The Charter Commission 'fesses Up

It's all in the fine print, stupid

Let’s start with the cover of the latest Charter Commission “Progress Report.”

What strange images. Mom-of-color with gourd under her arm seizes and kisses young girl (hope it’s her daughter). Underneath, the compliant citizens of Portland, during the height of the Covid hysteria dutifully enjoying a day in Pioneer Square, seated the regulation distance apart on little technicolor lilly-pads.

What do you suppose they’re trying to tell us?

Check out the hysterical grins on the woman and child and you’ll get a hint of the giddy hopey-feeley stuff that has been concocted by the 20 members of the Commission; each member carefully selected by the City Council for their qualifications as representatives of racial/sexual “communities.” Note that despite the frequent use of the progressive buzz-word, “disproportionate,” members of certain capitalized races are grossly represented beyond their numbers on the Commission; but whattya expect from a City Council that is, itself, “disproportionate,” in the extreme.

So what did the latest Progress Report drop into our waiting arms, we poorly-governed people of Portland?

Mainstream media hardly bothered to rewrite the Commission PR release, the Oregonian giving it a cursory under-the-fold story:

Portland charter commission recommends trio of dramatic changes to city’s form of government, election system

If anyone had bothered reading the latest Progress Report, they might have changed “dramatic” to “radical.”

Or, better yet, “idiotic.”

The full report is available at this web site, and it is a hefty read. Save your eyesight and turn directly to page 21, where the payload is dropped. Step into a world of hyperbole, touching naivety about the character of your average politicians, double-talk that barely puts lipstick on the pig of racism, and a prescription for a truly surreal city government.

Here’s the skimmed version that local media fell for…

What could possibly go wrong with all this “accountable, transparent, efficient and effective” stuff? If you read the Commission’s latest pitch, we will have a government made up of nice (and correctly colored) people who will cooperate and collaborate and get along just fine because they are all progressives. And nice. (With the exception of the mayor, who is evil incarnate and must be gelded.)

Unlike the members of the Commission, we take a more cynical view of human nature, the state of polarized American politics, and the sociopaths who run for public office—and the political machine that has been running this town into the ground for thirty years—to buy into the sales pitch. The creature known as Jo Ann Hardesty (who will be in office for approximately life if the new charter sails through), ought to be argument enough.

First, though, before we disappear into the deep weeds, let us always bear in mind the Commission’s central, guiding principle, which no doubt will be engraved in marble over City Hall’s doors:

Increasing opportunities for communities of color to elect their candidates of choice has also been a driving goal for the Commission.

Their words, page 25.

So, as they say in progressiveland, that’s the “lens” through which to view all of their nutty proposals.

Let’s start with the most mind-numbing…

“Ranked choice voting.”

Golly! It’s sweeping the nation: the Commission proudly says that 90 or so jurisdictions out of the tens of thousands in the US will go to this weird, mathematical (and highly vulnerable to manipulation) system, including the hellholes of corruption: New York city, San Francisco, Oakland.

The Commission blithely assumes that voters reading the voting pamphlets will work long into the night ranking candidates and will, somehow…

…vote for the candidates they believe in, rather than having to choose between the lesser of two evils.

Leaving aside that your lesser evil is probably my hero, and that…

…instead of 50% of the vote (plus one) electing a candidate, 25% of the vote (plus one) has the power to elect a candidate.

…it would nicely fit in our “everyone’s a winner” society—except that munchkins with slide rules down at election-central will be doing the higher mathematical calculations, transferring bottom-of-the-list votes up the ballot, no matter what the voter had really wanted (ie., “none of the above”) and that, in some jurisdictions, people who didn’t play the ranking game got their ballots tossed.

Not to worry: the ballot shenanigans will be, the Commission assures us, “transparent.”

And now the double-talk around the true reason for the scheme kicks in—lens, anyone? The commission drops little hintlets…

Proportional Representation is a voting system that ensures political minority groups a fair measure of representation. Portland is ready to embrace the voices of all Portlanders, not just those in the majority.

