Voting Guide for 2026 Midterms — MultCo and PDX
Mea Culpa For the Length + BLUF
In the past I’ve tried to appraise each candidate frankly and let readers decide. My biases inevitably shine through, but I’ve tried. That felt appropriate for the first, crowded RCV election and the ballot measures (school funding, parks funding, transportation funding) that followed.
This time I’m making a more explicitly ideological case. That made this guide considerably longer, sorry. With Portland’s City Council split into two camps, I can’t endorse anyone without explaining which ideology offers the best path forward and how it will materially improve the city. My question is “whose vision do we need, and whose excesses/worst impulses can we survive.” “Vision” versus “excess” is this guide’s recurring theme. Though at this length, I’m afraid I’ve entered “manifesto” territory.
If you don’t want to read my bloviation on our new system of city government, background on how we got to this point politically, how I think we get out of this mess, here is the BLUF:
- Rank Morillo and Lane 1st and 2nd in D3, take your pick for 3rd — 5th, Rank Novick last, do not rank Torres.
- Rank Green, Evenstar, and Clark in the top 3 in D4, do not rank Arnold or Zimmerman.
- Vote against the participatory budgeting measure.
- Rank Singleton 1st and Meieran 2nd for County Commissioner
I’m breaking this guide into sections for ease of use. Here — have a table of contents!
I. How City and County Government Fit Together
II. Ranked Choice Voting Two Years In
III. What Portland Needs: Housing and Preschool
IV. The Political Camps and the Organizations Behind Them
V. How the Council Has Actually Performed
VI. City Council Candidates and My Endorsements
VII. Multnomah County Chair
VIII. Participatory Budgeting
IX. State and National Elections
I. How City and County Government Fit Together
Portland’s problems cross city, county, state, and Metro boundaries, making it hard for normal people to know who controls what.
The City handles zoning, housing development, streets, parks, and policing. Our 12 councilors pass laws and approve the budget, while the mayor and city administrator oversee implementation and daily operations. Multnomah County separately runs much of our social safety net, including public health, mental health and addiction services, Preschool for All, and much of the homelessness response. Responsibilities overlap, particularly on shelter and housing, so both governments must do their jobs and work together. Keep that division in mind when deciding who deserves credit or blame. Usually blame.
The Multnomah County commissioner race matters most because the County, not Portland, administers much of the region’s homelessness-response money and services. Metro collects the regional Supportive Housing Services tax and distributes 95% to the three counties; Multnomah combines its share with county, state, federal, and other funding to contract with nonprofits for shelter, outreach, rent assistance, permanent supportive housing, case management, and other services. Put another way, awful county administration is why we’re in this mess: despite spending tens of thousands of dollars per homeless person, the situation is getting worse and not better.
II. Ranked Choice Voting Two Years In
In the jargon, our voting system is “single transferable vote, a form of proportional ranked choice voting, conducted in multi-member districts”.
Let’s break down this mouthful into three parts.
- Single transferable vote: your vote transfers between candidates after a candidate is eliminated OR elected.
- Proportional ranked choice voting: a system designed to make groups’ seat shares (peacocks vs mod squad, here) roughly reflect their electoral support.
- Multi-member districts: electoral districts that elect more than one representative. Our districts have three candidates each.
There are three major implications of the three points above that I fear voters do not understand.
- The least understood interaction is “spillover”. A candidate can only end up with 25%+1 of the vote. Anything above that “spills over” to the next candidate on the voter’s ballot. For example, if I rank Morillo 1st and Lane 2nd, and Morillo gets 30% of the vote in the first round, a proportional share of every Morillo-first ballot ‘spills over’ to that voter’s second choice. Since I ranked Lane 2nd, the surplus value of my ballot (5/30ths, or 16.7%) would then spill over to Lane. Your vote can split between two (or more!) candidates, so who you rank, in what order, and how many you rank can matter enormously.
