of commu­
nication.” Robertson, 293 Or at 412. Treating a law as an 
express restriction of speech because many or even most of 
its applications restrict expression not only calls into ques­
tion the specific results in Plowman and Babson, it also sub­
stantially expands the first Robertson category.
	
We have previously observed that “most purposive 
human activity communicates something about the frame of 
mind of the actor[.]” Huffman and Wright Logging Co. v. Wade, 
317 Or 445, 449-50, 857 P2d 101 (1993). As the governor’s 
amicus brief argues, a rule that laws directed at conduct that 
is typically expressive fall into the first Robertson category—
and thus are valid only under narrow circumstances—would 
reach far beyond campaign contributions:
“For example, a parent can express affection for a child 
by giving that child a large inheritance. And yet, under 
Vannatta  I’s rationale, an inheritance tax presumably 
would be a restriction on speech itself because it affects the 
expression embodied by that transfer of property—a propo­
sition that cannot be true.”
	
The court’s observation that campaign contribu­
tions often may be used by a candidate to communicate a 
message also fails to convert campaign contributions into 
conduct that is necessarily expressive. Vannatta I noted that 
contributed “money may never be used to promote a form of 
expression by the candidate; instead, it may (for example) be 
used to pay campaign staff or to meet other needs not tied 
to a particular message.” Vannatta I, 324 Or at 522. That 
statement was correct: Although the personal use restric­
tions applicable to funds received as contributions eliminate 
some nonexpressive uses of contributions, they do not win­
now down the possible uses such that only expressive uses 
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
309
remain. See ORS 260.407(1) (limiting permissible uses of 
campaign contributions by candidates and principal cam­
paign committees). Under Oregon law, campaign contribu­
tions need not be used for campaign expenses at all; they 
may be used for expenses incurred as a holder of public 
office. ORS 260.407(1)(a)(A), (1)(b)(A). Money contributed to 
a campaign may ultimately be used to finance expression, 
but that does not distinguish money given to a political cam­
paign from money given to a politician as a gift—or from 
money in general.
	
Thus, when we now look at Vannatta I, it is appar­
ent that the court’s reasoning and resulting determination 
that the campaign contribution limits at issue there were 
facially invalid as Robertson category one laws was errone­
ous. Our analysis of Vannatta I is complicated, however, by 
that opinion’s partial reconsideration in Vannatta II. That 
case, decided more than 10 years after Vannatta I, involved 
what could be seen as a reductio ad absurdum of the rea­
soning employed in Vannatta I: an argument that Article I, 
section 8, protected the right of a lobbyist to give money to 
politicians. More concretely, the case involved facial chal­
lenges to several provisions of Oregon’s ethics laws which, 
among other things, prohibited public officials from receiv­
ing gifts above particular amounts and prohibited individ­
uals, including lobbyists, from offering gifts to politicians. 
Vannatta II, 347 Or at 453-54. For example, ORS 244.025(1) 
prohibited (and prohibits) public officials, candidates, and 
their relatives from receiving gifts in excess of $50 from a 
source with a legislative or administrative interest. See also 
ORS 244.025(4)(a); ORS 244.042(1)-(2).
	
This court’s treatment of the gift receipt limits in 
Vannatta II highlighted the tension between Plowman and 
Vannatta I.6 First, Vannatta II laid out the elements of the 
statute limiting gifts and relied on Plowman to explain why 
that statute did not fall into the first Robertson category. 
The court emphasized that, just as in Plowman, “[a] public 
official who is subject to restrictions on the receipt of gifts 
	
6  Vannatta II separately analyzed the restrictions on offering gifts, conclud­
ing that those restrictions expressly regulated speech and violated Article I, sec­
tion 8. 347 Or at 468. That portion of the analysis in Vannatta II did not implicate 
Vannatta I.
310	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
can violate the restrictions without saying a word, with­
out engaging in expressive conduct, and regardless of any 
opinion that he or she might hold.” Vannatta II, 347 Or at 
459. The court further emphasized that the receipt restric­
tions “do not focus on the content of speech or writing, or 
on the expression of any opinion.” Id. That is, because the 
restriction could be violated without engaging in expressive 
conduct, they were not express restrictions on expressive 
conduct.
	
That reasoning involved a straightforward, and 
correct, application of Plowman. Were it not for Vannatta I, 
the court could have left the matter there. However, the 
Vannatta  II plaintiffs resisted that conclusion in several 
ways, one of which is particularly pertinent here: an argu­
ment that “any constitutional protection for political contri­
butions should apply equally to gifts to legislative officials 
because they are indistinguishable from political contri­
butions.” Vannatta II, 347 Or at 459. That is, the plaintiffs 
asked the court to adopt reasoning analogous to that fol­
lowed in Vannatta I.7
	
This court addressed those arguments and, in the 
process, attempted to limit and to distinguish Vannatta I. 
Unfortunately, it did so in ways that were less than clear. 
In brief, it concluded that Vannatta  I had relied on two 
premises: first, that contributions are the expression of the 
contributor, and second, that contributions are inextricably 
intertwined with the speech of the campaign or candidate. 
Vannatta II, 347 Or at 464-65. Vannatta II characterized the 
first as being primarily a response to Buckley, the United 
States Supreme Court decision that had approved of lim­
its on campaign contributions but disapproved of limits on 
expenditures and independent expenditures, relying in part 
on a conclusion that the expression involved in campaign con­
tributions was less significant, 424 US at 21-22. Vannatta II 
	
7  In Vannatta II, the state principally argued that the gift receipt statutes 
were Robertson category two laws, that they fell within an exception to the 
Robertson framework, or that they were time, place, and manner restrictions. The 
argument that the court adopted—that the gift provisions were not an express 
restriction on speech at all—was advanced by the state primarily as a fallback 
argument. See Brief on the Merits of Respondents on Review at 31, Vannatta II. 
The state embraced the validity of the reasoning in Vannatta I and attempted to 
distinguish gifts from contributions. Id. at 36.
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
311
concluded that the first premise on which Vannatta I was 
based was therefore not essential to the holding and with­
drew it. 347 Or at 465. Vannatta II then explained that the 
second premise—that contributions are inextricably inter­
twined with speech—was not applicable to gifts:
“Giving a gift to a public official is not inextricably linked 
with a public official’s ability to carry out official func­
tions. Public officials can speak whether or not lobbyists 
have given them gifts, which distinguishes this case from 
Vannatta  I and its focus on the connection between the 
restriction on campaign contributions and the candidate’s 
or campaign’s ability to communicate a political message.”
Vannatta 
II, 
347 
Or 
at 
465. 
Vannatta 
II 
did 
not 
discuss 
whether 
Vannatta I’s reasoning comported with Robertson, nor did it 
discuss how the distinction that it drew between contribu­
tions and gifts mapped onto the Robertson framework.
	
