Campaign to Recall Sam Adams Fails

An effort to recall Portland mayor Sam Adams for lying about an affair with a teenage male legislative intern failed to garner the required signatures by the Monday deadline, but the recall organizer vowed to try again.

The recall organizer, Jason Wurster, said that increased funding and better management await his next effort, according to The Oregonian.



"Jason Wurster said his new political action committee will have the financial backing of 'a consortium of Portland business leaders' who approached him a month ago," reported The Oregonian. "The money will allow him to pay signature gatherers -- a significant change from the fizzled campaign that used only volunteers."

Wurster claimed that he collected 30,000 of the 32,183 signatures required to initiate the recall, but he refused to submit the signatures for verification because, he said, he wanted to protect the signers from retaliation, so no official count is available. Wurster also declined to reveal the financial backers behind his forthcoming effort, Portland Future PAC.

Adams admitted that he lied about his 2005 sexual relationship with Beau Breedlove, a former legislative intern, in the run-up to last year's mayoral election. And though Breedlove was just 17 when the two met, Adams insists that they didn't enter a sexual relationship until Breedlove turned 18. The attorney general declined to prosecute Adams, who has apologized repeatedly for lying.