- In 2024, in every district but D4, the first round’s top three candidates won. But spillover and down-ballot rankings decided the closest races.
- Together, these points let voters elect their favorites while mitigating harm: leave one especially disliked candidate unranked and give low rankings to their closest opposition. For example, if I hate the idea of electing Eli Arnold but dislike Zimmerman less, I could rank Zimmerman low. Spillover could help elect the less toxic candidate while most of my ballot’s value supports someone I actually like.
III. What Portland Needs: Housing and Preschool
I’ll try to keep this short, but only because others have written far more and better on this subject.
The two biggest issues facing Portland are homelessness and housing costs. They exacerbate each other: high housing costs drive homelessness, which discourages building and high homelessness makes the city less attractive to build in, which further raises housing costs. Our politicians’ solutions boil down to “build project housing” and/or “round them up and throw them in jail”. The truth isn’t somewhere in the middle: we absolutely must do the former and some of the latter. This is the crux of “whose vision do we need, and whose excesses can we survive” — the vision to build public housing sits firmly in the progressive camp. Project housing, or ‘housing first’ to progressives, will be blighted. It will also, by definition, solve homelessness and, politically, hyper-visible disorderly camps. Realizing this vision will be nightmarish — I do not trust Portland’s progressive politicians to do the job well, quickly, or cheaply. But I trust them to do it, and they say they want to. The moderate camp does not.
At the same time, the progressive camp is extremely shy about enforcement. I do not trust them to administer project housing in Portland: they have opposed sweeps, and DSA[1] maintains a policy plank against camping bans. Morillo tried to defund the program that does sweeps/camp clean-ups. Portland leaders must be willing to evict, institutionalize, or jail edge cases who lower everyone’s quality of life. Ideally, progressives build public housing and moderates run it. These are the excesses I mentioned, but put the horse before the cart: building comes first, and I trust progressives to pursue it. That’s the vision we need.
Beyond this awful feedback loop, more housing will materially improve Portland. Building where people want to live, not on the city’s margins or super busy, undesirable streets, is essential to population growth. More residents mean a larger tax base for city services and more customers for everyone from bars to morticians; there is a quality to quantity. I believe that a combo of preschool for all, more housing, and even a small handle on hyper-visible public disorder are the recipe for population growth, and through it, economic growth.
Portland’s best pro-housing group, Portland Neighbors Welcome (PNW)[2] is advancing an initiative called “inner east side for all” which will upzone 12th Ave to 60th Ave — Freemont to Powell to allow for denser housing. They also advance building code reform and residential infill projects. Inner Eastside for All was introduced at council by the progressive caucus and passed unanimously. Progressives have been radically more interested than moderates in working with PNW and other housing groups, and prioritize housing more. That’s the vision we need. Moderate candidates’ refusal to upzone rich, desirable neighborhoods is an excess we cannot afford.
Preschool for All
Preschool for All is Multnomah County’s voter-approved program providing free preschool to three- and four-year-olds, aiming for universal access by 2030. The County estimates that participating families save an average of $18,600 per child per year. That enormously improves a family’s standard of living. It gives families a powerful reason to live here: all else equal, free preschool makes a community substantially more attractive than a neighbor where parents must pay tuition or leave the workforce. I see both a massively effective social welfare policy and an investment in attracting and retaining families our city needs to grow.
Policing and Enforcement
Since 2020, the cops have actively refused to do their jobs. Self-initiated calls fell by roughly half post-2020, while officer staffing declined by about 15%; traffic stops fell nearly 60%; non-Traffic officers themselves conducted roughly 44% fewer stops; and traffic citations fell by nearly two-thirds. Those reductions persisted for years. They coincided with documented rank-and-file anger at City leadership and police accountability: approximately 50 officers jointly resigned from a voluntary specialized unit, and officers described a diminished willingness to do police work.
