Oregon delegation

Oregon's Congressional Delegation, 2022–26: Little Earmark Money Was Aimed at the Jobs, Safety and Schools Gap

Of 45 Jobs, Safety and Schools earmarks in FY2023–24, 3 ($1.78M) were aimed at Oregon's lagging places, and none went to Schools. About 86% of federal money reaches Oregon by formula. No effect is measurable yet.

Oregon ranks 47th of 50 states on Jobs, Safety and Schools. In 2016–19, Oregon ranked between 24th and 33rd (How long will it take Oregon to recover?). This analysis asks what Oregon's senators and House members did about the gap in 2022–26.

The records show 3 earmarks, worth $1.78M, aimed at Oregon's lagging places. Their effect can't be measured yet.

The deficits

• Jobs: Oregon's payroll job growth rank fell from 22nd in 2022 to 50th in 2024 and 47th in 2025 (BLS Current Employment Statistics). This is not the site's Jobs pillar rank, which was 46th in 2024.
• Schools: From 2019 to 2024, Oregon's NAEP ranks fell in all four tests:
  • 4th-grade reading: 36th to 47th
  • 4th-grade math: 41st to 48th
  • 8th-grade reading: 21st to 36th
  • 8th-grade math: 33rd to 40th
• Safety (crime only): Oregon's violent-crime rank went from 20th in 2019 to 27th in 2024. Its property-crime rank was 47th in 2022–24 and 48th in 2025 (FBI).

What the delegation controls

Most federal money is outside the delegation's control. In FY2024, formula grants and direct payments made up about 86% of federal obligations to Oregon: $46.6B of $54.4B (USAspending). These include Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare. This money arrives by statute, whoever holds the seats.

Oregon gets back $4,389 per person more than it pays in federal taxes. The U.S. average is $4,099, which puts Oregon 27th (Rockefeller Institute, FFY2023).

Earmarks are the lever members control. Oregon ranked 23rd in earmarks per person in FY2024, at $54.79 (Citizens Against Government Waste). That figure uses CAGW's own count: 152 items worth $232.3M. On the Taxpayers for Common Sense total of $279.1M, it would be about $66 per person, which has no 50-state rank.

Benefits, costs, net

Benefits. Oregon's FY2024 earmarks totaled $279.1M across 145 items (Taxpayers for Common Sense). About 6% fit strictly within the three pillars:

• Jobs: $7.76M (8 items)
• Safety: $7.70M (10 items)
• Schools: $1.83M (2 items)

A stricter test asks whether an item was "aimed." To count as aimed, an item's description must say how it adds jobs or cuts crime. The item must also go to a place doing worse than the state median. Across FY2023 and FY2024, 3 of 45 pillar items passed, for $1.78M in total:

• $360,000 for Multnomah County prosecution capacity against gun violence (Earl Blumenauer)
• $750,000 for NAMC–Oregon support for Black-owned businesses (Jeff Merkley, Ron Wyden)
• $670,000 for Oregon Native American Chamber help to Native-owned construction firms (Earl Blumenauer)

None of the aimed items was for Schools.

Merkley sponsored 4 enacted laws, Blumenauer 2, and most other members 1 (congress.gov). None of these laws targets K-12 schools, policing or job growth. The closest is Maxine Dexter's FAST VETS Act, which concerns vocational rehabilitation for disabled veterans.

Costs. No earmark has a measurable effect so far:

• Safety: The one aimed grant first paid out in January 2025. That is too late to show up in 2025 crime data.
• Jobs: Both aimed grants went to Multnomah County. A year later, Multnomah's employment ran about 2 points behind four comparison counties (BLS QCEW). With only one county, that gap can't be separated from the county's existing decline, which began before the grants.
• Schools: There is nothing to test.

Net. No change in Oregon's ranks can be traced to the delegation's earmarks so far. Of 45 pillar items, 3, worth $1.78M, were aimed at lagging places, and none went to Schools. A real test needs 2026–27 crime and jobs data.

Stock trades and net worth

Appendix A also lists late trade reports, trades in industries a member's committees oversee, and estimated net-worth change. None of these is evidence of wrongdoing.

Most of the flagged trades were in spouses' accounts:

• Wyden's spouse says a broker bought Eli Lilly shares without her knowledge.
• Blumenauer's 28 committee-industry trades split 16 spouse and 12 his own. Blumenauer says his adviser made the 12 trades in error.

Net worth is estimated from the midpoints of disclosure ranges. For 10 of the 11 members measured, the estimate could be off by more than 50 points. For example, Wyden's estimate could fall anywhere from −6% to +199%.

Where the lever is

Oregon's ranks are driven by state policy: the Legislature's votes on schools, taxes and drug policy. For a four-year outlook, see Oregon in Four Years and its Part 4 conclusion.

