Charter reform gets one step closer to the ballot.
The Charter Commission sends three major reform recommendations to city staff for amendment drafting.
Portland’s Charter Commission wants to give the city’s political system a complete makeover. Will Portlanders support the transformation?
Ready or not, it’s time to start paying attention.
Last night, Portland’s Charter Commission – the independent body tasked with reviewing the city charter and making recommendations – held its most consequential vote yet. More than one and a half years into the review process, the commission unanimously approved a reform package to send to city staff for amendment drafting.
The recommendations are preliminary, but yesterday’s vote will chart the course for the reform process. Why? Because everything that happens from now on will be a reaction to what the Charter Commission has already put on the table.
Here are the three charter reforms that the Charter Commission wants voters to approve in November:
The Mayor becomes the city’s top executive – but has to delegate some important responsibilities.
If approved, the charter reform package will be the death knell for Portland’s 109-year experiment with a commission form of government. The line of mourners should be short given the unpopularity of Portland’s current system, which puts city commissioners in charge of city bureaus.
The Charter Commission last night opted for a mayor-council form of government with some elements borrowed from the council-manager form.
A mayor who can’t directly hire and fire department heads.
Under the proposed structure, the mayor will assume executive authority over city business, but will be required to delegate some critical responsibilities to a professional city administrator.
For instance, charter commissioners appeared to agree that the city administrator, not the mayor, should be in charge of hiring and firing bureau heads. Rose City Reform reached out to the City of Portland to confirm this detail, but has not received a response as of this morning.
The mayor will no longer serve or vote on the council. The City Council will retain its legislative and policymaking powers and will have the authority to amend, approve or reject the mayor’s proposed budget.
Previously the commission had considered giving the mayor a tie-breaking vote, especially since the number of city council members will be even, but commissioners unanimously decided against that option last night. They also agreed that the mayor should not have veto power.
Mayor will have significant influence over the city administrator.
Although the mayor might have to rely on the city administrator to hire and fire department heads, the structure gives the mayor more direct influence over the employee than the council will have.
The mayor will appoint the city administrator, and the council can approve or reject the choice. Once hired, the city administrator will be under direct mayoral supervision and can be fired by the mayor without council approval, giving the mayor the ability to apply both carrots and sticks.
But there’s a twist: the council can also fire the city administrator, only with a much higher bar. For the council to eliminate the city administrator, it will need 3/4 of the council vote.
Given the close ties between the mayor and the city administrator, a reasonable assumption is that the city administrator would be reluctant to make any major decisions without the mayor’s green light.
Strong or weak mayor? More likely something in between.
The Charter Commission’s recommendations won’t result in a strong mayor, but not necessarily a weak mayor either. The commission’s recommendations will empower Portland’s mayor beyond the status quo, but they also appear to strip the mayor of some important executive powers, such as veto power and the exclusive executive authority to hire and fire bureau heads.
City council size more than doubles and Portland gets four multi-member districts.
Remember this term: multi-member districts. You’ll soon be hearing it everywhere.
The Charter Commission wants to divide Portland into four geographic districts and give each district three representatives. That’s why the districts are called multi-member, versus the traditional single-member city council district, where one person represents each district. As a constituent, you’ll have three people representing your area of Portland.
With four districts – whose lines will be decided through a separate districting process – the Charter Commission hopes to satisfy both those voters who want more geographic representation, and those calling for increased representation for minority interests.
Commission hopes more representatives mean more interests get a seat at the table.
The Charter Commission’s plan will grow the size of Portland’s City Council – currently one of the smallest city councils in the nation relative to population size – from 5 to 12 members, a 140% increase. The mayor, no longer part of the city council, will still be elected in a citywide vote.
Recent polls have shown that geographic city council representation is popular among Portlanders. City council districts are also common nationwide, but the norm is single-member districts. Some cities, like Seattle, have a combination of single-member districts and citywide seats.
Portland will be the first large city in the nation to combine several multi-member city council districts and ranked choice voting.
No large city in the United States uses a system like the one Portland’s Charter Commission is proposing. So why does the Charter Commission want to blaze this trail? The commissioners believe that when voters can elect several people to represent their area, more interests will be able to get a seat at the table.
Add to that ranked choice voting, the third and final charter reform, and you – at least theoretically – have a chance at capturing voter preferences even more proportionally.
Portland will join the growing list of cities using ranked choice voting for city elections.
Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) is an increasingly popular voting method that allows voters to rank candidates on the ballot. If a voter’s top choice isn’t viable, their vote counts for their next choice.
Proponents say this voting method avoids wasted votes, achieves more proportional representation and discourages negative campaigning, since candidates have an incentive to attract more than just first choice votes.
November voting only - no more primaries.
RCV allows for results to be decided in one election rather than using a primary election to narrow the field of candidates. Charter commissioners want to eliminate May primaries and hold all city elections in November, when voter turnout is the highest.
Will all 12 city council representatives be elected at the same time? No. The November elections will be staggered, meaning two of four districts will vote for city council during presidential election years, and the remaining two districts will elect their representatives during midterm years. The mayor will likely be elected during presidential election years to allow for maximum turnout.
The Charter Commission needs a supermajority to send the package straight to voters.
The proposed charter amendments will be released in early May to give the public the opportunity to weigh in before the Charter Commission’s final vote in June. For the package to go straight to voters, at least 15 of the 20 charter commissioners need to vote yes.
If the amendments pass without a supermajority of 15 votes or more, the city council gets to decide whether to refer, revise, or even kill the package.
Will the commission’s consensus hold? Judging by last night’s result, the commission could have the 15 required votes. But we don’t know yet if some commissioners voted yes simply to get feedback from city staff on the recommendations.
Either way, charter reform has passed its first major hurdle on its way to voters. The screenshot below shows the reform package that the Charter Commission voted on last night.
It could be on your ballot before you know it.
Maja Viklands Harris is a Portland resident, a recovering journalist, a policy activist and a serial citizen advisory board member. Her writing focuses on government reform, public process, decision-making psychology and policy best practice.