one’s health, that’s the key to really your life course and health,” Handler says. Handler and Kennedy spoke with Oregon Business this spring in a tandem interview, amid a series of meetings with other media outlets and elected officials. After our conversation, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported on a letter Kennedy and Handler sent to Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon, the group’s advocacy arm, announcing the intention to dissolve PPAO and focus on “health care and advocating for the needs of the Planned Parenthood affiliates and their patients.” A person familiar with the situation who spoke with OB on condition of anonymity said the group had no warning such a move might be coming, but also noted that there had been tensions between PPAO and the two affiliates prior to the move. PPCW and PPSO are 501(c)(3) nonprofits; PPAO is a 501(c)(4). Legally, all three organizations are nonprofits, but 501(c)(3)s are considered charitable organizations. That means they’re tax-exempt, but there are also restrictions on the types of advocacy such organizations can engage in. Nonprofit charities can take positions on political issues, including ballot measures — which isn’t meaningless in a referendum-heavy Nuestro negocio es tuyo Kathryn Lopez, Associate Director Adventures in Spanish Hacer conexiones de negocios Portland is still a small town and relationships matter here. The Chamber hosts 80+ events each year, giving your company access to Portland’s most influential business leaders. LEARN MORE state like Oregon — but they can’t endorse candidates. 501(c)(4) organizations can. And many Planned Parenthood affiliates around the country have both a 501(c)(3) and a 501(c)(4) arm — one to run the clinics and one to run campaigns. In addition to endorsing candidates, PPAO has a history of lobbying for things like the Reproductive Health Equity Act, passed by the state legislature in 2017. That bill codified into state law the right to have an abortion and provided additional funding for reproductive health services. The two affiliates together send more than $700,000 to the lobbying arm annually, according to Scdoris; PPCW brought in $36 million in annual revenue, with total expenses at about $31 million, in 2022-23. PPAO also receives donations from the public. Once reported, the move was met with swift backlash; U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle (D-4th District) said she signed a letter along with 100 people urging Kennedy and Handler to reconsider. The move to dissolve comes on the heels of the dissolution of Pro-Choice Oregon in 2023, leaving PPAO the only prochoice advocacy organization in the state. And they did reconsider — at least for the next few months. A few days after the story of the intended dissolution of PPAO broke, the two leaders announced they would temporarily pause their move to dissolve the group. “Advocacy remains a top priority for Planned Parenthood in Oregon — and there will be no changes to our advocacy efforts prior to the November election,” said a joint statement from Kennedy and Handler. “The board of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon has hired a facilitator to lead us through a process that considers the structure and policy agenda of future advocacy efforts. The shared goal is to build and strengthen a Planned Parenthood advocacy organization that aligns with the evolving needs of our patients, the core health care mission of our organizations, and the need to preserve and to expand reproductive rights across the state of Oregon and Southwest Washington.” A person familiar with the situation said the decision was “stunning” and “myopic” but that PPAO staff and board members are hopeful for a resolution moving forward. “New leaders sometimes make bold moves, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t,” the person said. While Handler has lived in Oregon since February 2020, at the time of our conversation, Kennedy was still living in California and getting ready to move to Oregon over the summer with her husband and three children. “We love to do everything outdoors, which is why we’re looking forward to being [in Oregon] — biking, hiking, swimming, playing outside,” Kennedy says. Handler says she and her husband are both cyclists as well. And she’s a newly minted gardener, “which I’ve learned is basically just weeding. Just weeding all the time. But it’s very meditative.” Asked if either of them thought they would see a post-Roe world, both said that early in their careers, they didn’t predict this. But working in the field changed that. “Early in my career, I would say no, I didn’t. I wasn’t preparing for this moment. But the undercurrent, I think, in our country has been here for a long time,” Handler says. “When you think about who is left out of society, and who has the hardest time accessing care, who has the worst outcomes, it is the most marginalized in the U.S. and included in those folks are primarily women and people who can become pregnant and their children,” Kennedy says. “We’ve always had to fight for something to help people just to get quality health care. We’re seeing it at scale. But it’s not really new. It’s not a new fight, and we were prepared for it.” 39
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