The twenty members of our Charter Commission, each being sure to guard the interests of the “communities” they were selected to represent (with one glaring exception), have been hard at work producing a brand new, gleaming city government. You’ll get to vote on it in November—might be the first time ever that a charter rewrite passed muster with the voters. Why break the trend?
Media isn’t the slightest bit interested in covering this little group’s cogitations, but the clock is ticking. Something is about to be excreted from the sausage factory. Wouldn’t you like to know?
In part one, we looked at how the Commission—along with its curious partner, the Coalition of Communities of Color—has been “listening” to the city’s various self-interested racial-preference pressure groups, non-profits, government and teachers’ unions, occasional business groups. Statistically, by their own figures, they are far more interested in”listening” to some groups than others. You know who’s in, who’s out. Same old/same old.
The latest episode in the saga is the Commission’s March Progress Report. It’s a heavy-lift, dense with feel-good tropes, a handy list of “Desired Outcomes,” which only a Grinch could argue with…
A participatory and growing democracy with more voices being heard in elections
An accessible and transparent government with Councilors who are easy to reach…
and then…
A reflective government with Councilors who look like the community they represent…
…whereupon, oops!, we get the first whiff, like the smell downwind from something we might not actually want to see, of what the munchkins are really up to.
“Looks like?”
Who?
Read the Progress Report and this dog-whistle will amplify. It will be done carefully, deep within an ocean of feel-goodism…but it’s there, like the Easter Egg in one of your kid’s video games. The Great Unmentionable, the “lens” through which everything Portland is viewed…need we go on?
So, let’s cut to the chase. If you were a betting person, you could put down a couple of Benjamins at the window that this will be embedded deep within the yes/no November ballot:
Lots more City Council members
City Council geographical districts with a fail-safe for “community” groups
A city-manager who will run things “professionally,” leaving the pols to do…something.
A city-wide mayor who will do who-knows-what
Weird new mathematical games played with voting
Let’s skin this puppy:
A slam-dunk:new opportunities for pols
In a rehash of the typical “we gotta be just like other big towns” argument, the Commission says…
To keep up with comparable cities, Portland will need to consider drastically increasing the size of council. The Commission is considering several options for representation style which will primarily drive determination of the number of city councilors. Currently the range of potential council members being considered by most Commissioners is 9 to 15.
Maybe this is Candace Avalos’s best bet for finally getting elected.
The districts will be geographic; drawing those lines will be a bloodbath and, significantly, the Commission ducks the issue…
A majority of the Commission supports a districting ballot measure that outlines a districting process but would not propose a formal map for adoption.
Which raises the question: who will draw those lines (the great “What Do We Do With the East Side” question); and what if the voters approve the new charter but nix the map?
Which brings us to one of the most bizarre items on the Commission’s check-list…
Who will represent those districts?
Good question. And the munchkins have an answer, sorta…
To achieve geographic representation, the Commission has looked at several alternatives, including multi- member districts, single-member districts, and hybrid forms, where some council members represent districts, and some are elected at-large. No decision has been made, though most Commissioners favor the concept of multi-member districts.
There’s a thick gravy of reasons ladled out: districts being too complex for any one person to understand (pity the poor US president; he clearly needs help), and a “diversity of viewpoints?” And let’s not forget those “lived experiences.”
One hint sneaks in:
The truth tumbles out:
Increasing opportunities for communities of color to elect their candidates of choice has also been a driving goal for the Commission. Portland does not have a geographic distribution of BIPOC residents that could allow for a drawing of a majority BIPOC district, nor does it have the level of income or age segregation and stratification that characterizes other large cities. The Commission continues to investigate reforms that might give smaller and historically under-represented communities (e.g., renters, young residents, communities of color, minor political parties) a greater ability to form coalitions to elect candidates of their choice.
