Skip to main content
In November, Portland voters will be presented with the following question on their ballots: “Should City Administrator, supervised by Mayor, manage Portland with twelve Councilors representing four districts making laws and voters ranking candidates?”
That’s the official language voters will see on their ballots, offering Portlanders a chance to fundamentally alter and overhaul the city’s current governance and elections system.
The release of this ballot question—finalized just yesterday by the City Attorney’s Office—means that anyone who takes issue with the ballot question has until July 15 to challenge the ballot title in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
A week ago, WW first reported that the Portland Business Alliance is weighing whether to file a legal challenge to the ballot question in order to get the three facets of the reform package—ranked-choice voting, four geographic districts with three council members apiece, and a city administrator who oversees bureau management rather than city council members—split into three individual questions on the ballot.
The PBA did not immediately reply to WW’s requests for comment.
The PBA worries that multimember districts and ranked-choice voting will bog down the third proposal, which scraps the commission form of government—the one they think is most necessary to get the city back on track. (The PBA says it’s agnostic about ranked choice and voting by district, but wants to ensure the city hires a city administrator and ends the commission form of government.)
The antiquated commission form of government means that each city council member oversees a portfolio of bureaus. It results in territoriality, cross-bureau spats and little progress. No other major city in the U.S. still uses the commission style of governance.
In a March memo, the City Attorney’s Office offered a defense of the bundling of all three major changes into one ballot question, saying it would pass legal muster.
Charter commissioner Becca Uherbelau told WW earlier this week that the bundling was intentional and necessary.
“We both need structural change and change to give Portlanders more voice and choice in who leads those structures,” Uherbelau said. “They’re not just related or unified. They’re interdependent.”
Charter commissioners have long insisted that if Portlanders truly want to change how the city functions, who is heard in City Hall and who is elected, a total transformation is needed. But no elected official has yet voiced support for the measure as written.
Earlier this week, WW chronicled how the charter review process has become another quintessential Portland battle—and how elected city officials who urged voters to vote for charter reform just months ago have now turned their backs on the proposal.