In hindsight, that treatment of Vannatta  I was 
unsatisfactory. First, Vannatta  II’s characterization of 
Vannatta I’s holding was not entirely accurate. It is true that, 
at one point, Vannatta I discussed its view of contributions 
as an expression of support by the contributor in the context 
of its disagreement with Buckley. But Vannatta I returned to 
that theme without mention of Buckley later in its analysis of 
whether campaign contributions constitute expression. 324 
Or at 524. Vannatta II’s explanation for its withdrawal of the 
first premise—that it was not part of Vannatta I’s holding 
was therefore strained. And Vannatta II’s discussion of the 
second prong of the reasoning in Vannatta I also is unclear. 
Vannatta II stated that Vannatta I’s holding “assumed that 
restricting campaign contributions restricts a candidate’s or 
a campaign’s ability to communicate a political message.” 
Vannatta II, 347 Or at 465. But Vannatta I emphasized that 
“a contribution is protected as an expression by the contribu­
tor, not because the contribution eventually may be used by 
a candidate to express a particular message.” Vannatta I, 
324 Or at 522 (emphasis in original). Both of the premises 
for Vannatta I’s reasoning rested on the contribution being 
the expression of the contributor.  Vannatta I did not discuss 
the practical impact of campaign contribution restrictions 
on political expression by a candidate or campaign.
312	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
	
Second, and more importantly, Vannatta II distin­
guished Vannatta  I in a way that deepened, rather than 
resolved, the tension between Vannatta  I and Plowman. 
Vannatta II distinguished the contribution limits at issue 
in Vannatta I from the gift limits at issue in Vannatta II 
based on a claimed difference in their effects on speech. 
Vannatta II stated that Vannatta I’s holding rested on an 
assumed “symbiotic relationship between the making of 
contributions and the candidate’s or campaign’s ability to 
communicate a political message.” Vannatta  II, 347 Or at 
465. Vannatta II explained that the giving of gifts did not 
create that assumed relationship:
“[p]ublic officials can speak whether or not lobbyists have 
given them gifts, which distinguishes this case from 
Vannatta  I and its focus on the connection between the 
restriction on campaign contributions and the candidate’s 
or campaign’s ability to communicate a political message.”
347 Or at 465. Thus, Vannatta II drew a distinction between 
campaign contributions and gifts in terms of their effects on 
the ultimate ability of politicians to speak. But Vannatta II 
did not explain why that distinction was meaningful in the 
Robertson analysis.
	
In determining that the limits on gifts to public offi­
cials did not fall into the first Robertson category and hold­
ing that those limits are constitutional, Vannatta II adhered 
to the Robertson framework. However, in its discussion of 
Vannatta I and the distinction that it drew between gifts 
to public officials and campaign contributions, Vannatta II 
deviated from that framework by implying that a law that is 
not an express limit on speech can fall into the first Robertson 
category. That deviation is confusing, and much of the brief­
ing filed in this case reflects that confusion. Trojan and the 
county ask us to overrule Vannatta I in light of Vannatta II, 
by asking that we place further emphasis, as they do, on 
the distinction that Vannatta  II drew between contribu­
tions and gifts. For example, the county reads Vannatta II 
as holding “that any protection for campaign contributions 
must stem from an inextricable link between the contribu­
tion and a candidate’s ability to engage in political speech.” 
The county therefore argues that the key question in this 
case is whether the county’s contribution limits are so low 
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
313
as to prevent candidates from being able to effectively 
engage in expression. That is not an unreasonable reading 
of Vannatta  II, but it is a reading that takes us far from 
ordinary applications of Robertson. If a law falls into the 
first Robertson category as an express restriction on speech, 
it cannot be defended based on the availability of alternative 
modes of expression. Conversely, a law that is not an express 
restriction on speech is not subject to a facial challenge at 
all.
	
We conclude that, just as Vannatta I’s reasoning is 
inconsistent with Robertson, so too is Vannatta II’s effort to 
shore up Vannatta I in the process of distinguishing it. To the 
extent that Vannatta II can be understood as interpreting 
Vannatta I to place laws within the first Robertson category 
when they are not written in terms directed to the substance 
of any opinion or subject of communication, but instead may 
have an “effect” on such expression, that interpretation too 
would be at odds with Robertson and its progeny and would 
be erroneous. Under the Robertson framework, a law that 
restricts conduct without expressly regulating speech is not 
a Robertson category one law directed toward expression, 
even if the law may affect a person’s ability to speak. And 
the fact that contributions may enable speech also does not 
turn the conduct of making a campaign contribution into 
conduct that is necessarily expressive. Therefore, limita­
tions on campaign contributions that regulate conduct and, 
in doing so, make it either easier or more difficult for a per­
son to speak also are not properly analyzed as Robertson 
category one limitations.
	
We conclude that both Vannatta I and Vannatta II 
were erroneous in reasoning that the contribution limits at 
issue in Vannatta I are Robertson category one laws. As a 
result, we also conclude that Vannatta  I erred in holding 
that those laws are facially invalid on that basis.
3.  Stare decisis
	
That does not mean, however, that we must or should 
overrule Vannatta I. In their defense of Vannatta I, respon­
dents place their emphasis on stare decisis. They argue, cor­
rectly, that “a philosophical disagreement with a conclusion 
is not grounds for reconsideration” and that this court does, 
314	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
and should, overrule its constitutional precedents in a very 
limited set of circumstances.
	
Our most sustained consideration of when a consti­
tutional precedent may be overturned was in Couey v. Atkins, 
357 Or 460, 355 P3d 866 (2015). In that case, emphasizing 
that “[s]tare decisis does not permit this court to revisit a 
prior decision merely because the court’s current members 
may hold a different view than its predecessors about a par­
ticular issue,” id. at 485, we distilled from our prior decisions 
three categories of cases in which a constitutional precedent 
could warrant reconsideration:
“First, there are cases in which a prior pronouncement 
amounted to dictum or was adopted without analysis or 
explanation. Second, there are cases in which the analysis 
that does exist was clearly incorrect—that is, it finds no 
support in the text or the history of the relevant consti­
tutional provision. Third, there are cases that cannot be 
fairly reconciled with other decisions of this court on the 
same constitutional provision.”
Id. at 485-86 (internal citations omitted). Respondents argue 
that those circumstances are not present here. We disagree. 
This case, like Couey itself, falls into the third category. As 
we noted above, and discuss in more detail below, Vannatta I 
adopted an approach to the Robertson analysis that conflicts 
with our other Article I, section 8, decisions.
	
