Fresh from hitting out at Dan Saltzman over Saltzmangate, Jesse Cornett has managed to get challenged on his claim to have helped pass an Oregon version of the Rooney Rule last year when he was a lobbyist at PSU. Jake Thomas at the Portland Observer reports:

Portland City Council Candidate Jesse Cornett has backed down from a claim he made in an interview with the Portland Observer (April 21 issue) that he worked with a former Portland State University student to bring more diversity to the athletic departments of Oregon’s public universities.

In 2009, the Legislature passed a bill requiring all state universities to interview at least one minority candidate for athletic coaching positions. The proposal was modeled after the National Football League’s “Rooney Rule,” which was shaped by Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney and adopted in 2003.

Cornett, who worked as director of government relations at PSU, told the Portland Observer that he worked with one of the university’s alums, Sam Sachs, to get the Legislature to pass the landmark bill.

“As somebody who feels pretty darn lucky with my career in that process, I realized that I had all the chances in the world because I got to sit down face —to-face with people and talk, and that’s how you get the doors to open,” said Cornett in an interview with the Portland Observer last month. “And so I became convinced that because of the lack of diversity that Oregon should lead the way on that and was proud to lead the university in support of that bill.”

But people at PSU involved with the issue say Cornett was not a strong advocate for the legislation.

“He never supported it,” said Sachs who lobbied to Legislature for the landmark bill’s passage. “He didn’t work with me.”