Organizers of the lecture and music event TEDxPortland angered some audience members by giving independent candidate for governor Betsy Johnson, who in the past earned an A rating from the National Rifle Association, an unannounced spot in its event lineup Saturday.
The group apparently also ran afoul of IRS rules that prohibit tax-exempt non-profits from giving any political candidate preferential treatment. The federal agency is clear that 501(c)3 nonprofits such as TEDxPortland cannot do exactly what the group did Saturday, writing of such nonprofits, “If a candidate is invited to speak at an organization event in his or her capacity as a political candidate, the organization must take steps to ensure that it provides an equal opportunity to participate to all political candidates seeking the same office.”
Johnson, who voted against gun safety bills as a Democrat in the Oregon Senate and mentioned being a gun owner during her TEDxPortland talk at the Moda Center Saturday afternoon, drew jeers, boos and shouted demands for gun control during her time on stage.
KGW reporter Evan Watson and others at the event noted on social media how tense the crowd was during Johnson’s surprise appearance.
David Rae, the event’s organizer and emcee and the president of the nonproft that puts on the event, told the audience that he and others decided to include Johnson “only two weeks ago” and indicated he admires and chose her for her “courage” and outspokenness.
He seemed not to realize the inherent political favor-playing of giving only one of the three major candidates for Oregon governor a platform. “It’s not a campaign” he said of Johnson’s speech during a time when she is spending millions on her campaign for governor.
The ticketed event featured, as promised in advance, a lineup of high-achieving speakers, at least half of them people of color, and eight musical acts or performers, including Pink Martini.
Rae defended the choice to add Johnson at the last minute, indicating it took courage on his team’s part. “Look, we get asked all of the time on our TedxPortand team, ‘Why don’t you get involved in public service?’ We are so scared, because you get eviscerated in public.”
By inviting the career politician with nearly $9 million in backing from Oregon powerbrokers including Nike co-founder Phil Knight and a host of timber millionaires, he said, “We are just trying to offer an intimate conversation in front of 7,000 people with a courageous woman, right?”
In the days since a shooter used an assault weapon to brutally kill 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school, much of the national conversation has revolved around gun safety legislation, which made the timing of Johnson’s appearance at the non-political event particularly fraught.
Rae indicated he would be willing to talk to “Tina,” a reference to Democratic nominee Tina Kotek. He did not seem to realize that Christine Drazan, the Republican nominee, is also in the running. The Democrat-heavy Portland crowd didn’t audibly call for her to appear.
In 2014, the last time the NRA publicly weighed in on Johnson as a state Senate candidate, they endorsed her and gave her an A grade. She and Arnie Roblan, a former state Senator from Coos Bay, were the only Democrats who earned that accolade that year from the gun rights advocacy group.
In one of her most recent votes on gun safety legislation, in May 2021, Johnson joined six Republicans to vote no on a bill that, among other things, requires guns to be safely stored, either by placing them in a locked container or by using a trigger lock, and allows school boards to ban guns from school buildings and campuses.
Both chambers passed the bill on narrow votes and Gov. Kate Brown signed it. Until then, it was legal for holders of concealed carry permits to bring guns into all Oregon public school classrooms, gyms and stadiums.
Other Oregon gun laws Johnson voted “no” on included a 2015 expansion of background checks to cover private firearm transfers and a 2017 red flag law that allows judges to issue “extreme risk protection orders” to require a person to surrender their guns temporarily if they are a risk to themselves or people with whom they live. That law was sponsored by a Republican senator.
Rae made it clear to his TEDx audience that he is a fan of Johnson. Sitting next to her on stage, he told her he has found her “amazing … Your character, your backbone. You are candid, it is ‘What you see is what you get.’”
Watson reported that the speaker who came after Johnson, entertainment production company co-founder Vince Kadlubek, said, “I’ve just got to say…no 18-year-old should be able to buy an AR.” Kadlubek also asked the crowd, “Can we just get some background checks?” He received one of the biggest cheers of the event, Watson wrote on Twitter.
— Betsy Hammond; betsyhammond@oregonian.com