In Couey, we faced the question of whether to over­
rule our precedent on the subject of justiciability. We con­
fronted a situation where two applicable cases pointed in 
opposite directions. Id. at 489. Here we face an analogous 
situation. Were we to focus on the fact that the law before 
us is a contribution limit, we might reason that this case 
is controlled by Vannatta I and therefore conclude that the 
ordinance must be struck down. Conversely, if we focus on 
the text of the county’s ordinance and attempt to answer the 
question of whether it expressly proscribes speech, the hold­
ing of Vannatta II would be directly applicable, because the 
limits on financial transfers to candidates here are no more 
directed to the substance of any opinion or subject of com­
munications than was the prohibition on financial transfers 
to candidates at issue in Vannatta II.
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
315
	
And we are not faced with inconsistency only 
between those two cases. We have decided many cases 
under Article I, section 8, and our application of Robertson 
to campaign contributions in Vannatta I conflicts not only 
with our application of Robertson to gifts in Vannatta II but 
with several other decisions of this court, before and since 
Vannatta I. Those cases include Plowman and Babson, but 
the tension is not confined to those decisions.
	
State v. Ciancanelli, 339 Or 282, 121 P3d 613 (2005), 
furnishes another example of that tension. In that case, we 
considered the validity of two statutes. The first was ORS 
167.062 (2003), a prohibition on certain “live public sex 
show[s].” The law prohibited sadomasochistic abuse and sex­
ual conduct, but only when that conduct took place in a live 
public show, defined as follows:
	
“(a)  ‘Live public show’ means a public show in which 
human beings, animals, or both appear bodily before spec­
tators or customers.
	
“(b)  ‘Public show’ means any entertainment or exhi­
bition advertised or in some other fashion held out to be 
accessible to the public or member of a club, whether or 
not an admission or other charge is levied or collected and 
whether or not minors are admitted or excluded.”
ORS 167.062(5) (2003). The state argued that the law 
addressed “conduct,” rather than expression. We disagreed:
	
“In arguing against the suggestion that ORS 167.062 is 
directed at expression, the state also relies on this court’s 
recognition, in Huffman and Wright Logging Co. v. Wade, 
317 Or 445, 857 P2d 101 (1993), that conduct is not pro­
tected expression under Article I, section 8, merely because 
the actor intends the conduct to convey a message. But, in 
so arguing, the state loses sight of the fact that the issue 
here is the overall constitutionality of a statute, not whether 
defendant can claim that his particular conduct is expres­
sive and therefore immunized from any and all criminal 
liability. It may or may not be true that the sexual acts that 
defendant directed were conduct in the most basic sense 
and, as such, could be punished under some other statute. 
But the fact remains that the statute at issue here—ORS 
167.062—prohibits and criminalizes those acts only when 
they occur in an expressive context, i.e., in a ‘live public 
316	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
show.’ Under those circumstances, we cannot avoid the con­
clusion that the statute is directed primarily, if not solely, 
toward the expressive aspect of the conduct that it describes. 
That is, the statute is one restraining free expression.”
Ciancanelli, 339 Or at 320-21 (emphasis in original). By con­
trast, in the same case, we rejected the defendant’s challenge 
to his conviction for promoting prostitution. We explained:
“ORS 167.012 prohibits promoting prostitution—owning, 
controlling, managing, or supervising a prostitution enter­
prise—regardless of the presence or absence of any circum­
stances that might add an expressive element to the conduct. 
It is not targeted either at expression itself or at the expres­
sive aspects of certain conduct. It therefore does not, in and 
of itself, raise an issue of facial unconstitutionality under 
Article I, section 8. Defendant’s contrary argument is not 
well taken.”
Id.  at 323 (emphasis added; footnote omitted). Those con­
trasting dispositions adhere to the rule discussed above. The 
first statute restricted nude dancing—conduct that may be 
but is not necessarily expressive—but did so only when it 
was expressive. That law was expressly directed at speech, 
fell into the first Robertson category, and was invalid. The 
second law restricted promoting prostitution—conduct 
that might be linked to or involve expression in some cir­
cumstances—regardless of whether any expressive compo­
nent was present. That law was not expressly directed at 
speech, did not fall into the first Robertson category, and 
was sustained.
	
Along similar lines, this court decided City of 
Portland v. Tidyman, 306 Or 174, 759 P2d 242 (1988), a 
case involving a challenge to zoning regulations targeted 
at adult bookstores, which used the content of the publica­
tions sold by those establishments as its basis for zoning 
restrictions. We determined that the ordinance fell within 
the first Robertson category, and we therefore held that it 
violated Article I, section 8. But we emphasized that that 
decision was a consequence of the fact that the city’s ordi­
nance had expressly based its restrictions on the content of 
the bookstores’ speech, and that zoning regulations that did 
not depend on content of communicative merchandise could 
be sustained against a facial challenge:
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
317
	
“Thus the city could regulate the location of a business 
that sells other merchandise, ‘adult’ or otherwise, even if it 
purveys communicative materials, as long as selling such 
other merchandise is not permitted at the location. A gro­
cery store gains no privilege against a zoning regulation 
by selling The National Enquirer and Globe at its check-
out counter. * 
* 
* Many regulations are not impermissible 
laws ‘restricting the right to speak, write, or print freely on 
any subject whatever,’ although they can be impermissibly 
applied in individual cases.”
Tidyman, 306 Or at 182.
	
All of those cases point in the same direction: laws 
that proscribe conduct that is often, but not necessarily, 
expressive cannot be facially invalid under the Robertson 
framework. We affirmed that principle most clearly in 
Plowman, Vannatta  II, and Babson, all of which involved 
challenges to laws that proscribed conduct that could, but 
need not, be expressive. In all three cases we held that 
those laws did not fall within the first Robertson category. 
By contrast, in Ciancanelli we were faced with a law that 
proscribed conduct only when it occurred in an expressive 
context. That, therefore, was the type of law that Robertson 
forbade, and we held it unconstitutional.
	
