Once fined for election law violations, Sid Leiken now wants to be Secretary of State

Kari Chisholm

Lane County Commissioner Sid Leiken sure has a lot of chutzpah.

He's spent the last two months "exploring" a run for Governor. The feedback he received? Well, it wasn't good. In his own words:

The consistent feedback I received during this tour is that Oregonians would rather see me run for Secretary of State, which is an open seat.

But, wait, Secretary of State? This is Sid Leiken we're talking about. He's got to be kidding. Right? Let's recap:

In 2010, Leiken was the Mayor of Springfield. He was the highly-touted challenger to Congressman Peter DeFazio. During that campaign, it was revealed that Leiken had converted $2000 of his campaign's money to personal use — something that's very illegal.

When he was caught doing it, the cover-up included a misreported campaign expenditure, a cash transaction, an unsigned and undated receipt, an unregistered company, a missing "tally sheet" for a fake poll, and a disposable phone -- all in service of throwing his own mother under the bus.

Ultimately, he sobbed before the cameras, admitted the bogus transaction report, was fined by the Elections Division, and dropped out of the race for Congress.

Yeah, THAT is definitely the guy that Oregonians want in charge of regulating our elections.

Everything you never wanted to know about Sid Leiken is here.

By Kari Chisholm July 02, 2015