The Bitchtucci PDX Voting Guide May 2k16

Some preliminary notes 4 u trolls:

• RETURN YOUR BALLOT IN OREGON BY MAY 17th @ 8PM. Mailed ballots may not be received by Tuesday, so drop it off without a stamp in your local voter drop box (here’s a drop site locator: http://sos.oregon.gov/voting/Pages/drop-box-locator.aspx)
• I’m a burn-down-the-system radical, but y’all should also know that I believe in radical grassroots and education work outside of the political system. I don’t view the current systems of politics in the United States as a sphere for meaningful societal revolution at the moment. (Like. Come on.) As a voter, I look for pragmatic ways to get bare minimum security and change. Often it means that I weigh the likelihood of election (especially over a Repub contender) heavily and wind up with a more moderate candidate. I have my reasons for that and am not super interested in opening the floor for debate on the matter in this space. I’m not ever going to abstain from voting even when we have to choose between a series of equally problematic options. I don’t blame you if you want to act differently.
• There are many, many more reasons I have chosen to vote for the candidates and issues on this list — I’m trying to keep my analysis here pithy and simple. You may strongly disagree with me, and that’s gr8, but consider my intentional brevity before you decide I haven’t done enough research and simply must read this or that article and then ~*surely*~ I will have a change of heart.
• Follow your gut, vote how you wanna, and take it all with a grain of salt. Peacefully. I have heavy biases and heavy jadedness. So do you. Water is wet.

Other resources:

• Portland Tenants United — I view gentrification/housing as the definitive issue to vote upon in Portland and this guide is worth the gander: https://medium.com/@ptu/portland-tenants-united-grade-the-candidates-4ba64d896423
• Here are the various voter guides and summaries provided by the (surprisingly dope and comprehensive) Oregon Secretary of State and Multnomah County: https://multco.us/elections/current-and-upcoming-elections
• Disability Rights Oregon published this “easy” voter guide, which includes large font and AUDIO (!!) to increase accessibility: https://easyvotingguide.org/
• Vote411 allows you to plug in your address to hone in on local issues, and gives you the option to select candidates to compare side by side: http://onyourballot.vote411.org/
• The Oregon League of Women Voters has this unbiased list of candidates and issues in Spanish http://lwvor.org/guia-del-votante-eleccion-primaria-2016/, large print http://lwvor.org/large-print-voters-guide-primary-2016-2/, and video http://lwvor.org/video-voters-guide-primary-2016/. Here’s the Multnomah County guide, including ballot measures + state and national officials: https://docs.google.com/a/lwvpdx.org/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=bHd2cGR4Lm9yZ3xsd3ZwZHh8Z3g6M2QyZjE5NDg3YTliMzk4Yg

Another resource:

• Chance the Rapper’s new album, Coloring Book, dropped Friday. He did a good ass job with Chance 3. There ain’t one gosh darn part you can’t tweet, frankly. Listen to it while you fill out your ballot. http://www.spin.com/2016/05/chance-the-rapper-coloring-book-chance-3-new-album-download-free-stream/

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Oregon US Senator:

• Ron Wyden (D): Lmao look at the alternatives. Paul Weaver is BIZARRELY running as a Dem — but wants to deny amnesty for “illegal aliens”??? Who says “illegal aliens” anymore??!! He’s pro-life. He would vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The five competing fonts on his website are jarring. Kevin Stine doesn’t have a fighting chance, and the only mention of diversity he cites having experience with is militarily. Wyden is interested in expanding Social Security and being more aggressive re: climate change, and I’m down.

Oregon Governor:

• Kate Brown (D): Brown is a bad bisexual bitch, and her track record with getting a $15/hour minimum wage, expanding funding for public schools by $7.4 billion, and unequivocal support of total insurance coverage of birth control in Oregon sits well with me. I like Julian Bell’s commitment to clean energy but have found a lot of logical loopholes in his plan to scale back the fossil fuel economy here in OR. Both claim to have a commitment to transparency, but I am compelled by Kate Brown’s tenure as Oregon Secretary of State, where she was a bastion of transparency. I dig her push for making voter registration automatic with obtaining a driver’s license, especially given the huge national climate of voter suppression that has insidiously crept in after the US Supreme Court gutting of the Voting Rights Act (RIP 1965–2013 RIP RIP RIP RIP).

Oregon Secretary of State:

• Val Hoyle (D): This was a toughie for me. Devlin’s got impressive experience and a clear plan for audits, but his scope feels too narrow to me. Should a crisis happen with the Oregon governor, the SoS ascends to that office, and while planning for the apocalypse is hardly a good singular reason to withhold a vote for a candidate, I hesitate to cast a vote for a candidate who doesn’t seem to have a great track record for building coalitions outside of the office the way Val Hoyle has ambitiously demonstrated she can do.

Oregon US House District 3:

• Earl Blumenauer (D): Dude’s running unopposed. Write me in, tho.

Oregon Attorney General:

• Ellen Rosenblum (D): Running unopposed.