The slowdown began as a clearly intentional, illegal wildcat strike to oust a progressive district attorney. Before Mike Schmid’s ouster, Reddit was full of people reporting that cops told them “can’t help you, gotta vote out the DA before we can do anything.” Local media and internal police statements telling officers to knock it off corroborated this.[3][4][5] Since then, their aim, like the PMC’s, has been to oust police-hostile progressives and/or DSA backed candidates who oppose transferring climate money to police and hamstringing the police accountability board.
Moderates prefer carceral solutions. I 100% believe they’re necessary and 100% believe they fail as a primary solution. Simply put, police in Portland are bad at their jobs. They have been engaged in a work slowdown since 2020. They do not follow lawful orders. They are lazy. They cannot, and will not, do the actual police work necessary to make good arrests of the small portion of homeless people who need arrest and institutionalization to protect the public and free resources for people who can benefit. Even if police were willing and able, Portland lacks public defenders for the indigent; 600 Multnomah County cases await one. Bringing the law down like a hammer on homelessness (whether that’s fascistic aside) simply won’t work. Moderates’ recurring police-first approach is a common thread running through statements from their camp, and it is a non-starter.
IV. The Political Camps and the Organizations Behind Them
City Council has broken into two camps: the so-called moderate caucus (mod squad) and the so-called progressive caucus (peacocks). I say “so-called” because moderates range from dyed in the wool dems who’d only be called “moderate” in Portland to centrists collecting donations from GOP boosters. The “progressives” range from leftists far outside the American Overton window to run of the mill AOC/Bernie progressives.
The moderates:
- Olivia Clark (D4 — up for reelection)
- Eric Zimmerman (D4 — up for reelection)
- Steve Novick (D3 — up for reelection)
- Elana Pirtle-Guiney (D2)
- Loretta Smith (D1)
- Dan Ryan (D2)
The progressives:
- Angelita Morillo (D3 — up for reelection)
- Tiffany Koyama Lane (D3 — up for reelection)
- Mitch Green (D4 — up for reelection)
- Jamie Dunphy (D1)
- Candace Avalos (D1)
- Sameer Kanal (D2)
The Portland Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the Portland Metro Chamber (PMC) are arguably Portland’s two most important organized ideological forces, particularly for City Council candidates. Portland DSA is a membership-based socialist organization powered by disciplined grassroots organizing. In 2024 DSA volunteers knocked roughly 10,000 doors for Mitch Green and Tiffany Koyama Lane, and Willamette Week described its influence as disproportionate to its budget and membership. For candidates, that’s a ready-made citywide field and activist network.
PMC represents more than 2,000 businesses, drawing on major employers, wealthy donors, political consultants, and corporations with statewide and national reach. PMC also has a slew of affiliated PACs, including United For Portland/United For Portland Action Fund, Portland Alliance PAC, Unity PAC, and GoPortlandGo. These groups funnel business money to PMC backed candidates, whose endorsements unlock statewide and nationwide resources and networks.
DSA describes the PMC thusly: “The PMC is the smoke-filled room where the ruling class formulates its plans. The PMC staff are the highly-paid mercenaries who, for decades, have shaped the direction of the City of Portland. The PMC also throws money into state and local political campaigns to try and shape the makeup of elected government.” In turn, the PMC routinely describe DSA as far left fringe hellbent on destroying capitalism, seizing public property for redistribution, defunding the police, and making Portland an impossible place to do business. PMC and allied PACs explicitly seek to oust progressive incumbents; DSA likewise targets PMC backed incumbents.
Notably, both groups sit outside Portland’s Overton window despite backing broadly popular candidates. DSA’s broadly unpopular policies include its failed home-sales tax for eviction defense and blanket opposition to homeless camp sweeps. Likewise, PMC’s police-union alliance, opposition to Preschool for All, and support for diverting climate funds and writing a blank check for MODA center development are broadly unpopular.
