Primary Endorsements, part I
Your Primary Elections primer from Mortlandia, May 2024
I stopped posting awhile ago for a bunch of reasons. Am I going to start back now? Unlikely. But I figured election season was a good time to talk through my thinking for this year’s primary.
This here is part I. It’s all about how I make endorsements. If you don’t care about that and just want to hear who I plan on voting for, skip this part and just read part II.
Overarching Philosophy
For Federal elections
I could go into all my beliefs here but I would probably drone on for 40,000 words and none of us have time for that. In short, I prioritize my voting on 1) people who believe in liberal democracy and want it to run better (as in, they don’t deny that the 2020 election was free and fair, support filibuster reform, DC statehood etc.) and then 2) people who generally adhere to the policy platform of New Liberalism (socially liberal, pragmatic, pro-strong social safety net, pro-capitalism/markets).
Local Elections
Local Elections are a bit messier, for a bunch of reasons. We’re effectively all Democrats here in Portland, but there are progressive and reactionary cohorts, as well as a byzantine overlay of municipal governances (city, county, state, Metro, soil and water conservation district) with rather different funding models and structures. On top of that, the candidates themselves are much less polished and frequently have little to no paper trail, so you have to do quite a bit of assessment based on vibes and signaling, and whatever they say in the voter’s guide.
Given that, I boil it down to three things:
Do they seem functional — Can they complete a coherent sentence? Do they understand the power of the office they would hold, what they can and can’t do? Putting aside solutions, do they know the two or three biggest problems their office should focus on? The bar is really quite low here but I would estimate that 50-60% of folks in the voter’s guide don’t clear it.
Housing First —
Consider: what is the biggest challenge facing the area?
Homelessness? A $100 increase in the median rent is associated by an increase in homelessness by 9%1. From January 2010 to July 2019, Portland saw rents increase 43%, up over $400.2
Cost of Living/Inflation? The biggest expense for a most people is their rent or their mortgage. For a restaurant, a bar, a tattoo parlor, or a shop that only sells hand-crotched mushrooms? It’s also their rent, and that rent cost gets baked into all of their goods and services.
Gentrification? Why do people get priced out of their homes / rentals? Because their rent went up! Or if their building gets sold, it’s because there’s no available comparable (by price) units in the neighborhood.
Traffic? People drive because they live too far from their work, or their friends, or from services. Climate Change? City dwellers have a lower carbon footprint than rural, and new buildings (especially new apartments) more energy efficient than older ones.
Portland no longer weird? Who has time to ride a tall bike, take up puppetry as a hobby, or skate under the Burnside bridge when you have to have a full time job to make ends meet?
All of them come down to the cost of housing. And the cost of housing is a function of supply and demand. I’m looking to support anyone who is trying to do something, anything substantive, to lower the barriers to building new housing (both affordable and market rate).
Outcomes over Rhetoric —
Pop quiz!
In which state are residents more concerned about climate change?
a) California or b) Texas?Which state generates more solar + wind power, both in total and by acre?
a) California or b) Texas?
If you answered California for #1 and Texas for #2, congrats, you are correct.
If there’s one thing that drives me crazy in this town, it’s performative liberalism. I don’t want to hear folks pine about the plight of our BIPOC community; I want meaningful services delivered to the BIPOC community (and, also, to everyone else).
The world is full of problems. Sure. But is a resolution calling for a cease fire going to help? Obviously not. It’s the municipal equivalent of putting the French flag on your Facebook profile.
Instead of distractions, I want my electeds to focus on the actual problems their office can make headway on, try to fix them, and measure the impact of their changes. That’s it. That’s the whole job. It’s hard enough as it is. But if we do make headway, that can be a model for other cities and solutions can scale.
To wit: Portland voted for Preschool for All in 2020 (universal preschool for kiddos aged 3 and 4). Four years later, P4A covers only 1,200 kids, 10% of the projected need. Current plans don’t have it fully ramped until 2030, despite the tax raking in millions more than anticipated.
And this is one of the areas Multnomah County thinks is going well.
I’m all for universal preschool. But 10% of kids 4 years in is hardly universal.
Still, let’s not here to completely dismiss PDX lefties, as they do call attention to real issues. The police bureau (PPB) really does have a history of abuse.3 Is some sort of police force necessary to keep folks safe? I think so. But if you’re just enabling an unaccountable organization and expecting different results, you’re going to have a bad time. It’s another way to waste tax dollars that could be better spent elsewhere.
So when considering candidates, I look for folks who prioritize the efficient use of tax dollars to solve problems, with both humanity and urgency.
But the what is not enough
If I could just take all the candidates and apply a rubric with their positions on housing, homelessness, policing, taxation, and governance this would be easy.
But the world is never easy. One big challenge is that so many candidates aren’t terribly clear on where they stand on lots of issues, partly because they don’t want to alienate folks, and partly because no one has necessarily asked them the right questions. And it’s not like anyone comes straight out and says “yeah, I plan on using X as a slush fund to bankroll Y with no accountability”. Motivated reasoning is a hell of a drug.
Likewise, folks, even smart, well-meaning folks at our best papers, often blame existing Electeds for things they have little control over. The Mayor takes the blame for failures of council. City Councilmembers get blamed for the failures of the Multnomah County Commission. And sometimes even people in the system can barely tell you who does what.
So instead you often have to read between the lines on, what people say and on endorsements and so on, and even then you’re liable to get it wrong as much as you get it right, because it’s not always clear who is up for that job and even if you do elect the best folks, they work within a local governance system has many fundamental, self-inflicted flaws that can’t easily be remedied in a 2-4 year term. It’s truly a muddle.
In practice, armed with a very modest amount of insider knowledge and whatever I’ve remembered from the news, I start my process by reading the endorsements from all the papers4. That usually gets me 80% of the way, and then I deep dive on the 2-3 races that are truly difficult and watch them answer questions and read up on their platforms and pasts. And then, well, then I vote! I’ll admit it’s a rather imperfect approach but I suspect I’m doing more research that most other folks… 🇺🇸
By my estimation the Willamette Week and (weirdly) the Portland Tribune usually have the best endorsements, though I also check the Oregonian, the Mercury, and the Skanner, and Street Roots just to see what various folks are thinking. I think OPB as a whole has the best local coverage here in Portland, but the WW has two or three of the best journalists in the city.