Folks are voting on, among other things, Measure 26-228 (a.k.a. Charter Reform) in sunny Portland Oregon in our upcoming/ongoing election. For those counting, the election wraps up in about a week (Nov. 8, 2022).
And it’s been contentious! There’s been discussion! Charter chatter, if you will.
As a layperson, this is my attempt to:
Make sense of it
Make a recommendation
Context
Let’s start with the basics, as much for me as for you.
What is the charter?
There’s probably some technical or legal definition of the Portland city charter. Not sure! But I like to think of it as the city constitution. It defines the rules of the game and how we are governed.
Why are we voting on it?
Per the existing charter:
From time to time, but no less frequently than every 10 years, the Council shall convene a Charter review commission (“Charter Commission”) to review and recommend amendments to this Charter provided
and
All Charter amendments proposed by the Charter Commission supported by an affirmative vote of at least fifteen (15) members of the Charter Commission, after a public hearing process prescribed by the Council, shall be submitted to the voters of the City of Portland at the next primary or general election
In non-legalese: we have a committee that reassess the charter every decade. Then we vote on the changes they recommend.
Tell me more. What is the charter commission?
There’s a lot of history here and this sightline article is really good at breaking it down. In short: the bones of our existing charter dates back to 1913 and it sets how our city government works. It’s been changed a bunch over the years, last time in 2012 with a bunch of small, technical changes (good changes, all else being equal, but not impactful ones).
The newest charter commission was convened in 2020 and was made up of a bunch of local folks of various stripes (legal experts, nonprofit directors, business owners, etc.) They made a set of recommendations that would dramatically alter city governance, should they be affirmed this election.
So that’s the deal. What do they recommend?
The Changes
Most articles you’ll read will say that Charter reform is three major changes packaged together. That’s technically true but I actually think it’s better understood as five major changes packaged together. By my estimation, from least controversial to most, these five changes are…
Change #1: Council-manager governance
From: the Mayor assigns commissioners to be responsible for city bureau.1 The mayor has a vote on the council
To: the city council sets city policy as a legislative body and the mayor implements it through a city manager, with professional administrators for each bureau. The mayor provides a tiebreaking vote when needed (like the VP in the US Senate).
Change #2: Districts for city councilfolk
From: At-large districts (i.e. everyone in the city votes for every commissioner)
To: Four geographic regions for the new councilors
Change #3: Expand City council
From: 4 members
To: 12 members
Change #4: Ranked Choice voting
From: electing city commissioners via “first-past-the-post” (i.e. standard) voting
To: electing city council folk via a ranked choice voting method
Change #5: Multimember districts
From: 1 member per at-large “district”
To: 3 members per geographic districts
Should we vote for it or not?
Sometimes with a ballot measure like this it’s easy—everyone agrees that something needs to change and then we change it. As an example: everyone (besides a few sheriffs) is endorsing Oregon Measure 112 to remove language around slavery from the Oregon constitution. That’s a clear, good set of changes. It will likely pass.
Charter reform is more contentious.
The Mercury and Tribune think you should vote yes.
The Oregonian, Willamette Week and the Skanner recommend voting no.
Various non-profits and local electeds2 are all over the map. If I were to pick out a trend: local non-profits and Jennifer Lawrence tend to be supportive; business groups and current and former electeds tend to oppose it.
Editors note: Everything I said above is in the land of fact. Below this point we’re going to start getting into blend of fact and my opinion. I think my opinions are well-founded but, regardless, you’ve been warned.
To me, it comes down to the five changes themselves and as a package. Are the five changes in Charter reform better or worse, collectively, than the status quo?
Let’s take them one by one.
Change #1: Council-manager governance
To understand Charter reform, we have to start with the least controversial provision.
Portland has a lot of problems that feel like they only get worse every year. Among them: rapidly rising housing costs, increased costs of everything else, rapidly rising homelessness (especially “visible” homelessness, with prolonged street camping), increases in gun violence, decreased trust in the police (for good reason), increased tax burdens, degrading infrastructure, and lots of red tape and long timelines for permits, all coupled with increases in tax burdens.
Some of these problems are Portland-specific. Many of them are not. But the existing government is poorly set up to address them. The bureaus are each run by commissioners who were elected for their political positions, not their administrative acumen. (Often the best administrators have the worst politics and vice versa.) Commissioners are often assigned bureaus that do not match what expertise they do have. The system disincentives long-range and cross-bureau planning and there’s no “single neck to choke” as issues arise.
No one else in Oregon uses the commission system, nor do any cities as big as Portland. It didn’t used to be an unusual system. But most places that had commission-style governments (including Galveston, TX, where it was invented) migrated away from them in the latter half of the 20th century, for many of the same reasons we’re considering doing it now.
Opinion here is nearly universal: no one likes the commission system and everyone wants something else — typically a city manager.
From: the Mayor assigns commissioners to be responsible for city bureau. The mayor has a vote on the council.
To: the city council sets city policy as a legislative body and the mayor implements it through a city manager, with professional administrators for each bureau. The mayor provides a tiebreaking vote when needed.