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Both back candidates more extreme than Portlanders realize; we benefit from influences that temper their backers’ worst policies. This brings me back to my central question: “whose vision do we need, and whose excesses can we tolerate?” For me, DSA backs Preschool for All and Inner Eastside for All. PMC opposes our promising universal preschool program’s taxes; though officially neutral on inner eastside upzoning, its candidates have largely been neutral to hostile.
Portland’s police add two political wrinkles. First, they work hand in hand with PMC: every PMC backed candidate has either Portland Police Association backing or support from a PPA-funded PAC. Second, the police have been engaged in a six-year long politically motivated work slowdown.
V. How the Council Has Actually Performed
These camps are often called gridlocked, with some embarrassing, extended 6–6 ties.[6][7][8] Most notably, electing Cllr Dunphy council president took 13 votes over several days, and Mayor Wilson broke several budget-amendment ties. But most council votes involved no mayoral tiebreak. Of the 352 votes on final ordinances taken by Council, 156 were unanimous 12–0. Counting 12–0, 11–0, 10–0, and 9–0 votes gives 280 total. Only 2 final ordinance votes tied 6–6, requiring a mayoral tiebreaker. Including all roll call votes (such as amendments) raises the 6–6 count to 59, dwarfed by the number of votes passing 12–0, 11–0, 10–0, and 9–0.
These nice visualizations from https://pdxcouncilstats.com/ also help show that our council is not functioning that badly.
Below: councilors’ final votes on peers’ proposals. Clear camps exist, but, with Dan Ryan and Eric Zimmerman as the exceptions, so does plenty of aisle crossing.
Below: bills introduced by one councilor and cosponsored by another. Swing-vote moderate Novick cosponsored more bills from Peacocks Morillo and Dunphy than from any moderate; progressive Tiffany Lane had by far the most ‘popular’ introductions.
These stats obscure something: the most important legislation was the most contentious. Most votes were ‘day-to-day housecleaning’; the budget and camp-sweep funding brought hurt feelings and drama spilling onto social media and into the news.
Still, the data shows a body capable of progress and compromise. They handled housework, passed a budget (even if it took tears), and advanced good legislation. Some dysfunction is by design: serial communication restrictions can prevent advance coordination and compromise, pushing disagreements into council sessions instead of behind closed doors.
Steve Novick and Tiffany Koyama Lane were essentially the two swing votes. They traded support for concessions palatable to their camp, whose members would then happily bandwagon. Their willingness to play ball blunted both camps’ worst impulses.
Take Morillo’s effort to defund homeless camp sweeps and clean-ups. Only a more extreme DSA faction backed this awful idea. Novick’s opposition doomed it, so other progressives declined to attach their names to a ‘stinker’. Her ordinances against algorithmic rental price fixing and masked law enforcement, however, easily won some moderates.
This system worked for over a year until Councilor Morillo broke it. There’s a massive difference between fighting colleagues legislatively (over policy and funding) and electorally (backing challengers, fundraising against them, trying to oust them). During May 2026 budget negotiations, Novick signed onto a Morillo amendment, then reneged and voted against it, sinking her effort. Its merits were debatable, a mixed bag at best, but that’s beside the point. We in the business call this “a dick move,” but it was firmly legislative. Morillo escalated to the electoral realm by endorsing Brandon Mullen, a D3 progressive gunning for Novick’s seat. This escalated things to the electoral realm.
Starting an electoral fight half a year before an election is extremely unwise. Colleagues who should be advancing policy instead spend months locked in a zero-sum game. Backing Novick’s challenger gave him an incentive to stonewall progressive legislation. Advancing peacock priorities, particularly Morillo’s, would reward visionary, aisle-crossing progressives more than moderates compromising on others’ ideas; zero sum logic. This bad blood sunk progressive budget amendments and radically worsened council vibes. Morillo’s massive strategic blunder had zero upside: her challenger suspended his campaign after missing a filing deadline. A total embarrassment all around.