The distinction between laws that expressly regu­
late speech and laws that restrict expressive activity in only 
some of their applications is a significant one. The former 
laws are those “restraining the free expression of opinion, or 
restricting the right to speak, write, or print freely on any 
subject whatever,” Article I, section 8—the category of laws 
that the constitutional provision most explicitly forbids and 
hence the laws which this court approves most infrequently. 
The latter category—those that do not expressly restrict 
speech but that are written to restrict a broader category of 
conduct that is sometimes but not always expressive—may 
encompass nearly every law to a greater or lesser degree.
	
Laws falling into that latter category are subject to 
only as-applied challenges. “When a law does not expressly or 
obviously refer to expression, the legislature is not required 
to consider all apparent applications of that law to protected 
expression and narrow the law to eliminate them.” Babson, 
318	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
355 Or at 400. The limits on the first Robertson category do 
not make it an empty set, but they do restrict its application, 
and the accompanying high standard for facial validity, to 
those laws that, in directly regulating speech, pose the most 
danger to the expression protected by Article I, section 8.
	
The above limitation holds, and we have stuck to 
it, even when the law has readily apparent applications to 
speech. It may be, and may have been, that many of the 
assaults prohibited by the law at issue in Plowman had 
some expressive content—that they were intended to con­
vey disapproval of individuals or to communicate hatred of 
certain groups. Similarly, in Babson, it may have been, and 
likely was, the case that very many foreseeable uses of the 
Capitol steps bore some connection to expressive activity 
and that, as a practical matter, certain forms of expression 
were limited. Babson, 355 Or at 403 (“although the guide­
line does not directly refer to speech, the guideline does 
have apparent applications to speech, as defendants con­
tend”). Nevertheless, we did not place those laws into the 
first Robertson category.
	
“We do not lightly decide to overrule an earlier con­
stitutional decision.” State v. Savastano, 354 Or 64, 95, 309 
P3d 1083 (2013). But the inconsistency that Vannatta I has 
produced is comparable to that which previously has jus­
tified our abandonment of an aberrant constitutional deci­
sion. In Savastano, we overruled our prior decision in State 
v. Freeland, 295 Or 367, 667 P2d 509 (1983), which had held 
that Article I, section 20, of the Oregon Constitution required 
prosecutors to develop coherent, systematic policies to gov­
ern certain charging decisions. In Savastano, reviewing our 
other Article I, section 20, cases, we concluded that Freeland 
could not be reconciled with decisions before and since that 
set a less stringent standard in similar contexts. 354 Or at 
91.
	
To be sure, in all reconsiderations of precedent, we 
must take into account the “undeniable importance of sta­
bility in legal rules and decisions.” Stranahan v. Fred Meyer, 
Inc., 331 Or 38, 53, 11 P3d 228 (2000). In Savastano, we noted 
that Freeland had been a relative outlier and that “the cases 
that have followed Freeland have eroded its precedential 
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
319
value and effectively returned to the more limited and his­
torically grounded principle stated in [State v. Clark, 291 Or 
231, 630 P2d 810, cert den, 454 US 1084, 102 S Ct 640, 70 
L Ed 2d 619 (1981)].” Savastano, 354 Or at 96. By contrast, 
in Ciancanelli, where we were asked to overrule Robertson 
and declined, we emphasized that “[m]any decisions of this 
court serve as precedent in later decisions. Thus, disavow­
ing one case may undermine the precedential significance 
of several others,” 339 Or at 290—an observation that was 
especially true of Robertson, this court’s foundational deci­
sion on Article I, section 8. As we explained in Ciancanelli,
“The contrast between Stranahan and this case illustrates 
the foregoing principle. In Stranahan, the allegedly errone­
ous decision had been rendered less than 10 years earlier, 
and few intervening precedents had relied on the earlier 
case, Lloyd Corporation v. Whiffen, 315 Or 500, 849 P2d 446 
(1993). The Stranahan majority simply acted at the earliest 
possible moment to correct what it perceived to be an ana­
lytical mistake made in the immediately preceding case, 
Lloyd Corporation. The present case, by contrast, involves a 
challenge not only to Robertson, but also to the many cases 
that this court has decided since 1983 that have utilized its 
methodology.”
Id. at 290-91.
	
In terms of the importance of stability in the law, 
Vannatta  I resembles Lloyd Corporation. Although more 
time has passed between Vannatta  I and this case than 
elapsed between Lloyd Corporation and Stranahan, the por­
tion of Vannatta I’s holding in question here—its application 
of Robertson’s first category—has not been relied on in any 
other case. To the contrary, the only case to discuss it in 
detail, Vannatta II, distinguished Vannatta I and withdrew 
a material portion of its reasoning.8 And, in Vannatta  II, 
no party asked this court to reconsider Vannatta  I. Our 
other cases applying Robertson since Vannatta I, including 
	
8  In Moyer we relied on different portions of Vannatta I, relating to the scope 
of the historical exception to Robertson. 348 Or at 236. To be clear, Vannatta I 
was an opinion that discussed many issues, only some of which are contested in 
this case, and only one of which we reconsider in this opinion. We do not disavow 
all portions of Vannatta I, only those that, as we have explained, conflict with the 
Robertson framework.
320	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
Ciancanelli and Babson, have made no mention of Vannatta I, 
despite reasoning in ways that conflict with Vannatta I. And 
two cases on similar topics, Vannatta II, 347 Or at 464, and 
Moyer, 348 Or at 230, have attributed confusion by parties 
and lower courts to Vannatta I. Vannatta I is the “immedi­
ately preceding” case on campaign contributions. Although 
we have decided cases since Vannatta I touching on cam­
paign finance, we have not reached the merits of an Article I, 
section 8, challenge in any of those cases.9
	
Respondents note that in those cases we referred 
to Vannatta  I as governing precedent. But that is hardly 
surprising, as Vannatta I was governing precedent in each 
of those cases—a point that we made sure to distinguish, 
where appropriate, from the question of whether Vannatta I 
was correctly decided. Vannatta  I derives little additional 
precedential force from the fact that, primarily in ballot title 
cases, we acknowledged its existence without endorsing its 
reasoning.
	
