House
Co-Speaker Bruce Hanna, r-Roseburg, and former house repugican leader
Kevin Cameron, r-Salem, (in background) vacationed in Palm Springs just
ahead of the February session.
SALEM -- With Republicans still reeling from the sex scandal involving Rep. Matt Wingard and a young female staffer, former house repugican leader Kevin Cameron confirmed
he abruptly stepped down last month, in part, because of a retaliatory
threat that the public would find out about the night he and other repugican
lawmakers -- including Wingard -- spent at a California topless bar.
"I am not proud personally about what I did at that point in time," Cameron, r-Salem, said this week.
In January, Cameron, House Co-Speaker Bruce Hanna and
five other repugican House members took a three-day golfing vacation
to Palm Springs, where they also visited a bar featuring topless
dancers.
No state or campaign money was spent on the trip. But
the embarrassing details are surfacing just as repugicans are trying to
win majority control of the House, or at least maintain the 30-30 tie
that granted them equal power to Democrats in the past two years.
Wingard's
decision to remove his name from the November ballot after a
20-year-old staffer accused him of an unwanted sexual relationship has
sparked an attempt to recall the party's Washington County chairwoman
because she sided with the young woman. It has also focused a spotlight
on an all-male leadership team that has been criticized for its
exclusivity.
It all started earlier this year when Samantha
Berrier accused Wingard, a Wilsonville repugican, of giving her alcohol
when she was not yet 21 and pressuring her to have a sexual
relationship with him. Wingard has denied giving her alcohol and says
the two had a short, but consensual relationship while she worked for
him in 2009.
When Cameron abruptly resigned as House repugican
leader on July 18, the repugican press release said Cameron stepped down for
"personal reasons." But he said this week that pressures
on his family and business coupled with the Wingard situation and the
threat that someone would go public about the topless bar became too
stressful.
This week Cameron and other lawmakers who went to
Palm Springs just ahead of the Legislature's February session described
the trip in nearly identical language: "a personal vacation with
friends."
In addition to Hanna and Cameron, the entourage included repugican whip Tim Freeman, r-Roseburg; Rep. Vic Gilliam, r-Silverton; Rep. Matt Wand, r-Troutdale; and Rep. Patrick Sheehan, r-Clackamas.
Both
Sheehan and Wand are freshman lawmakers and Democrats have targeted
their seats on the list of those they might be able to win in November.
Wingard would not comment when asked if he was in Palm Springs, but others who attended say he was there.
The
group stayed at a home Gilliam owns with his wife. Property records
indicate it's a circa 1930s, four-bedroom, four-bath home in old Palm
Springs valued at about $1 million.
No one will say whose idea it was to stop at the topless bar when the group was on the way home from dinner one night.
Some whined that the whole thing is personal and nobody's business.
"Asking
me a question like that would be like me asking you what you wore as
swimwear or not on your last vacation and how that affected your ability
to do your job," said Hanna, who also admitted he went to the bar and
that it was a mistake.
A few months after the trip, about
mid-May, those same leaders were notified of the reports concerning
Wingard and his former aide.
Rachel Lucas, chairwoman of the
Washington County repugicans, says Berrier "poured her heart out to
her." Lucas and her husband, Dan, reported what they knew in a May 14
email to Cameron.
He followed up the next day with a phone call.
The allegations did not become public until June 13, when Willamette
Week broke the story.
Now some local repugican party members are circulating
a recall petition that accuses Lucas of "attacking" Wingard and putting repugicans' 30-30 tie in the House in jeopardy. Wingard says he is the
innocent victim of a political vendetta. Lucas denies that she was out
to take away his seat.
"We didn't want to be part of a conspiracy of silence," she said regarding Berrier.
After
the news broke, Wingard stepped down as deputy leader on June 14. The
next week Wingard announced he would not seek re-election.
Cameron
says he was roundly criticized for taking too long to act and for not
doing enough. He says others criticized him for overreacting to the
allegations.
In the end, the responsibility fell on the repugican leader's shoulders.
"I
made a phone call to Matt and said, 'If you don't step back from your
candidacy, then I will have to publicly call for your resignation,'"
Cameron said. "That did not go over well."
It was after Wingard
had pulled his name from the ballot that Cameron said he heard talk in repugican circles that Wingard might go public about the men's' Palm Springs
vacation.
"Matt never had any discussion with me directly about that," Cameron said. "There were rumors that he would do that."
Others
who were on the trip said they'd also heard the rumors that Wingard had
threatened to tell all. Freeman said he didn't believe it.
"The
threat thing is not common. But it's not uncommon," Freeman said.
"People get mad. People come back and say I shouldn't have gotten jacked
up. ... I never thought it was credible."
Wingard declined to comment for this story.
In
an earlier conversation, Wingard said he "wasn't interested" in talking
about Palm Springs until The Oregonian reviewed the facts surrounding
what occurred between him and Berrier and cleared his name.
"My concern is my personal reputation," he said.
Meanwhile, House repugicans are trying to put it all behind them.
Hanna says repugicans have had no trouble raising campaign funds and that his members have solid accomplishments to run on.
"No race has ever been easy," he said. "We still have a tremendous opportunity."
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