However, it takes two to tango. Novick could have been an elder statesman; instead, he embraced zero sum logic, lashed out in meetings, and failed to take the higher road. Notably, the same traits (combativeness, assertiveness, hounding colleagues) are excused in an older white man and used to excruciate a younger woman of color.
The claim that “activist progressives on city council are introducing dysfunction and stopping the body from working well together and advancing good legislation” weighs heavily on my endorsements. Voting data doesn’t support it: too many policies advanced across the aisle. Either camp could win support for good ideas. Even after Morillo broke that fairly good equilibrium, she and Novick still voted together twice as often as they voted against each other (98 vs 52). An election resets both legislative and electoral relationships. If Novick, Morillo, or both return with clear mandates, this destructive zero-sum logic disappears.
VI. City Council Candidates and My Endorsements
I’ll only give ink to serious candidates. It’s an anti-democratic impulse, but I think candidates who don’t fundraise or campaign are some mix of mentally unwell and happy to waste everyone’s time; their bullshit is an attention tax on the body politic.
District 3
RANK 1 — Angelita Morillo (incumbent, DSA/progressive):
PNW’s endorsement of Morillo said “she championed the resolution to speed up and prioritize implementation of Inner Eastside for All, our top policy priority and shepherded it to a unanimous vote on council. She also led the resolution banning algorithmic rent-price-fixing software, closing off a tool to drive up rents in coordinated ways. And she helped establish the city’s first public investment in social housing through the revolving loan fund she helped build.” From the Oregonian’s endorsement: “She is clearly politically talented and a force to reckon with.” I have misgivings about her mangling the swing-vote relationship and trying to defund sweeps/camp clean-ups. But I can tolerate these excesses: her vision for turning Portland around is correct, and she has the policy and political acumen to deliver.
RANK 2 — Tiffany Koyama Lane (incumbent, DSA/progressive):
PNW’s endorsement states she “has been a reliable vote for housing abundance and tenant protection this term, backing the Inner Eastside Zoning Project, the algorithmic rent-fixing ban, and the city’s first social housing investment… She’s distinguished herself on street safety, emerging as one of council’s most energetic champions of Vision Zero and better-funded transit, bike, and pedestrian infrastructure.” The Wweek’s endorsement states “Koyama Koyama Lane is the socialist councilor we most trust to reach across whatever constitutes an aisle in this chamber.” I agree: she’s a phenomenal peacemaker, with policy chops proven by her council-leading rate of getting ordinances cosponsored and passed.
RANK 3: -Joe Corcoran: by far the most policy and political experience among the middling candidates. His Moda Center legal analysis is far better than typical campaign content. But his campaign was lackluster, with no endorsements or small donor program qualification.
RANK 4 and 5: Esther Leon / Tom Sollit / Cristal Otero: these are our middling candidates. None won endorsements from our papers of record, DSA, PMC, or PNW. Their campaigns were middling and their chops uncertain. But DSA and PNW spoke positively of Leon and Otero without endorsing. Take your pick, or leave blank.
RANK 6 — Steve Novick (incumbent, PMC/moderate): He was endorsed by everyone and their mother. He has proven policy chops and knows how to legislate. But he shares responsibility for council dysfunction and is as much a drama queen as anyone there. He also bears great responsibility for Parks cuts after we voted to raise taxes to maintain service levels. He makes my list because PNW speaks well of him. He’ll almost certainly win, so if you rank him, put him behind Morillo and Lane.
DO NOT RANK — Kellie Torres: More on her below: I think she’s this cycle’s most conservative candidate and the likeliest to unseat a progressive, having hidden her politics behind ‘just trying to make government work’.
Kellie Torres Is the Single Most Conservative Candidate Running for D3 Council
Torres is PMC’s and the moderates’ best chance to pick up a seat and break the 6–6 deadlock. Her backers, donors, and policies expose her sensible-progressive branding as a lie.