Advantage: Yes on charter reform
Change #2: Districts for city councilfolk
Today (as part of the aforementioned commission system) commissioners are elected city-wide. That might makes sense when they are in charge of particular bureaus but becomes much less sensible with a city manager. Most cities have districts or wards for a reason: geographical representation. Historically, the vast majority of commissioners are from the West side despite ~80% of folks living on the East side.3
That disparity is a huge issue, especially for folks living East of 82nd who (rightly) feel like their needs are rarely considered.
There are challenges with geographic representation but there’s a reason virtually all political bodies have some sort of it. It gives different groups of folks with different interests a voice.
From: At-large districts (i.e. everyone in the city votes for every commissioner)
To: Four geographic regions for the new councilors
Advantage: Yes on charter reform
Change #3: Expand City council
Should we have 4 councilfolk? 12? 24?
Each incremental councilperson costs money for salary, space, and staff, so it probably doesn’t make sense to have 538 councilfolk for a city of our size. But also it makes sense to ensure that folks feel like they have a voice
I don’t know what the right number is here, a priori.
But I can do basic math.
Portland city population, 1910: ~207,000
= ~52,000 per commissioner when the system was established
Portland city population, 2022: ~660,000
= ~165,000 people per commissioner today
= ~55,000 per councilperson if charter reform passes
Slightly outdated numbers but across the 50 largest cities in the US in 2010, the median was ~46,000 per councilperson.
To me that math is pretty compelling.
From: 4 members
To: 12 members
Advantage: Yes on charter reform
Change #4: Ranked Choice voting
I’m not going to explain or compare various voting systems here. There are many better explainers out there. This is a classic but here are four more.
Near as I can tell, here’s the tl;dr.
First-past-the-post (FPTP) voting (what we do today) is the simplest, most traditional way to vote. But there are a ton of well-documented issues with it. (Just look at the 2022 OR governor’s race for an example with a 3rd party spoiler effect, for example!)
There are lots of different possible voting methods: Ranked Choice, Star, Approval, Condorcet, and so on. Each has its flaws and no voting system is perfect. Yet all of these alternative methods do a better job determining a “fair” result than traditional FPTP voting, with less tactical voting, fewer spoiler effects, and better minority representation.
Of alternative voting methods, Ranked Choice voting (RCV) has gone the most mainstream. It’s used in Maine, Alaska, and a bunch of cities (SF, Oakland, Minneapolis, etc.)
Critics of this measure think Ranked Choice voting is a) confusing and b) when combined with multimember districts, could cause folks who only received 25% of the vote to get elected.
I don’t have much patience for the “it’s confusing” critique. It’s more complicated than FPTP, sure but voters in Maine and Alaska have done just fine with RCV. Academics claim (and real life evidence from Maine, Alaska, and elsewhere backs this up) that RCV results in more broadly accepted, less extreme candidates winning. As for the “25%” critique, that’s better discussed below.
Also, RCV is also on the ballot for Multnomah County (Measure 26-232). So even if Charter reform loses, there’s a pretty decent chance we’re in for it anyway. Might as well change both at once.
If I had my druthers, we’d use Approval voting over Ranked Choice. Since no one cares about my druthers I’m merely content to say: RCV is pretty darn good, and way better than today’s approach.
Bonus: no more primaries for councilfolk. Just one round of voting. (I think this is a bonus. Your mileage may vary.)
From: electing city commissioners via “first-past-the-post” (i.e. standard) voting
To: electing city council folk via a ranked choice voting method
Advantage: Yes on charter reform
Change #5: Multimember districts
Multimember districts are perhaps the most bizarre part of charter reform and definitely the least popular. Why even have them? What’s wrong with small districts?
The advantages:
Larger districts limits the amount of gerrymandering that can be done with districts.
Tends to produce more balanced representation by encouraging the nomination of a diverse roster of candidates.
The disadvantages:
Unqualified people could get elected with a small percentage of the vote (~25%).
There’s less connection between the voter and their councilperson.
It will be difficult to identify poor performers and hold them accountable (i.e. to vote them out).
It’s weird and experimental and unusual and new.
I find both sides of this argument at least somewhat compelling. Gerrymandering is bad, obviously, and multimember districts blunt those effects.4 But small districts have more issues than just how they're drawn. Hyperlocal control sounds nice in theory but in practice it tends to result in bad outcomes. We see this in many debates about development all the time. Something may be desirable for a very small area (example: blocking a new development because it will impact street parking) but, on net, bad for the city (same example: resulting in significantly higher housing costs citywide).5 Hyperlocal control runs some risk of corruption too. Multimember districts, on the other hand, tend to produce a more diverse slate of candidates for the same geographic area (and there's some empirical evidence to back this up).
