Candace Avalos: "This is a big, bold change and we want voters to buy in."
One of the leading voices on the Charter Commission on why she thinks voters should take the leap in November.
Charter Commissioner Candace Avalos played a leadership role in designing the charter reform proposal that’s coming before voters this November.
Here she responds to the controversy surrounding the reform package and explains why she thinks Portlanders should say yes to a complete government overhaul.
If you’ve been following Portland city politics, Charter Commissioner Candace Avalos needs no introduction.
You might know her from her 2020 city council run (she lost to Carmen Rubio), or as the executive director of the environmental advocacy organization Verde, or as the chair of the Citizen Review Committee, a city advisory body focusing on police accountability.
Here’s her perspective.
Recently, the charter commission has been criticized for bundling the reforms into a package, versus referring them as separate questions. Why did you make it one question?
We thought it was important to present a vision to voters. This is a big bold change, and we want voters to buy into this with us. For it to work as we intended, you’ve got to accept the whole vision. You can't piecemeal it.
The form of government is related to the way people would be elected and to what powers they would have. We felt strongly that putting everything in one package was important to keep the spirit of what we were trying to accomplish. When you start to pull the package apart into an a la carte style of reform, it takes away from our deep equity and inclusion goals, as well as the functionality goals.
The Portland Business Alliance has filed a ballot title challenge, saying the question violates the constitutional single-subject rule. Any comments?
We offered our policy package intent and the best articulation of that was in one measure. There was no issue from the city attorney about conveying that intent.
The opponents are politicizing the issue because they’d rather not be honest about why they actually oppose the measure. Could it be that an expanded, more diverse, geographically represented council diminishes their power?
Portlanders want and deserve a more representative and effective government, and that’s the question that’s before them on the ballot.
Mayor Wheeler has voiced concerns about the mayor’s lack of a veto under the Charter Commission’s proposal, saying it would render the mayor an “employee of City Council” and lead to finger-pointing about who’s responsible for policies. What’s your response?
I take his words to heart and I appreciate his perspective.
In our proposed form of government the mayor is going to be in charge. If the mayor is going to oversee the city manager and all the bureaus, that's a lot of power in itself. The council also needs to retain some power.
We settled on giving the mayor a tiebreaking vote on council as a more inclusive way to have the mayor and council work together than completely separating the branches and giving the mayor veto power.
Are there going to be negotiations between the mayor and the district-based council that will now be deeply representative of communities, especially geographically? Absolutely. But I disagree that our proposal will lead to finger-pointing.
I think we've created the best possible scenario for collaboration and a balance of powers.
Some charter commissioners believe that having three seats per city council district would give incumbents an unfair advantage. Any thoughts on that?
The incumbency advantage is an advantage in any structure. People who are popular, have name recognition, or a record they can run on, get reelected. That’s just how it is.
But in a scenario where there are more spots to vie for, and where spots are concentrated by districts, you can reach voters more easily than when you run citywide. And as a voter, ranked choice voting allows you to vote your gut instead of being strategic in your choices.
If anything, I think that incumbents are going to be weakened in a system where the voter has the upper hand. That’s the way I see it in a district system with ranked choice voting.
How do you think the political landscape would change under the proposed system?
Portlanders overwhelmingly want geographic representation. That was an important goal for us, but we also wanted to avoid creating tiny little slices of the city that people could take control over and then block progress.
Multi-member districts was the solution that allowed us to weigh both of those things. I know some people are concerned about the size of the districts, but I think it's a win-win because we’ll have geographic representation, while also making sure people don't get voiced out because one representative can't represent everybody.
The argument that being represented by three people will be confusing doesn’t make sense to me. I don't think it's any different than how we hold our Oregon senators accountable. We elect both, they both represent us, and we hold both accountable.
How will voters know which city council person to contact in a system with three district representatives?
I'll go back to the example of the senators. In my work, I have found myself turning to each senator for their strengths, or the issues they're most passionate about. Ultimately, they both represent me in the Senate.
I think City Council will work the same way. Let’s say I have my three district representatives. One of them is a young renter, one of them is an incumbent, established Democrat, and one of them leans more right than I do.
If I need help, I see myself reach out to the young renter, because that's probably the person I voted for and the person I'm most excited about. I'm going to want to reach out to them because I feel like they're going to get me. But there’ll be times when I’ll need to reach out to the others as well even if they’re not my “person”.
I think our proposal creates more opportunities for people to be heard. You’ll have three opportunities for three different personalities, and for three different agendas, passions and focuses. There’s a wider swath of things you can accomplish in that system.
How do you think city council races will change under the proposed system?
If I had run my 2020 campaign under the proposed system, I would have wanted to band together in groups. I could see several of us banding together to say: Here are the values we all share. Any one of us would be a good choice to represent your values.
I think it's exciting to think about being able to appeal to voters in a new way. It’s really hard to run in our current system. When you run citywide you have to reach so many people and try to meet all the different needs of all the different neighborhoods. Not to mention all the money you need to raise to reach those people.
I'm excited for future candidates who will have a much more winnable strategy.
What’s next for the ballot question?
“Should City Administrator, supervised by Mayor, manage Portland with twelve Councilors representing four districts making laws and voters ranking candidates?”
That’s the Charter Commission’s ballot question that’s now at the center of a legal challenge.
Portland Business Alliance President Andrew Hoan last week sued to block the question from the ballot, arguing it violates a constitutional rule that limits ballot measures to a single subject.
According to a memo by Portland’s City Attorney, however, the single-subject rule likely only applies to petitioned ballot initiatives (the kind that requires collected signatures), and not to ballot measures referred by local government.
If that’s the case, city government has considerably more leeway in phrasing ballot questions.
The clock is ticking.
If the Multnomah County Circuit Court decides to hold the Charter Commission’s ballot question to the stricter single-subject standard, it will be up to the court to determine if the bundled reforms are connected enough to hang together under what’s called a “unifying principle”.
If the court sides with Mr. Hoan, the earliest the separated measures could appear on the ballot is the 2024 May primary election.
Read Andrew Hoan’s entire filing here.
Do you support or oppose the lawsuit? Take PBA’s poll here.
A previous version of this post stated that the separated measures might still have time to appear on November’s ballot. That was incorrect, as the deadline for the Charter Commission to refer measures to the ballot for this year’s general election has passed.
Charter reform in the news:
Portland Business Journal: Opinion: Portlanders deserve real choices with charter reform
The Oregonian: Portland Business Alliance files legal challenge to keep measure to change Portland city government off ballot
Portland Tribune: Two legal challenges filed to Portland reform measure
OPB: Business group sues to block Portland charter reform from November ballots
Willamette Week: Portland Business Alliance President Sues to Strike Down Charter Reform Ballot Language
OPB Politics Now: ‘OPB Politics Now’: Big ballot measures for Oregon, Multnomah County
Portland Tribune: Portland elections officials decline charter measure review
In rationalizing their three-member districts proposal, the Charter Commissioners are constantly comparing it to our two U.S. Senators. Here again, Candace says, "I don't think it's any different than how we hold our Oregon senators accountable. We elect both, they both represent us, and we hold both accountable." But it's not the same at all. We get an up-or-down vote on each senator independently. They don't run against each other. They aren't competing politically and therefore aren't motivated to deflect or snipe or hide or blame the other in order to avoid accountability.
Meanwhile, the lower threshold to get elected means that there's a much higher threshold to remove somebody. It literally gets three times harder for voters to hold a councilperson accountable in an election. The Charter Commissioners keep saying the word "accountability" but their proposal simply makes true accountability much harder to come by.