In assessing the prudential factors that may coun­
sel for or against overruling Vannatta I, we also consider the 
effect of a ballot measure that was submitted to the voters 
in 2006—Measure 46 (2006)—which “sought to amend the 
Oregon Constitution to permit the enactment of laws pro­
hibiting or limiting electoral campaign ‘contributions and 
expenditures, of any type or description.’ 
” Hazell v. Brown, 
352 Or 455, 458, 287 P3d 1079 (2012). Voters rejected 
Measure 46, although they approved Measure 47 (2006), a 
companion ballot initiative creating new campaign finance 
measures, conditional on a change in the constitutional lim­
itation, such as the passage of Measure 46 or a judicial over­
ruling of Vannatta I. Hazell, 352 Or at 462-63, 469. Measure 
46 plainly was directed at overruling the key holdings of 
Vannatta I, and it was rejected. Of course, a ballot measure 
that did not pass cannot change the meaning of the consti­
tution or affect our duty to interpret it. Whether such a mea­
sure may affect our stare decisis analysis is a more nuanced 
	
9  See Markley/Lutz v. Rosenblum, 362 Or 531, 533, 413 P3d 966 (2018); Hazell 
v. Brown, 352 Or 455, 467-68, 287 P3d 1079 (2012); Meyer v. Myers, 343 Or 399, 
404-05, 171 P3d 937 (2007); Meyer v. Bradbury, 341 Or 288, 293 n 4, 142 P3d 1031 
(2006).
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
321
issue. But even assuming that, in an appropriate case, an 
event like the failure of Measure 46 might weigh against 
overturning a precedent, it has little impact here.
	
Just as the “legislature may decline to address a 
judicial decision for any number of reasons, none of which 
necessarily constitutes an endorsement of the decision’s rea­
soning or result,” Farmers Ins. Co. of Oregon v. Mowry, 350 
Or 686, 696, 261 P3d 1 (2011), so too may the people decline 
to adopt a proposed constitutional amendment for a myriad 
of reasons. And there are explanations for Measure 46’s fail­
ure other than the possibility that voters meant to express 
their approval of Vannatta  I’s contribution limits holding. 
Most obviously, Vannatta I struck down both contribution 
limits and expenditure limits, and Measure 46 would have 
amended Article I, section 8, with respect to both. However, 
independent expenditures present a different, and poten­
tially more difficult, constitutional problem than campaign 
contributions. For example, under the First Amendment, 
the United States Supreme Court has, since Buckley, 
held that expenditure limits place a greater burden on
constitutionally-protected expression than contribution lim­
its do. Even some proponents of campaign finance reform 
view a constitutional amendment permitting expenditure 
limits as dangerous, in view of the effect that such an 
amendment might have on other areas of law. See Richard L. 
Hasen, Three Wrong Progressive Approaches (and One Right 
One) to Campaign Finance Reform, 8 Harv L & Pol’y Rev 
21, 26-27 (2014). Thus, voters could have rejected Measure 
46 because of its application to expenditure limits, even if 
they supported the measure to the extent that it applied to 
contribution limits.
	
Moreover, parsing the amendment’s failure in this 
case is even more difficult, because of the simultaneous adop­
tion of Measure 47 (2006), which would have created limits 
on both contributions and expenditures if Measure 46 was 
adopted or Vannatta I was overruled to a sufficient degree. 
See Hazell, 352 Or at 458. One voter could have supported 
such limits but believed that the constitutional amendment 
went too far. Another could have preferred to have this court 
reconcile such limits with the constitution, rather than risk­
ing an amendment that could threaten speech. As a result, 
322	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
the rejection of Measure 46 deserves no real weight in our 
stare decisis analysis.
	
Ultimately, we do not believe that we can have one 
Article I, section 8, approach to laws restricting campaign 
contributions and another for all other laws. Vannatta  I 
itself rejected any “distinctions based on the ‘centrality’ of 
particular forms of expression” when explaining why, contra 
Buckley, it would not apply a different standard to contribu­
tion limits than to expenditure limits. 324 Or at 521. And 
we cannot honor stare decisis by expanding Vannatta  I’s 
application of the first Robertson category to all laws—
allowing facial challenges to laws restricting conduct that 
has an expressive component in many or most applications. 
That also would require overturning precedent, and more 
of it. Vannatta II, although correct in its own application of 
Robertson, did not successfully rehabilitate Vannatta I, nor 
did it supply a viable basis on which Vannatta I could be 
distinguished from this court’s other Article  I, section 8,
cases. Rather, it deepened the confusion surrounding 
Vannatta  I’s basis and validity. Given the clear conflict 
between Vannatta  I and our other cases, it is Vannatta  I 
that must give way. We disavow the reasoning in Vannatta I 
that campaign contribution limits necessarily are Robertson 
category one laws. Vannatta I erred in holding contribution 
limits unconstitutional based on that reasoning. The correct 
inquiry, under Robertson, is whether such limits are “writ­
ten in terms directed to the substance of any ‘opinion’ or 
any ‘subject’ of communication.” Robertson, 293 Or at 412.10 
The remaining question in this case is whether the county’s 
contribution limit ordinance is such an express restriction.
4.  Application to this case
	
We now undertake that inquiry and examine the 
text of the campaign contribution limits at issue here.  MCC 
§ 5.201 provides:
	
“(A)  An Individual or Entity may make Contributions 
only as specifically allowed to be received in this Section.
	
“(B)  A Candidate or Candidate Committee may receive 
only the following contributions during any Election Cycle:
	
10  Vannatta I did not conduct that inquiry, and we need not decide here what 
result would have obtained if it had. 
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
323
	
“(1)  Not more than five hundred dollars ($500) from 
an Individual or Political Committee other than a Small 
Donor Committee;
	
“(2)  Any amount from a Small Donor Committee; and
	
“(3)  No amount from any other Entity.”
	
The county’s definition of “contribution,” contained 
in MCC §  5.200, cross-references the definitions in ORS 
260.005(3) and ORS 260.007.11 ORS 260.005(3) provides:
“Except as provided in ORS 260.007, ‘contribute’ or ‘contri­
bution’ includes:
	
“(a)  The payment, loan, gift, forgiving of indebtedness, 
or furnishing without equivalent compensation or consid­
eration, of money, services other than personal services for 
which no compensation is asked or given, supplies, equip­
ment or any other thing of value:
	
“(A)  For the purpose of influencing an election for pub­
lic office or an election on a measure, or of reducing the debt 
of a candidate for nomination or election to public office or 
the debt of a political committee; or
	
“(B)  To or on behalf of a candidate, political committee 
or measure; and
	
“(b)  The excess value of a contribution made for com­
pensation or consideration of less than equivalent value.”
	