On the negative side, it is weird and experimental, though that’s a pretty surface-deep critique to me. (In 1850 Surgeons washing their hands was weird and experimental too.) It is true that you only need 25% of the vote, potentially, to get elected. But at the same time, we’ve already come close to electing “unqualified” people (see: Innarone, Sarah) and it’s not like the “qualified” people (see: Wheeler, Ted) are any better. It’s a democracy and everyone knows the rules of the game. If someone gets the most votes, they’re qualified (even if you aren’t competent). If you don’t like that then build a coalition and run against them.
The argument that it’s hard to hold particular electeds in a district accountable seems like a compelling one…except, how do you think the system works today? Portland city council today is, effectively, a 5 person multi-member district. The voting system is admittedly a little different but voters already seem like they know how to hold their electeds accountable; they have demonstrated the capacity to vote out some incumbents (Eudaly) while retaining others (Ryan). (Whether voters do their accountability job well is an exercise for you, the reader, to decide.)
I do have a lot of sympathy for the worry that it will be difficult to vote out poor performers, especially if those performers have a passionate core constituency. (Loretta Smith comes to mind here as an example where this could have been an issue.) At the same time, if a core constituency is concentrating their votes on a single poor performer, that poor candidate is at least sucking up those votes and, on a council of 12, their power is somewhat diluted. Ultimately I’m torn.
This really could be an issue. But it is also just as likely that it won’t be. We just don’t know yet. More evidence needed.
From: 1 member per at-large “district”
To: 3 members per geographic districts
Advantage: Yes, narrowly on charter reform (but I won’t judge you if your intuition goes the other way.)
Conclusion?
Breaking it down, I ended up going 5-0 for Charter reform. So for me it ends up being a pretty obvious choice.
For you, particularly if you’re not sold on multi-member districts, it may only be 4-1. And that one might matter to you! If I told you: “I’ll give you $5, a snickers bar, a beer, a high five, and a punch so hard to your face that it breaks your nose” you probably wouldn’t take that deal.6
Still, even if you’re nervous about multimember districts (or even two or three of the changes) you have to remember what the status quo is. And the status quo sucks.
To quote President Biden, “don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative.”
As a thought experiment, try the reversal test: Imagine the situation were flipped. Imagine we had a council-manager system with 12 councilfolk in multimember districts and we were deciding whether or not to go to a 4-person commission system with a weak mayor. Would you do it?
But wait, perhaps there’s a third way?
So you don’t like the status quo but you’re still uncertain about Charter reform. There may be an option.
Mingus Mapps unveiled an alternative proposal earlier this month:
City Manager
7 geographic districts with one councilperson each
A mayor with veto power, overridable by 2/3s of council (5 of 7)
Ranked Choice voting as a separate provision to vote on
It’s an interesting idea. He claims we’d vote on in in 2023.
But is it better?
I’m not so sure, for a few reasons
I’m skeptical that 7 councilfolk is better than 12 (see above for math).
A mayor with veto power is a huge deal and would likely grind a lot of potentially needed change to a halt. If you like the mayor, then that’s probably fine. But be honest: how often in the last decade have you liked the mayor?
The Charter reform we’re voting on this week would go into effect in 2024 (for the voting) and 2025 (in practice). If we held off until next year would we have to wait another year—until 2026—before things came into effect? What if Mapps doesn’t get it on the ballot? Are you willing to take that risk?
To quote Lisa Caballero, writing for BikePortland:
It is noteworthy that the Charter Reform Commission performed extensive community outreach and listening sessions, including 81 public meetings, 34 policy discussions with community organizations and 111 briefings and presentations. [Mapps’ group] proposed their alternative draft in-house with the help of the opinion research firm DHM Research. DHM conducted two focus groups of ten people each, and also some polling.
Mapps’ ideas have some merit. Personally, I would prefer his proposal over the status quo. But I still think it’s inferior to what’s on the ballot this cycle. Moreover, it just seems like a sleazy move, 11th hour machinations to derail reform. He and all the other critics had 81 other times to make their voice heard. It just smacks of entrenched power doing their damndest to stay entrenched and I won’t reward that.
Conclusion
I’m going to vote yes on Charter Reform, Portland Measure 26-228. Unless you think Portland is doing just fine today, I think you should too.
Editors note: I have updated this piece several times, mainly to fix grammatical errors or poor turns of phrase. Cut me some slack — it’s my first time Substacking. Last updated Nov. 1, 2022.
“Bureau” is a really hard word to spell.
Spellcheck says “electeds” isn’t a word. I disagree.
Back in 2016 when Chloe Eudaly was elected it was a commonly remarked upon that she was a rare Eastsider elected to the city council, one of the only Eastsiders in decades. Things have marginally gotten better on this front—Ryan lives in NoPo and Rubio in Northeast.
And if you think gerrymandering is something that only happens at the state and federal level then let me disabuse you of that notion.
Last week I read an article with a really great example of this phenomenon. If memory serves, WMATA (DC’s version of PBOT) were looking to add (or change?) a bus line. They proposed a line that went through three different wards in order to make the councilfolk happy, even though, objectively speaking, it was a less sensible route for moving the most folks from point A to point B. Larger, multimember districts would help avoid this bad behavior. Unfortunately I can’t track down the article, hence this footnote.