Torres alone publicly supported using PCEF money for police, then quickly retreated after backlash. That alone disqualifies her: voters established PCEF with clear intent and resoundingly rejected the police union’s measure to steal its money.
Her website’s annual housing goal falls far below the city’s needs, likely part of why PNW didn’t endorse her. Her support for Inner Eastside For All was also contingent on the program being “scaled appropriately” which we can fairly mean as “watered down as not to offend the sensibilities of people living in Laurelhurst.” Her wealthy donors and business PACs also give me little confidence she’d support Inner East Side for All in office. Her scant tenant protections won endorsement from MultiFamilyNW, the main landlord trade association and a routine opponent of progressive priorities.
Torres’s endorsements also paint a conservative picture. Alongside liberals like Earl Blumenauer, she touts undoubtedly conservative councilors Mingus Mapps and Dan Ryan. Her PMC allied PAC support is partly GOP funded, and D4 conservatives have asked fundraisers to redirect toward Torres. She’s notably drawn far less small donor money than D3’s other main contenders.
On the issues where Portland’s ideological fights actually occur, police staffing, homelessness, housing regulation, taxation, public spending and the role of private business, Torres consistently occupies the right-hand side of the local spectrum. I don’t think she’s entirely wrong on the merits; I think these ideas are unviable here now because they fail to address our problems’ root causes.
District 4
I recommend PNW’s full slate for this district’s top three spots. Housing is the city’s most important issue and PNW our best housing organization, full stop.
RANK 1 — Mitch Green (incumbent, DSA/progressive):
PNW’s endorsement states that he “is a steadfast champion for making Portland an affordable, accessible, livable city for the working class. Green advocated for Inner Eastside for All to the Planning Commission prior to taking office and followed through once elected by co-sponsoring the Inner Eastside for All resolution. He is a vocal advocate for Social Housing in Portland”. He’s been great: council’s strongest advocate for both YIMBY housing and housing justice. That makes excesses like participatory budgeting forgivable, or at least tolerable.
RANK 2 — Jamey Evenstar:
PNW’s endorsement calls her “a Portland policy wonk committed to delivering for her working class neighbors. In her questionnaire and interview she proved that her diverse and dynamic ideas are rooted in evidence and experience.” DSA didn’t endorse her but spoke positively. This is a very slim pickup opportunity for the progressive caucus.
RANK 3 — Oliva Clark:
PNW’s endorsement of a PMC moderate hurt the feelings of leftists who support housing justice as part of an everything bagel omni-cause. But Clark is good on housing, so she got an endorsement. Simple as that, and that’s worth a top ranking spot.
RANK 4 — Jeremy Smith
He’s run a legit campaign, hired good staff, and has work experience suggesting policy acumen. His policy platform has some stuff I like (social housing, public utilities, climate commitments) and some excesses I do not care for (participatory budgeting, having the city buy ross island). PNW liked his vibe but found him underprepared for a serious housing conversation. Still, he’d join the progressive caucus and his heart seems in the right place: enough for a mid-tier ranking.
DO NOT RANK: Eli Arnold and Eric Zimmerman
Eli Arnold is a cop who policed 2020 protests and has had to publicly deny brutalizing anyone. Zimmerman is tied for the most conservative member of the council. Both are backed to the hilt by PMC and allied PACs, with substantial GOP-booster money directly and through PACs. I see no harm mitigation in leaving one unranked and ranking the other last. Gun to my head, I would rank Eli Arnold 6th and leave off Zimmerman because Arnold was a 2016 Bernie Sanders delegate, suggesting some honest progressive beliefs a decade ago. But I don’t have a gun to my head and I’m not telling you to do that.
VII. Multnomah County Chair
It’s extremely bad and sad that I dislike all these candidates.
