I don’t use this space to communicate as a partisan Democrat very often, but in light of November’s election results I felt like that’s the only way I could accurately capture the mood of the results. It definitely feels like the classic Charles Dickens line from A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”
Let’s start with the best of times. I feel pretty positive about ranked choice voting and multi-member city council districts here in Portland. Yes, the ballot measure to enact ranked choice voting at the state level failed to pass, but here in Portland the system delivered a city council that’s diverse in ideology, race, gender and experience. Our new leaders are entering a tough budget environment while navigating a brand new form of local government. I am confident all the people we elected are capable of competently running the government. They all seem to have our city’s best interest at heart.
I also feel pretty positive about incoming mayor, Keith Wilson. Most of you know he was not my first choice. I thought Carmen Rubio was the frontrunner and I enthusiastically backed her campaign. It turns out the revelation of Rubio’s parking tickets, coupled with anti-incumbent attitudes, put political outsider Wilson over the top. Wilson is clearly smart, earnest and has run a successful freight company. He is very focused on solving the problem of homelessness. I look forward to working with him in my capacity as a state representative to help him and the city council obtain the resources they need to achieve his goals.
I also think the “Don’t Rank Rene” campaign took hold. Yes, there was enough information out there about Rene Gonzalez’s politics and temperament, but that campaign helped put that information out there. They also had a good slogan.
I am also glad that the “stunt” (and I chose that word deliberately) of three city council members attempting to “divorce” itself from the County’s Joint Office of Housing and Homelessness was dropped. The city cannot solve the housing and homelessness crisis alone, especially when most of the programs and financial resources are county administered.
Speaking of Multnomah County, Shannon Singleton won her race to replace Susheela Jayapal against Sam Adams, who yet again attempted to make a comeback. Meghan Moyer, in our neck of the woods, beat Vadim Mozyersky. Both of these women are “classic progressives” in the Portland political tradition who ran in a tough election environment with voter dissatisfaction with the County and its handling of the issues we are most concerned about—housing, homelessness and addiction. Independent expenditures on Adams and Mozyersky were to no avail. Some compassion toward the homeless and those in the throes of addiction is going to be needed and voters agreed. That’s why I am glad Singleton and Moyer won.
With the election of Singleton and Moyer, I believe County Chair, Jessica Vega Pederson got incredibly lucky. She will have two people that she can work with as opposed to presiding over a county commission that would have been more obstructionist. She will have four members who all want to be constructive and pragmatic problem solvers who will try to work with her not just oppose her. Still, that doesn’t mean our County Chair is out of the woods yet. If she has difficulties working with the new county board or the city to make meaningful and visible progress on housing and homelessness, then she will have a lot more than her reelection in 2026 to worry about.
At the state level, Oregon Democrats swept EVERY statewide office, and will have a super majority in the Oregon State Senate, and likely in the Oregon State House where I serve. Stay tuned on that one, as the results in one race in Woodburn are still a little too close to call. That supermajority means that Democrats will not be held hostage by Republicans to pass needed tax increases. We can go it alone if we need to, provided we can muster all of us to vote the same way. Yes, I realize that is a bit partisan (remember, I warned you). In addition, the Republicans no longer can just walk off the job either. In 2022 the voters passed BM 113 which put it in our state constitution a provision that says lawmakers who walk out for more than 10 days are barred from running for reelection. Our State Supreme Court unanimously upheld the measure after a legal challenge to it in February of this year. All of this combined will make Republican obstruction tactics harder to pull off.
Unfortunately, it is also the worst of times. I cannot believe Donald Trump won a second term and will have an entire Congress controlled by his party. It is the exact opposite at the national level to what we have here in Oregon at the state and local levels. I am sure some of you saw it coming, but I sure did not. I am pretty concerned, but more on this soon enough. Watch for me to talk more about that in January or give a preview of my priorities for the legislative session.