--h

Appendix A: Scorecard, 2022–26 (no combined score)

Notes:

• Earmarks: Only USAspending awards matched to an earmark are counted, and Army Corps lines are excluded. Senators are divided by Oregon's population and House members by 706,209 residents per district. This is a floor, because an unmatched item isn't necessarily unspent. In FY24, the senators' matched obligations were $69.15M, shared by both senators.
• Share to Jobs/Safety/Schools: Safety means crime only (police, prosecution, courts, juvenile justice, victim services). Each House share rests on one or two awards.
• Late trade reports:
  • Wyden's one late item is the Berry Global → Amcor merger exchange, reported 465 days after the trade.
  • Hoyle's late reports are all spouse trades. Her report lists a notification date of 9/11/2025 and was filed within 30 days of that date, but more than 45 days after the trades.
• Committee-industry trades:
  • Wyden's three are his spouse's Eli Lilly and Pfizer trades. The report says the spouse's independent broker bought the Lilly shares without her knowledge and that she had them sold in full.
  • Blumenauer's report says his 12 trades in 2022 were "purchased in error" after a "miscommunication with my financial advisor" and were then sold. His spouse's trades are part of the spouse's retirement portfolio.
  • Bentz's one trade is a spouse purchase of Amgen. Hoyle's 35 are all spouse trades.
  • None of these is evidence of wrongdoing.
• Net worth is background, not a score. The estimate uses disclosure-range midpoints, and the full bounds are shown. Ten of 11 estimates could be off by more than 50 points. Primary homes and federal pensions are excluded by the disclosure rules. Open-ended brackets are counted at their floor.
• *Starred drops mostly reflect the switch from candidate to member disclosure forms (and, for Chavez-DeRemer, possible double counting in her candidate report), not real losses. Hoyle's and Salinas's start reports are also candidate forms.

Context, not credited to members: about 86% of FY24 federal obligations to Oregon came by formula or direct payment (USAspending). Oregon's balance of payments was +$4,389 per person, 27th, against a U.S. average of +$4,099 (Rockefeller Institute). Oregon ranked 23rd in FY24 earmarks per person, at $54.79 (Citizens Against Government Waste; its count is 152 items worth $232.3M, not the $279.1M Taxpayers for Common Sense total).

Appendix B: Aimed share by member, FY23 + FY24 earmarks

How to read the table:

• Aimed share is the aimed enacted dollars as a share of the member's FY23+24 enacted non-Corps earmark total.
• Credit is shared. An item requested by a House member and both senators appears in all three rows, so the rows don't add up.
• Schrader's $28.54M counts all 13 enacted FY23 non-Corps lines that name him, the same rule as every other row. The senators' pre-passage list of his co-led items has 8 lines ($18.31M); that is a narrower list.
• Items that are pillar-tagged but not aimed include the Portland Community Safety Plan ($2.0M), Springfield police training ($200K), the Tigard police community service officer ($300K), Family Peace Center ($500K), the Children's Center of Clackamas County ($252K), Portland Legacy Business Preservation ($352K) and PCC's semiconductor workforce program ($910K).

Outcomes:

Appendix C: Methods and sources

All dollar figures are nominal (not adjusted for inflation).

Strict aimed rule (FY23 and FY24 alike). An earmark counts as aimed only if it passes all three tests:

1. Pillar. It fits strictly within one pillar: - Jobs: workforce training or business development. - Safety: crime only, meaning police, prosecution, courts, juvenile justice and victim services. Fire, emergency management and 911 are excluded. - Schools: K-12 instruction, students or facilities.
2. Mechanism. Its enacted description states a mechanism that moves the outcome measure: reported violent and property offenses for Safety, county employment for Jobs, and NAEP for Schools. - Business retention, victim services, and any equipment, buildings, plans or training with no stated link to the outcome count as pillar-tagged only. - The Williams & Russell CDC item ($850K) is tagged none, because its description gives only the project name. - PCC semiconductor is not aimed, because it states no tie to employer hiring.
3. Place. The recipient is in a place doing worse than the state median: - Jobs: the county's QCEW employment change from 2022 to 2025 is below the state median of +1.83%. - Safety: the agency's violent plus property crime rate is above the state median agency rate in the award year. - Statewide recipients fail.

Tagging check:

• FY24 was tagged by two blind reviewers (Cohen's kappa 0.80 before reconciling).
• FY23 was tagged by two blind reviewers, with 99.4% agreement on pillar tags and 88% on aimed status before reconciling.

Effect test:

• The first outlay has to come before the outcome year.
• Comparisons are against Oregon's nearest-size counties or agencies that got no aimed item.
• With fewer than 5 aimed items, results are listed item by item and no comparison is run.

Sources:

• Deficits: BLS Current Employment Statistics (payroll job growth rank); NCES NAEP Data Service; FBI Crime Data Explorer (reported-agency rates, 2019–25); site file oregon_ranks.csv.
• Federal money: USAspending spending_by_geography, FY2024; Rockefeller Institute, Giving or Getting? 2025, FFY2023; Citizens Against Government Waste, 2024 Pig Book "Pork Per Capita."
• Earmarks: FY23 Senate Appropriations enacted CDS/CPF tables (P.L. 117-328); FY24 Taxpayers for Common Sense FY24 database; awards matched on USAspending as of Oct 16–17, 2026 (amount within ±2%, Oregon place of performance, recipient-name rule). Army Corps lines are excluded.
• Laws: congress.gov and GovInfo BILLSTATUS, enacted Jan 2022–Oct 2026, with the member as sponsor.
• Trades: House Clerk and Senate eFD periodic transaction reports. Committee assignments come from the Congressional Directory (GPO). Industries come from SEC SIC codes standing in for GICS.
• Net worth: House Clerk and Senate eFD annual, candidate and termination reports. The estimate uses range midpoints, with bounds and open-ended brackets at their floor.
• Outcomes: BLS QCEW county employment; FBI NIBRS agency offense counts.

Gaps (n/a):

• Schrader's paper disclosures
• Member-backed competitive grants (no public record)
• FY26 earmarks (mostly not yet awarded)
• 2026–27 outcome data
• Sub-state NAEP

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