All three acknowledge the county’s poor performance and promise reform and accountability. Singleton is the preferred progressive choice, and Julie Brim-Edwards is the PMC choice. Sharon Meieran tried threading the needle but aligns more with Brim-Edwards; she subsequently refused endorsements, unable to compete in the same lane.
Brim-Edwards has run a phenomenal campaign. Winning Cleveland High School’s very own Jan Watt’s endorsement shows absolute mastery of local politics. She’s made the strongest promises of reform and accountability. That made a letter signed by a slew of her former colleagues calling her unfit for office extremely alarming. Such letters are extremely uncommon and I think we should take their accusations at face value: micromanagement, poor collaboration and leadership, and inability to make big decisions.
Meieran is a non-starter because she’s been a squish on Preschool for All, calling the program “fatally flawed” and questioning if it should be housed in the county at all. With PMC and Governor Kotek attacking the program, we 100% need someone committed to bringing one of the nation’s best policy ideas to universality.
That leaves Singleton. The strongest attack is that she’d be ‘more of the same,’ continuing the chair’s failed policies. She counters with accountability and reform, but I worry her homelessness plan lacks teeth — that it is indeed focused on making current failing policies more efficient so they fail faster and more cheaply. Still, I like her endorsements (especially East County Rising and Olivia Clark), and her reform record has at least some merit.
Without any great choices on the ballot, my rankings are:
Rank 1: Singleton
Good enough for now, I guess.
Rank 2: Meieran
If she messes with Preschool for All I’ll regret it, but I’d prefer her in the role over Brim-Edwards.
DO NOT RANK: Brim-Edwards
You just don’t see a letter saying “do not vote for my former colleague” very often. Paired with PMC PAC money, it makes me extremely nervous. Regrettably, I think she’ll win in a landslide.
VIII. Participatory Budgeting
Bottom line, from the Willamette Week: “Aside from a process that’s incredibly unclear and offers more opportunities for error than an Oregon Ducks football game, the measure carves out precious discretionary dollars for pilot projects at a time when the city can barely fund basic services like parks, trash pickup and firefighters.”
I tolerate DSA’s excesses partly because their worst ideas require a vote. For example, DSA’s eviction-defense measure had a laudable goal but a hefty tax on private single-family home sales; 82% voted no. A kind of good idea, badly executed. Participatory budgeting is an awful idea with equally awful proposed execution.
This measure’s $16,000,000 unfunded mandate would blow a hole in the general fund. Proponents say the money needn’t come from the general fund but identify no concrete alternative. A “yes” vote means cutting an already bleeding budget, created holistically, strategically, and democratically, to fund special-interest projects disconnected from city planning and budgeting. A smaller pilot when the city was flush might be supportable; this would be by far America’s largest participatory budgeting program per capita.
More generally, we elect councilors to budget and balance competing priorities in an integrated way. Through them, we already have a massive say over the budget! Adding undemocratic (few participate), bureaucratic (wildly cumbersome administration), and unclear (the ballot leaves the process TBD) layers supposedly makes things more democratic or returns power to the people? Asinine.
IX. State and National Elections
Vote dem. If you need this explained or justified to you, you have lost the fucking plot. Fun fact: “le front Populaire” translates into English as “vote blue no matter who.”
AI disclosure: I used ChatGPT to clean up the formatting, but the text is all me.
Sourcing disclosure: I gave up on hyperlinking every factual claim pretty early on. Trust me or don’t, but a cursory google search should prove any of my statements.
[1] Full disclosure, I am a card-carrying DSA member, even though if I ran for office, they would never endorse me. They raised the minimum wage in DC twice while I lived there — I’ll be a member for life because of that.
[2] Yes, I’m a card-carrying member of PNW also. Sue me, I’m a sucker for a monthly happy hour and newsletters pleading for me to show up to a rally at noon on a workday.
[7] https://www.opb.org/article/2026/05/21/portland-politics-city-council-mayor-keith-wilson-oregon/
