Welcome to campaign season.
If only the reform package had gotten this kind of attention during the public process.
Portland’s Charter Commission spent nearly one and a half years designing the reform package that will appear on the ballot this November.
Despite eighty-one public meetings, fifteen hours of public testimony and 1,600 public comments, the public process got limited media attention.
Now there’s some juicy conflict on the horizon – and reporters are finally paying attention.
This post is not objective. It features my subjective personal opinion.
If you’ve been following my blog since February, you might remember my first post, where I said the buzzword for 2022 was going to be charter reform.
The recent flurry of media attention is a perfect illustration of what I meant.
Suddenly charter reform is all over the news.
With only four months left until November, it’s not a day too soon.
Read the charter reform ballot title.
Nothing like conflict to pique media’s interest.
During the charter review process, however, I’ll be the first to admit there was less buzz than I predicted.
News media provided only sporadic coverage of the Charter Commission’s deliberations, mostly about the proposed repeal of Portland’s commission-based government. There was little appetite from journalists for deep dives into the more complex aspects of the package.
As a result, Portlanders rarely received news and analysis about the plan to introduce proportional representation in Portland via four three-seat city council districts, or the recommendation to adopt single transferable vote, a voting method most commonly used in parliamentary systems.
Perhaps media can’t be faulted for its reluctance to take on such dry topics.
But, as it turns out, those are the reforms that are now being hotly debated.
With a potential legal challenge in the works, and at least three political action committees getting ready to battle it out until November, there’s finally enough juicy conflict for reporters to start covering charter reform in earnest.
Voters need running media coverage.
While headlines like “Charter Reform Meets Unexpected Pushback” in the Willamette Week last week indicated surprise at the fact that charter reform had encountered opposition, those of us who had been following the process were already aware of the philosophical differences surrounding the proposals.
The writing had been on the wall for months.
But because media didn’t provide running coverage of the charter review process, the tension related to the elections portion of the reform package was news to many Portlanders.
For some, the fact that the reform package dealt with elections at all was new information.
If journalists had done more to educate Portlanders about the proposed reforms while the process was underway, the public would now be better positioned to make sense of debate, and to distinguish between factual statements and biased campaign messages.
It would be a shame if the conflict between the two sides continues to be the media’s focus, rather than the proposed reforms themselves.
City Council weighed in at the eleventh hour.
If the media appeared uninterested in the charter review process, elected officials sometimes seemed to be pretending it wasn't happening at all.
To be fair, this was likely by design, in order to respect the process.
But if the idea was to avoid influencing the volunteers on the commission, it got confusing for Portlanders when the City Council suddenly interjected at the eleventh hour with a number of concerns about the package.
Rose City Reform reported on the meeting two weeks before the Charter Commission’s final vote, when the mayor asked charter commissioners for a tiebreaking vote and veto power. The charter commission agreed to the former, but not the latter.
Despite the commission’s willingness to grant one of Wheeler’s requests, his criticism got more pointed last week.
In a council meeting on June 29, Wheeler suggested that without a veto the mayor would be nothing but “an employee of the legislative body”.
He warned of a future where the mayor and City Council would engage in finger-pointing and blame each other for unpopular policies.
“In that scenario, who is responsible? Where does the buck stop?” Wheeler asked.
Wheeler’s concerns may be legit - but came too late.
Wheeler’s question about the mayor being a glorified employee might have been, as Charter Commissioner Andrew Speer soberly pointed out, “somewhat dramatic”.
But it made sense from Wheeler’s perspective to fight for veto power.
Without a veto, an executive mayor essentially has no emergency brake. Veto-less mayors must find other, more creative ways to slow down or kill legislation that stands in opposition to their policy agenda. As the mayor suggested, those methods could potentially result in less transparency for the public.
It’s a legitimate discussion to have.
There’s just one problem.
The criticism came too late in the process to be truly constructive. Wheeler made his most poignant points when the reform package was already a fait accompli.
Campaigns serve a purpose. But voters need objective information.
The yes and no campaigns will serve the important purpose of getting the word out about charter reform. I look forward to robust debate, both here on Rose City Reform and on other platforms.
But above all, voters need and deserve objective and easy-to-understand information about the proposals in order to make up their own minds.
Journalists should not take their cues from political action committees when it comes to the timing of news coverage that’s essential to our local democracy.
It’s hard to overstate what an important choice this is for Portland. That decision shouldn’t be made in haste, or without adequate education about what’s on the table.
On that, I think both sides can agree.
Charter reform in the news:
City Elections Office Press Release: Notice of Receipt of Ballot Title for Measure Referred by Portland Charter Commission
Willamette Week: Nobody Likes How Portland Is Governed. How Did the Plan to Fix It Turn Into Another Bitter Fight?
Willamette Week: Portland Business Alliance Is in Early Talks About a Legal Challenge to the City Charter Reform Ballot Measure.
Willamette Week: Two Political Action Committees Plan to Push Back Against Portland Charter Reform Ballot Measure.
OPB: Portland mayor and commissioner raise doubts about proposed charter changes.
Portland Tribune: Fight begins over Portland charter changes.
Portland Tribune: Portland charter reform campaigns heat up.
The Sightline Institute covered the guts of charter reform voting methods in 2021, Kristine Eberhard's articles are still worth reading, they explain the MGGG voting research.
And I wrote an "in the weeds" charter reform article for BikePortland.org on June 27.
Hi Bob!
I can’t answer your questions about what information was included in the progress report or why. I can just say that the commission’s intent was clearly communicated in a number of public meetings. As an independent writer with a limited reach I have tried to draw attention to the process since February because of how significant this vote is for Portland. I started my newsletter primarily because local reporters weren’t providing running coverage. Perhaps if they had, the public wouldn’t be so surprised by the outcome of the charter review process.