Oregon Advisory Opinions April 18, 1968: OAG 68-58 (April 18, 1968)

Oregon Attorney General Opinions

1968.

OAG 68-58.

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ORS 260.340 does not require that political advertising be paid for in advance of publication.

You ask whether ORS 260.340 (1) requires political advertising to be paid for in advance of publication.

ORS 260.340 (1) provides:

"No publisher of a newspaper or other periodical shall insert, either in its advertising or reading columns, any paid matter which is designed or tends to aid, injure or defeat any candidate, political party, organization or measure submitted to the people, unless it is stated therein that it is a paid advertisement. There shall also appear, in the nature of a signature to the advertisement, the name of the person inserting it, with his residence address. No person shall pay the owner, editor, publisher or agent of any newspaper or other periodical to induce him to editorially advocate or oppose any candidate for nomination or election or any measure submitted to the people. No such owner, editor, publisher or agent shall accept such payment."

The word "paid" may be construed to include the meaning "paid in advance." See Conyers v. Postal Telegraph Cable Co., (1893) 92 Ga. 619, 19 S. E. 253. It has also been held to mean "payable" (Fruin v. Meredith, (1909) 145 Mo. App. 586, 122 S.W. 1107, 1112), "required to be paid" (Mark et al. v. Board of Higher Education of the City of New York, (1951) 303 N. Y. 154, 100 N.E. (2d) 384, 386) and "due in the sense that they will be paid without change in amount" (In re Slack's Estate, (1948) 86 Cal. App. (2d) 49, 194 P. (2d) 61, 64).

It is clear from a reading of the statute that it was intended to insure that the public would know whether political comment or advocacy in a publication so appeared because it represented the position of the publishers thereof, or because it had simply been purchased as is other advertising. This, no doubt, is also the reason why the statute also prohibits any person from inducing the owner, editor, publisher or agent of any periodical "to editorially advocate or oppose any candidate for nomination or election or any measure submitted to the people." Once again, the object sought was to separate in the public's mind paid promotion from independent expression of opinion.

There is nothing in the statute indicating that it was intended to regulate the financing of a political campaign so as to require advertising to be paid in advance. Its object seems clearly and

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simply to be that of requiring promotional advertising to be identified as such to insure that any material appearing to represent the viewpoint of the publisher of a periodical does in fact reflect his true judgment and not one which he has simply been paid to express.

We therefore conclude that ORS 260.340 (1) does not require that political advertising be paid for in advance of publication.