Jessica Vega Pederson Won’t Run for Re-Election As Multnomah County Chair

Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson won’t seek re-election next year, she said in a statement on Wednesday morning, leaving metro-area politics as her signature policy achievement, Preschool for All, faces an uncertain future.

“When I first ran for office in 2012, my kids were just 18 months and 3 years old,” Vega Pederson said in a statement. “Today, they’re 15 and 17. As my oldest prepares to graduate high school and begin their next chapter, I’ve been thinking about the county’s next chapter—and mine, too.”

Vega Pederson’s term ends in January 2027. Her departure makes way for others, including Commissioners Shannon Singleton and Julia Brim-Edwards, and former Commissioner Sharon Meieran, all of whom are considered likely candidates for the job.

Because they are up for election at the same time, and she can’t run for two seats at the same time under county rules, Singleton would have to resign as commissioner to run for chair.

Brim-Edwards faces no such hurdle. She is “strongly considering” a run and will decide in January, a person familiar with her plans said.

Brim-Edwards declined to comment on the matter. Singleton didn’t immediately return a text message seeking comment.

“I don’t think the most important question right now is who wants to run for chair,” Meieran said in a text message. “I think it’s what are we going to do to fix Multnomah County. Because it’s clearly broken. Without an actual plan for that, everything else is just political ambition.”

Vega Pederson leaves office amid deep discontent among voters with the amount of tax collected in the region and the impact of county programs on housing the homeless, especially. The county gets millions each year from Metro’s Supportive Housing Services levy to spend at its discretion.

Skeptics also have criticized Preschool for All program, passed in 2020 under Vega Pederson’s stewardship, for banking $600 million and driving away wealthy taxpayers while the county faces a $10 million budget shortfall.

The preschool program’s future blurred last week when new demographic data showed that at full capacity, the program likely will have far fewer students because of declining birth rates and a net exodus of families with preschool-age children.

The county has been operating under the assumption it will will have to pay for 11,200 seats by 2030 to provide access to every family that wants it. New demographic modeling suggests it may need only enough cash to cover just 7,568 seats.

Critics led by Partnership for Progress, a local political group, pounced on the new figures, saying that the program had become a “sovereign wealth fund” created by “forecasting errors, demographic denial, and the aggressive over-taxation of a fleeing resident base.”

Partnership for Progress was founded by Vadim Mozyrsky, who ran unsuccessfully for the County Board of Commissioners and Bob Weinstein, who ran for a seat on the new Portland City Council and lost.

Before the pandemic struck, accompanied by downtown riots and rocketing drug use in the streets, Vega Pederson was on track to become mayor of Portland or even governor. In 2013, she became the first Latina to serve in the Oregon House of Representatives, where she sponsored bills guaranteeing paid sick leave, increasing access to birth control, and hastening the transition to clean energy.

As a Multnomah County commissioner and then as chair, Vega Pederson launched Preschool for All, expanded shelter capacity, and opened the Coordinated Care Pathway Center—Multnomah County’s effort to deflect people arrested for possession of drugs from the criminal justice system and into treatment.

Deflection became a lightning rod, too, as critics questioned spending millions to turn an old print warehouse into a drop-off facility with modest sobering capacity. Just last month, fellow commissioners railed against the center for serving just 520 people in its first year, which pencils to fewer than two a day.

Vega Pederson became chair at one of the most difficult times in Multnomah County history. She took office in January 2023, when the county was still reeling from the pandemic and downtown riots. Public drug use was rampant in part because of Measure 110, which decriminalized almost all illicit substances.

Tax collections slowed, too, as the local economy stumbled.

“I’m proud of what we’ve built,” Vega Pederson said in a statement. “And I’m proud of how we’ve done it—with courage, with compassion, and with a deep commitment to justice.”