However, the county argues that only a portion of 
that definition is operative in the context of MCC § 5.201. 
That contention requires a brief digression into statutory 
construction. There is no dispute that MCC §  5.201 sets 
limits on contributions to candidates and candidate com­
mittees. The plain text of MCC § 5.201(B) establishes that 
a candidate can accept a thing of value from an individ­
ual or entity only if (1) it falls within the contribution lim­
its or (2) it is excluded from the definition of “contribution” 
by MCC § 5.200 or ORS 260.007. However, amicus Oregon 
Taxpayers Association (OTA) argues that MCC § 5.201(A) 
also prohibits contributions to ballot measure campaigns 
and contributions to be used in independent expenditures. 
	
11  ORS 260.007 contains exceptions to the definitions of “contribution” and 
“expenditure.”
324	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
The county disavows both applications and contends that 
MCC § 5.201(A) applies only to contributions to candidates 
and a principal candidate committee.
	
We agree with the county that the contribution 
limits imposed by MCC § 5.201 apply only to contributions 
to candidates in Multnomah County candidate elections 
and their principal candidate committees. We approach 
the question using our usual methodology for statutory 
interpretation. State v. Gaines, 346 Or 160, 206 P3d 1042 
(2009). To begin with, it makes little sense to read the text 
of MCC §  5.201(A)—“[a]n Individual or Entity may make 
Contributions only as specifically allowed to be received in 
this Section”—as a complete prohibition on all contributions 
in all elections. The title of that provision—which was part 
of the text submitted to voters—is “CONTRIBUTIONS IN 
MULTNOMAH COUNTY CANDIDATE ELECTIONS” 
(capitalization in original). It therefore makes sense to read 
§ 5.201(A), in context, as a prohibition on contributions in 
Multnomah County candidate elections, not a much more 
extensive proscription. That reading is confirmed by legis­
lative history. As submitted to voters, the ballot measure 
explained that it would create a new charter provision lim­
iting “[c]ontributions to political campaigns for candidates 
running for county elective offices.” Multnomah County 
Voters’ Pamphlet, General Election, November 8, 2016, M-28. 
The fact that the county’s ordinance cross-references a state 
statutory definition of “contribution” that refers to “mea­
sures” does not mean that the substantive limits imposed 
by the county provision apply beyond their intended scope.
	
Similarly, OTA’s argument that MCC §  5.201(A) 
forbids all contributions to be used in independent expen­
ditures proves unpersuasive in light of its context. Other 
provisions of the county’s ordinance clearly contemplate 
that such contributions will take place. For example, MCC 
§ 5.202(C)(3) provides that
“[a] Political Committee may make aggregate Independent 
Expenditures of not more than ten thousand dollars 
($10,000), provided that the Independent Expenditures are 
funded by means of contributions to the Political Committee 
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
325
by Individuals in amounts not exceeding five hundred dol­
lars ($500) per Individual per year.”
If OTA’s reading of MCC §  5.201(A) were correct, MCC 
§ 5.202(C)(3) would be rendered a nullity, because no polit­
ical committee other than a candidate committee could 
accept contributions of any size. The more plausible reading, 
and the only reading consistent with the legislative history 
quoted above, is that MCC § 5.201(A) restricts contributions 
only to candidates and candidate committees, the two enti­
ties to which the limits in MCC § 5.201(B) apply.
	
Therefore, only a portion of the definition of “con­
tribution” quoted above is operative in the context of MCC 
§ 5.201. The other parts of that definition would have a role 
to play in a more expansive restriction of contributions—
such as the contribution limits at issue in Vannatta  I or 
OTA’s broad reading of MCC § 5.201(A). But, because the 
county’s contribution limits apply only to contributions to 
candidates or candidate committees, only a portion of the 
statutory definition is left with any role to play. With irrele­
vant or redundant portions omitted, the operative definition 
reads:
	
“(a)  The payment, loan, gift, forgiving of indebtedness, 
or furnishing without equivalent compensation or consid­
eration, of money, services other than personal services for 
which no compensation is asked or given, supplies, equip­
ment or any other thing of value:
	
“* 
* 
* 
* 
*
	
“(B)  To or on behalf of a candidate [or] political com­
mittee * 
* 
*; and
	
“(b)  The excess value of a contribution made for com­
pensation or consideration of less than equivalent value.”
No portion of that definition contains an express reference 
to speech. Nor, as in Ciancanelli, does the definition target 
conduct only insofar as it is expressive. Instead, “contribu­
tion” is defined in terms of conduct that is not necessarily 
expressive. Vannatta  II’s analysis of the gift limit, which 
was written in similar terms, controls here:
326	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
“A public official who is subject to restrictions on the receipt 
of gifts can violate the restrictions without saying a word, 
without engaging in expressive conduct, and regardless of 
any opinion that he or she might hold.”
347 Or at 459.12
	
Accordingly, we conclude that MCC § 5.201(A) and (B) 
are not subject to facial challenge under Robertson. They 
are not, therefore, facially invalid under Article I, section 8. 
The county’s limits may be subject to as applied challenges. 
But, in this case, respondents have raised only a facial chal­
lenge to the county’s contribution limits, and we reject that 
challenge.
B.  Contribution Limits and the First Amendment
	
Because the trial court concluded that the county’s 
contribution limits violated Article  I, section 8, it did not 
reach the question of whether the limits violate the First 
Amendment. The First Amendment sets limits on the reg­
ulation of campaign contributions. In Buckley, the Supreme 
Court upheld individual contribution limits of $1,000, recog­
nizing that, although contribution limits restricted speech 
to some extent, the government had a significant interest in 
preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption. 426 
US at 26. Although Buckley upheld contribution limits of 
$1,000, the Supreme Court has since made clear that Buckley 
did not set a floor. In Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government 
PAC, 528 US 377, 120 S Ct 897, 145 L Ed 2d 886 (2000), the 
Supreme Court rejected a First Amendment challenge to 
Missouri’s $1,075 individual contribution limit in statewide 
elections. That limit, when adjusted for inflation, was lower 
than that upheld in Buckley in 1968. Nevertheless, empha­
sizing that Buckley did not set a floor, the Court rejected 
the challenge. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 US at 
396-97.
	
