Mark W. Nelson

Mark W. Nelson is the president of Public Affairs Counsel, a campaign management and polling firm in Oregon that has long helped the tobacco industry defeat clean indoor air laws and cigarette taxes in Oregon. He has been a campaign and opinion consultant since 1980.

In 1988, Nelson assisted assisted the Tobacco Institute in a campaign to defeat ballot Measure 5, a cigarette tax, using a strategy designed to prevent opponents from gathering enough signatures to get the measure on the ballot.

In 1990, Nelson organized "smokers rights" group meetings in Oregon for R.J. Reynolds.

In 1991, Nelson again assisted the industry in defeating a cigarette tax.

In 1996, Nelson headed up a front group, "Fairness Matters to Oregonians," that was funded by the Tobacco Institute to defeat cigarette taxes in Oregon. In 1996, Nelson admitted to making an error when it was revealed in the newspaper The Oregonian that a dentist his campaign had featured in an anti-cigarette-tax mailer had been convicted of defrauding the Oregon Health Plan, which the tax would benefit.

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 * Tobacco industry
 * Public Affairs Counsel

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