Val Hoyle engulfed in La Mota corruption scandal
The La Mota scandal that took down Oregon’s Secretary of State is coming for Congresswoman Val Hoyle.
Hoyle is engulfed in a La Mota pay-to-play corruption scandal of her own. She repaid her campaign donors with a $555,000 taxpayer grant to a shady nonprofit.
“Val Hoyle’s misuse of taxpayer dollars proves Hoyle is at the center of a deep culture of corruption. Hoyle can’t simply ignore this massive scandal – she needs to come clean about what she knew, when, and do it now.” – NRCC Spokesperson Ben Petersen
In case you missed it…
Democrat Rep Hoyle received campaign donations from cannabis entrepreneurs who applied for grant she oversaw
Fox News
Kyle Morris
May 31, 2023
A $554,990 taxpayer-funded grant was awarded to ENDVR under Rep Val Hoyle’s leadership as the Oregon labor commissioner
Freshman Rep. Val Hoyle, D-Ore., accepted congressional campaign donations from a handful of cannabis entrepreneurs who were awarded a taxpayer-funded grant she oversaw during her tenure as the commissioner of Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) last year.
In April 2022, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records showed that Laura Vega – a co-founder of the nonprofit ENDVR who, according to Portland-based Willamette Week, “founded a cannabis products company and served on an array of cannabis advisory bodies” – made a $1,000 donation to Hoyle’s campaign.
The donation to Hoyle’s congressional campaign by Vega, who co-founded ENDVR alongside La Mota CEO Rosa Cazares in late 2021, came just one week after ENDVR received non-profit status by the IRS and two weeks before the nonprofit submitted a grant application to the BOLI to establish an apprenticeship program.
Self-described on its website as “a trade and education trust formed by the industry for the industry,” ENDVR claims to prepare “motivated individuals to thrive in the careers of the future.”
Hoyle said she remembers speaking with Vega prior to the application period, but Vega said otherwise, according to Willamette Week.
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FEC records also revealed that Cazares and Aaron Mitchell, who, together, co-founded the cannabis dispensary chain La Mota, donated to Hoyle’s congressional campaign in late April 2022. Combined, the pair gave $5,800 – the legal maximum donation.
Mitchell additionally gave $20,000 to Hoyle’s BOLI campaign fund in June 2021, but that contribution was later returned after Hoyle decided to make a run for Congress.
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In July 2022, Vega testified before then-Oregon BOLI Commissioner Hoyle and the Oregon State Apprenticeship and Training Council in favor of a $554,000 taxpayer-funded grant to establish an apprenticeship program for ENDVR.
In rejecting the grant, council members, according to Willamette Week, expressed “skepticism about ENDVR’s high personnel costs – $97,000 a year for Vega alone – and how so few graduates, only four, would actually be trained.”
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Defending the nonprofit and its quest to receive funds from the state, Hoyle suggested a stronger proposal was needed and told Vega at the meeting, “I look forward to seeing you in a month and being able to support this.”
A month later, in August 2022, Vega testified once more, and the $554,990 grant was awarded unanimously to the nonprofit by the Oregon BOLI. The ENDVR grant was the largest of the 10 grants issued during that round of funding, even though other grants went to educational institutions like Chemeketa Community College.
Amid the council’s approval of the grant, Willamette Week reported that Hoyle vouched for ENDVR’s request and considered it to be an “important investment.”
The grant was awarded to ENDVR based on its application pledge to create an apprenticeship program for “botanical extractionists” – individuals who extract chemical compounds from the cannabis plant. At the time, Willamette Week reported that ENDVR “had no evident track record in job training.”
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The half-million-dollar grant was later canceled by Oregon Labor Commissioner Christina Stephenson after Willamette Week issued a story on “$3 million in federal and state tax liens issued against [Cazares and Mitchell] and their companies in recent years, and detailed 30 lawsuits filed in Oregon circuit courts, many alleging unpaid bills.”
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However, under federal law, ENDVR could not have registered its apprenticeship program with the federal government because cannabis is still categorized as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, the outlet pointed out.
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