Randall v. Sorrell, 548 US 230, 126 S Ct 2479, 165 
L Ed 2d 482 (2006), was the first Supreme Court decision 
	
12  We need not, and do not, consider whether a contribution limit in which 
ORS 260.007(a)(A)—and its reference to “the purpose of influencing an election 
for public office or an election on a measure”—were operative would be an express 
restriction of speech. For that reason, we do not consider whether Vannatta I’s 
result—which was to strike down a broader set of contribution limits where con­
tributions were so defined—was incorrect. 
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
327
to find a contribution limit facially invalid. In that case, six 
Justices, across three opinions, held that Vermont’s con­
tribution limit scheme, which involved contribution limits 
for statewide races as low as $200, was unconstitutional. 
Although no rationale commanded a majority of the Court, 
Justice Breyer’s opinion provided the narrowest ground for 
the judgment and is therefore binding on this court. See 
Marks v. United States, 430 US 188, 193, 97 S Ct 990, 51 
L Ed 2d 260 (1977) (“When a fragmented Court decides a 
case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys 
the assent of five Justices, the holding of the Court may be 
viewed as that position taken by those Members who con­
curred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds” (inter­
nal quotations and citation omitted)); Thompson v. Hebdon, 
___ US ___, ___, 140 S Ct 348, 350 & n (2019) (per curiam) 
(recognizing that Justice Breyer’s opinion in Randall is 
controlling).
	
The opinion in Randall framed the question as 
being whether the contribution limits
“prevent candidates from ‘amassing the resources neces­
sary for effective [campaign] advocacy’; whether they mag­
nify the advantages of incumbency to the point where they 
put challengers to a significant disadvantage; in a word, 
whether they are too low and too strict to survive First 
Amendment scrutiny.”
Randall, 548 US at 248 (opinion of Breyer, J.) (quoting 
Buckley 424 US at 21; alteration in Randall; internal cita­
tion omitted). The opinion in Randall answered that ques­
tion using a two-staged approach. It explained that
“where there is strong indication in a particular case, i.e., 
danger signs, that such risks exist (both present in kind 
and likely serious in degree), courts, including appellate 
courts, must review the record independently and carefully 
with an eye toward assessing the statute’s ‘tailoring,’ that 
is, toward assessing the proportionality of the restrictions.”
Id. at 249.
	
First, the opinion identified “danger signs,” princi­
pally that Vermont’s “contribution limits are substantially 
lower than both the limits we have previously upheld and 
328	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
comparable limits in other States.” Id. at 253. Having reached 
that conclusion, the opinion turned to a closer examina­
tion of Vermont’s contribution limits, considering evidence 
concerning the likely effect of those limits. Ultimately, the 
opinion noted five characteristics that led it to conclude that 
Vermont had set its contribution limits too low, including an 
unusually expansive definition of “contribution” and the fact 
that the same limits that applied to individuals applied to 
political parties. Id. at 256-61. The opinion concluded that 
the scheme, as a whole, was facially invalid. Id. at 261.
	
Since Randall, and after briefing in this case was 
completed, the Supreme Court weighed in once again. In 
Thompson, the court held that Alaska’s $500 contribution 
limit for all political candidates had “danger signs” similar 
to those found in Randall. ___ US at ___, 140 S Ct at 350-51.
	
Some of those “danger signs” are present here. 
Multnomah County’s contribution limits are substantially 
lower than those upheld by the Supreme Court in the past—
adjusted for inflation, $500 is less than a third of the limit 
upheld in Shrink Missouri. See Thompson, ___ US at ___, 
140 S Ct at 351 (doing similar math). Both Randall and 
Thompson treated similar comparisons as “danger signs,” 
although neither viewed that single factor as dispositive. 
See Thompson, ___ US at ___, 140 S Ct at 350-51; Randall, 
548 US at 251. And the $500 limit at issue here is effectively 
lower than the $500 limit found problematic in Thompson. 
Under the county’s ordinance, $500 is the maximum
individual-to-candidate contribution over a two-year election 
cycle. MCC §§ 5.200, 5.201(B). By contrast, the $500 Alaska 
limit analyzed in Thompson limits individual-to-candidate 
contributions “to $500 per year,” Thompson, ___ US at ___, 
140 S Ct at 348 (emphasis added), meaning that it “allows 
a maximum contribution of $1,000 over a comparable two-
year period,” id. at ___, 140 S Ct at 350-51.
	
Yet the county’s ordinance differs from the laws con­
sidered in Randall and Thompson in pertinent respects. The 
county’s $500 limits apply only to county elections. While in 
Randall and Thompson the Court emphasized that the laws 
it was considering were out of step with contribution limits 
set by other states, it is less clear that Multnomah County’s 
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
329
limits are inconsistent with those set by comparable munic­
ipalities. See Zimmerman v. City of Austin, Texas, 881 F3d 
378, 387 (5th Cir 2018), cert den, ___ US ___, 139 S Ct 639, 
202 L Ed 2d 492 (2018) (upholding Austin’s $350 city council 
contribution limits based, in part, on comparisons to con­
tributions limits in other large municipalities). In addition, 
in both Randall and Thompson, the Court deemed it par­
ticularly problematic that the contribution limits at issue 
in those cases were not indexed for inflation. Multnomah 
County’s contribution limits are automatically adjusted for 
inflation in every odd-numbered year. MCC § 5.205.
	
The controlling Supreme Court precedent makes it 
difficult to decide whether the county’s contribution limits 
violate the First Amendment without further proceedings in 
the trial court. In a First Amendment analysis, the constitu­
tionality of a contribution limit depends not only on whether 
there are “danger signs,” but also on the government’s inter­
est in imposing contribution limits and the effect the limits 
could have on candidates’ ability to conduct an effective cam­
paign. See Randall, 548 US at 253-56 (opinion of Breyer, J.) 
(evaluating the likely effect of Vermont’s contribution limits 
in light of the evidence in the record); Thompson, ___ US at 
___, 140 S Ct at 351 (remanding for consideration of whether 
Alaska had shown a special justification for its contribution 
limit). Here, the parties and amici submitted evidence on 
the problems that the contribution limits addressed and 
their likely effects, and the county relies in part on that evi­
dence and other empirical support for its argument that its 
ordinances survive First Amendment scrutiny. Those argu­
ments turn on facts that are not conceded and on particular 
inferences that may be—but need not be—drawn from that 
evidence. Because the trial court never reached the First 
Amendment issue, it did not make the factual findings that 
are necessary to that analysis. We therefore remand the 
case to the trial court to address the validity of the county’s 
contribution limits under the First Amendment in the first 
instance.
III.  EXPENDITURE LIMITS
	
We next consider the validity of the county’s expen­
diture limits under Article I, section 8. The two provisions of 
330	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
the county’s expenditure ordinance that the trial court held 
invalid state:
	
“(A)  No Individual or Entity shall expend funds to 
support or oppose a Candidate, except those collected from 
the sources and under the Contribution limits set forth in 
this Section.
	