Of course we might flip this statement on its head and sense that a certain non-capitalized racial group might be teed-up for getting the shaft. Just sayin’…
The Commission hasn’t made up its mind, but won’t it be fun when there are two people, each purporting to “represent” a district, given the hissy-fits within certain neighborhoods and their clubby organizations (Northwest, anyone?). Or a Council made up of district “councilors” and “floaters.” Smart citizens (there are a few) will quickly learn how to play each district representative off against the other while the city-wide reps dive-bomb and maybe we’ll get some Portland streets actually paved.
Bottom line: more politicians given more opportunities to mouth off. Our sleepy media can’t seem to routinely cover just five bozos; think they’ll do better with 15?
What do we do with the mayor?
Darned if the Commission really seems to know. There will be a mayor elected city-wide…but then there are all sorts of nasty little details, still undecided. Who gets to make appointments to the city bureaucracy? What’s the mayor’s relation to the city manager? Veto power? So very many details, and, of course, we have to make sure that we’ve got the non-profits and racial groups’ noses under the tent:
Several key factors being considered…are systems that have streamlined accountability and pathways for community members to shape city-wide strategies and budgeting to address public needs.
You don’t suppose the Coalition of Communities of Color wrote that one? And what do you suppose “streamlined accountability” really means?
Who gets to vote…and how?
Yes, you’ll get to vote (we haven’t reached the point in the progressive revolution in which only graduates of the PSU political science program get a ballot). As for how, get ready for the Big Reveal:
Of the many alternative forms of voting explored, two key forms emerged as favorites on the Commission: ranked-choice voting (RCV) in which voters rank candidates by preference on their ballots, and Score Then Automatic Runoff (STAR) in which voters rate candidates on a scale of zero to five, with zero indicating no support and five indicating maximum support.
Not to worry:
…we could elect a city council that more accurately represents the diversity of viewpoints in Portland who would sort out compromise through governing. Adopting an alternative voting method could ensure a city council where more Portlanders are represented by someone from their top vote preferences.
Seems to me: whole lotta compromising is gonna have to go on in this new government. Which, as noted, is a difficult proposition for progressives, since they are gifted with the One Truth and have big trouble with the “diverse viewpoints,” of their apostate opponents who are bad people.
As for those newfangled methods of voting…does anyone around here really understand this mathematic jibberish? The Commission blandly asserts they would “help achieve desired outcomes” (back to that “looks like” thingy), without saying what those “outcomes” might be. But then, you know.
Other places have tried these voting schemes and you can Google (or, better yet, Duck) the results. This piece will give you a deep dive, but be prefared for a heavy-lift. Let’s just note that New York City tried Ranked Choice and the headlines commonly used the word, “disaster.”
Which prompts a question:
People can hardly be bothered to read the ballot pamphlet they get—free!—in the mail; think they’ll figure out how to “rank” their choices? Say, between a field of ten candidates, each nuttier than the other?
In complexity such as this people like Sarah Iannarone are guaranteed to get their hands on real power.
And isn’t it of passing interest that the Commission doesn’t recommend ranked-choice voting for the Charter measure itself? Say, ranking “looks like” against “BIPOC districts” against the mayor’s power (pick one from column A, etc.) against…?
Still reading? You get a gold star. But thousands of our fellow citizens—the same morons who decriminalized “small amounts” of hard drugs, and who gave DA Schmidt 70-percent of the vote—will soon be asked to read and then understand this stuff. The Progress Reports comes in at 23 pages of finely-printed obfuscation; who’s going to spend a few hours (like yours-truly) parsing out the little land-mines, such as giving “the community” a non-elected vote in how the city spends its money. And the mathematics of avant-garde voting?
I say it’s sausage, and I won’t eat it. (But, as an old friend said, “Then we’ll give it to you in an enema.”)
Have you seen that the Portland Charter Commission is now holding BIPOC only public meetings? No non-BIPOC’s allowed. Meeting scheduled for 3/23/2022. https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIuceGvrTkiGdZJmFLJJCDBghhG4ND88z-F
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