Rep. Janelle Bynum, D-Clackamas, works on the House floor at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. (Amanda Loman/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
The star of a new ad from a national Republican group that hits Democratic congressional candidate Janelle Bynum over her record on criminal justice issues is a top GOP legislative aide and campaign operative.
That’s not disclosed in the 30-second ad from the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC that began airing the ads on TV in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District on Tuesday. The ad consists of a woman identified only as “Renée P.” saying that politicians like Bynum are responsible for open drug use and “hardened criminals” being released from prison early, over footage of trash, people smoking fentanyl, a homeless tent and a jewelry store theft.
Renée P. is Renée Perry, who has worked since 2019 as chief of staff to state Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, R-Albany and a former deputy caucus leader. As of June, she made a base salary of $8,500 monthly, or more than $102,000 annually, the highest salary available for legislative assistants, according to public records.
She also works for Boshart Davis’ campaign, which has paid her more than $12,000 since June for management services, state campaign finance data shows.
Perry previously lived in the 5th District and posted a photo to her public Facebook page in 2022 showing her ballot filled out for Republican U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who won the election. Perry moved to Eugene over the summer, per Lane County property tax records and her public Facebook posts, and she is now registered to vote in the 4th Congressional District, represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle.
Perry and the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is dedicated to electing Republicans to Congress, did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. The Congressional Leadership Fund reserved $5.5 million in ads in the Portland market, which includes three competitive races – Oregon’s 5th and 6th, now represented by Democrat Andrea Salinas, and Washington’s 3rd, represented by Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez.
Key race for the House
The 5th District is one of only a handful of true tossups in the country, and it could determine which party controls the U.S. House. Democratic President Joe Biden won it by 9 percentage points in 2020, Chavez-DeRemer won by 2 points in 2022 and a poll released this week by Bynum’s campaign showed the race as a statistical tie.
Republicans have focused on Bynum’s record on police and criminal justice issues and her 2020 endorsement of Measure 110, a voter-approved law that decriminalized possession of small amounts of drugs. Bynum joined a bipartisan group of legislators who voted to create a new misdemeanor classification for drug possession, which went into effect Sept. 1, and she was one of a handful of Democrats who voted with Republicans to force a vote on a stricter Republican-led measure.
As chair of the House Judiciary Committee in 2021, she played a key role in passing a suite of nine new laws – most supported by Republicans including Boshart Davis – that responded to police and protests. Among other things, the new laws limited officers’ abilities to arrest protesters or journalists covering protests for failing to follow orders and required officers in larger cities to wear their name, badge number or other identifying information on their uniforms.
A male voiceover in the new ad also says Bynum “wrote the plan to release thousands of criminals from prison early.” She was one of five Democratic legislators who sent then-Gov. Kate Brown a letter in June 2020 urging Brown to release early people incarcerated for non-violent crimes who had less than 120 days left on their sentence or had less than 180 days and had housing waiting for them. The Democratic lawmakers described their pitch as a way to reduce government spending and reduce the risk of COVID spreading through the prison system.
The Congressional Leadership Fund ad comes less than a month after the National Republican Congressional Committee criticized Bynum for an ad featuring stock images and video of actors playing police officers.
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