“* 
* 
* 
* 
*
	
“(C)  Only the following Independent Expenditures 
are allowed per Election Cycle to support or oppose one 
or more Candidates in any particular Multnomah County 
Candidate Election:
	
“(1)  An Individual may make aggregate Independent 
Expenditures of not more than five thousand dollars 
($5,000).
	
“(2)  A Small Donor Committee may make Independent 
Expenditures in any amounts from funds contributed in 
compliance with Section 5.200.
	
“(3)  A Political Committee may make aggregate
Independent Expenditures of not more than ten thousand
dollars ($10,000), provided that the Independent Expenditures 
are funded by means of contributions to the Political 
Committee by Individuals in amounts not exceeding five 
hundred dollars ($500) per Individual per year.”
	
The county’s expenditure limits cannot be distin­
guished from those held unconstitutional in Vannatta I. The 
county argues that Vannatta  I did not fully consider the 
question of whether expenditures are protected expression 
and takes the position that its expenditure limits do not vio­
late Article I, section 8. However, the county acknowledges 
that its expenditure limits violate the First Amendment 
under existing Supreme Court precedent13 and for that rea­
son accepts that this is not an appropriate case in which to 
reconsider the validity of expenditure limits under Article I, 
section 8. Trojan also argues that the validity of expendi­
ture limits was paid insufficient attention in Vannatta I and 
contends that we should uphold the county’s expenditure 
limits under Article I, section 8.
	
13  The county argues that the controlling federal cases were wrongly decided, 
but it acknowledges that this court is not the proper forum for that argument.
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
331
	
We decline to reconsider Vannatta I’s expenditures 
holding for three reasons. First, nothing that we have dis­
avowed regarding Vannatta I’s reasoning concerning contri­
bution limits calls into question Vannatta I’s conclusion that 
limits on independent expenditures are an express restric­
tion on speech subject to a facial challenge under Robertson. 
The definition of “independent expenditure” refers expressly 
to the content of the communications whose funding it 
restricts, bringing the limits on independent expenditures 
within the first Robertson category. ORS 260.005(10) (2015), 
made applicable by MCC § 5.200 (“Unless otherwise indi­
cated by the text or context of this Section, all terms shall 
have the definitions at Chapter 260 of Oregon Revised 
Statutes, as of November 8, 2016.”), defined an independent 
expenditure as “an expenditure by a person for a commu­
nication in support of or in opposition to a clearly identified 
candidate or measure” made independently of a candidate 
or campaign. That phrase is further defined to refer to a 
communication that “clearly and unambiguously urges the 
election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for nom­
ination or election to public office, or the passage or defeat 
of a clearly identified measure,” ORS 260.005(10)(c)(A)(i) 
(2015), or communications that “refer[ 
] to a clearly identi­
fied candidate who will appear on the ballot or to a political 
party,” ORS 260.005(10)(c)(B)(ii) (2015). As in Ciancanelli, 
even if expenditures may be viewed as conduct, the county’s 
ordinance restricts them only insofar as they are expressive.
	
Second, although the county, Trojan, and some amici 
have argued that Vannatta  I should be overturned as to 
expenditure limits as well, the briefing that they have filed 
is more straightforwardly directed to the validity of the con­
tribution limits, and the expenditure limit briefing is not as 
well developed.
	
Third, as the county concedes, and we agree, the 
county’s expenditure limits unambiguously violate the First 
Amendment. Buckley held that the government cannot 
restrict independent expenditures by individuals, 424 US at 
47-51. Citizens United, 558 US 310, held that independent 
restrictions by corporations and unions cannot be restricted 
either. The county’s ordinance restricts both. To be sure, 
we interpret the Oregon Constitution independently of the 
332	
Multnomah County v. Mehrwein
First Amendment, and our free speech jurisprudence does 
not track the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the First 
Amendment. But, although Buckley and Citizens United are 
not relevant to the question of whether Vannatta I was cor­
rectly decided, the futility of reconsidering Vannatta I with 
respect to this plainly unconstitutional ordinance weighs 
against doing so in this case. See State v. Avila-Nava, 356 
Or 600, 621, 341 P3d 714 (2014) (Kistler, J., concurring in 
part and concurring in the judgment) (“There would be lit­
tle point * 
* 
* in announcing a state constitutional rule that 
permits Oregon courts to consider evidence that the Fifth 
Amendment precludes them from considering.”).
	
Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s decision that 
MCC § 5.202(A) and (C) are invalid.
IV.  DISCLOSURE PROVISIONS
	
Some of the intervenors assign error to the trial 
court’s decision on the disclosure provisions, but that issue 
is now moot: During the pendency of this proceeding, the 
county amended the disclosure provisions of its ordinance 
and a decision about the validity of the former provisions 
will have no practical effect. See Kerr v. Bradbury, 340 Or 
241, 244, 131 P3d 737, opinion adh’d to on recons, 341 Or 
200, 140 P3d 1131 (2006) (stating that case is moot when 
a decision will “no longer have some practical effect on the 
rights of the parties to the controversy” (internal citations 
and quotations omitted)). Although it is sometimes appropri­
ate for an appellate court to vacate the affected portion of 
the trial court’s judgment, we have not been asked to employ 
the “ 
‘equitable remedy of vacatur,’ 
” id. at 249 (quoting U.S. 
Bancorp Mortgage Co. v. Bonner Mall Partnership, 513 US 
18, 25, 115 S Ct 386, 130 L Ed 2d 233 (1994)), and we do not 
do so.
V.  CONCLUSION
	
The trial court ruled that three provisions of the 
county’s ordinances violated Article I, section 8. We conclude 
that the contribution limits are not facially invalid under 
Article I, section 8, and therefore reverse that portion of the 
trial court’s decision and remand the case to the trial court 
so that it can consider whether the contribution limits are 
Cite as 366 Or 295 (2020)	
333
valid under the First Amendment. We agree with the trial 
court that the expenditure limits violate Article I, section 8, 
and we affirm the trial court’s judgment as to those provi­
sions. Although the trial court held that the disclosure rules 
violated Article I, section 8, that part of its decision became 
moot on appeal, and we decline to decide the now-theoretical 
question.
	
The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed in part 
and reversed in part, and the case is remanded to the circuit 
court for further proceedings.