…and…

This gives more communities a chance to win a number of city council seats reflective of their size in the population.

But here’s a thought that must keep those folks awake at night: If candidates are elected proportional to their numbers in the actual population, the screams of “racism!!!” will be audible in Boring.

In all of this word-swarm, there is one little tidbit that’s worth a moment’s pause:

Ranked choice voting can be used in races to elect one winner or multiple winners…

And here we come to the aha! moment. For the other centerpiece of the Commission’s two-year thinkfest is….

Four mega-districts with three (count ‘em) Councilors from each

And how will the city, one with clearly-defined and very different neighborhoods, be sliced ‘n’ diced? The Commission doesn’t say—there will supposedly be yet another committee appointed to do the gerrymander…and remember the Commission’s own words on this matter:

Portland does not have a geographic distribution of BIPOC residents that could allow for a drawing of a majority BIPOC district…

The commission has a laundry-list of why tripartite representation for mega-districts would be nirvana. A skeptic might say that having representatives selected from the top-three vote-getters in every district (full of widely-varying neighborhoods and cultures—think of Laurelhurst paired with Cully) is a sure-fire prescription for:

• Passing the buck

• Petty intra-neighborhood grievances

• A great way to get really wacko candidates at the bottom of the ticket into office… Or, perhaps, elect many of the lean and hungry young proto-pols on the Commission itself onto the six-figure city payroll.

The obvious, and in my book, best solution would be to chop up Portland into 12 districts—a far easier lift that might keep some neighborhood cohesion—and drop just one sociopath into leadership in each. Imagine trying to figure out which bum to toss out (the real function of voting is purgative rather than prescriptive, since all candidates lie about what they’ll do) with three sociopaths busy evading responsibility.

Which, given the reality of Portland politics, will happen.

And then there’s the most surreal issue of all:

What the hell do we do with the mayor?

As described, it’s a job that no sane politican would want, unless they’re like former commissioner Amanda Fritz, who rode in parades holding a sign on a stick with her name and a big arrow pointing at her head.

It’s a nuthin’ job:

…a mayor, elected citywide, will run the city's day-to-day operations, with the help of a professional city administrator.

…and, best of all…

…a mayor will no longer serve or vote on the council, demonstrating a clear separation of powers between legislative and executive branches. A mayor will not have a veto on city council decisions either.

..and, just to rub it in…

The city administrator will be under direct mayoral supervision and can be fired by a mayor without council approval. However, to ward against the potential of a mayor and city administrator colluding against the public interest, the elected city council will also have the oversight power to fire the city administrator, only with a much higher but necessary bar of 3/4 of the council vote (9 council members out of 12 agreeing to fire).

Send your applications for the mayor’s job to “Capons R Us.” Only masochists need apply. Free clinical psychiatry via the city’s health plans.

And, golly! They must really think Mayor Whatshisname ought to go back home to Wheeler, OR. Soon.

There’s tons more to entertain the reader…including this weird little phrase:

While the Charter Commission’s emphasis is on finding a cohesive package of reforms that fit together and make sense for Portland in 2022 and beyond, we will let the legal analysis show what is legally possible for the November 2022 ballot under the “single-subject” ballot measure principle.

Golly! Isn’t this the “principle” that got the People for Portland homelessness ballot measure tossed by Metro (a clear conflict-of-interest, which has never much bothered Metro’s decisions)?

Good thing judges are elected and properly vetted by the progressive machine. Things could get a trifle embarrassing.

But—never fear. The Commission’s work is far from done! They’ve got all sorts of knotty-thinking cued-up:

Some potential topics for discussion include the role of the city charter as it relates to city agencies like Prosper Portland and the Auditor's Office, proposed reforms brought forward by the city bureaus themselves, changes needed for future charter review processes, and how the city charter relates to items like climate justice, transparency, participatory budgeting, homelessness, public safety and policing and expanding what it means to be an eligible voter to include legal permanent residents have garnered interest from the public and community partners. Dedicated phase two meetings will begin in July.

You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!