Oregon Attorney General:

• Tobias Read (D): Running unopposed. Hair exactly the same color as light brown sugar.

Judge of the Oregon Supreme Court

Position 5:

• Jack Landau: Running unopposed. Write me in on the basis that when I wore a hella cute deep-V black linen dress on Monday, one of my favorite coworkers, a third grade teacher, said, “Hello, Sonia Sotomayor” to me.

Position 4:

• Rives Kistler: See above.

Judge of the Court of Appeals
Position 7:

• Meagan Flynn: See above, plus I just remembered that I dressed up as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for my elementary school Spirit Week’s Hero Day. This certainly qualifies me as well.

Position 3:

• Darleen Ortega: Don’t write me in. Love her. She’s great. She has beautiful priorities in protecting the most marginalized and using the law to protect equity, identifying legal bias as a key place where work can be done.

Position 2:

• Rebecca Duncan: See above re: Position 7.

Judge of the Circuit Court
4th Dist, Position 26

• Karin Immergut: See above.

4th Dist, Position 25

• Kathleen Dailey: See above.

4th Dist, Position 22

• Angel Lopez: We love him. Former Chairman of the Multnomah County Library Board. A nerd for all nerds. Youngest son of immigrants, a champion of treating folks with dignity and respect, and a WILLAMETTE BEARCAT, WHAT’S UPPPPPPP.

4th Dist, Position 20

• Eric Bloch: See above re: Position 25.

4th Dist, Position 17

• Kelly Skye: See above.

4th Dist, Position 15:

• Bronson James: See above.

4th Dist, Position 9:

• David Rees: See above.

Oregon State Senator, District 23

• Michael Dembrow (D): An English prof! Running unopposed.

Oregon State Rep, District 46

• Alyssa Keny-Guyer (D): Running unopposed. I dig her public health and early education foci.

District Attorney, Multnomah County

• Rod Underhill: Running unopposed. But get this: four months ago, he cosigned a letter calling for a conduct investigation into County Sheriff doucheface Dan Staton, who was accused of a litany of corrupt behaviors, including creating a sexually hostile workplace, using violent threats, conducting illegal background checks, and so forth. Keep an eye on this case — as recently as two days ago, many unions and public agencies are calling for his resignation. I like a DA who is willing to root out police force corruption. Bye, Dan!

Multnomah Co Commissioner District 3

• Jessica Vega-Pederson: Running unopposed. She is calling for jail audits that specifically address race in the judicial and penitentiary systems. Yes. YES!

Portland City Commissioner

Position 1

• Lanita Duke: She is a longshot against incumbent Amanda Fritz (who’s cool and a solid #2 in my book, too). Get more of these dope, qualified black women into office 2k16! I like her anti-displacement policies re: the housing crisis, especially her insistence on hyper-local contracting and hiring practices for new businesses. This is how we’re gonna deal with the population and industrialization boom sustainably. Mandatory housing inclusion policies will help preserve diversity in our neighborhoods as well.

Position 4

• Suzanne Stahl: Stahl currently serves as the Chair for the Commission on Disability. Fuck yeah to disability activists securing influence in public office. We need that expertise for making Portland more inclusive and accessible. HELL YES to deliberately focusing on infrastructural changes like more inclusive and accessible public transportation.

Portland Mayor:

• Ted Wheeler (D): Wish it could be the dope David Schor, but I don’t think he has a chance in hell. I know all of the candidates are problematic in meaningful ways, but I see housing as the definitive crisis in PDX and I appreciate his specificity where other candidates have been flummoxing. My decision is also informed by a certain pragmatism — Jules Bailey aka Jules Bailmeoutofthisconvowhenaskedahardquestion aka Vague Bailey is certainly the #2, and Wheeler needs a handy 50% lead to avoid a runoff. I’m compelled by Bailey’s statement that Portland housing development need not become a San Francisco situation, but in searching for specific commitments to combat that, he has fallen back on answers like, “I am unsure of the legality of enacting rent control” — referring to the status quo state ban on rent control, I’m sure. He recently changed his answer, saying that he would call for a repeal of the state ban on rent control. But where are the specifics? Wheeler has a full Tenants Bill of Rights that he’s trying to roll out, and I see that incremental step as practical and feasible in the long arc of halting (and maybe…dare I say it…healing?) the housing crisis.
  I also dig that Wheeler has given specifics about reforming the police force, including abandoning the 48 hour rule. (Worth noting that Portland Tenants United gives Wheeler an A-, while Bailey is a…D-.)

Portland Metro Councilor, District 6:

• Bob Stacey: Running unopposed. Yeah to sustainability priorities, tho.

Multnomah County 26–173 Portland City Temporary Motor Vehicle Fuel Tax for Street Repair, Traffic Safety

• FUCK YEAH. GIVE US SAFER SIDEWALKS AND CROSSWALKS. DO IT FOR THE KIDS. FOR ACCESSIBILITY FOR OUR NEIGHBORS WITH DISABILITIES. DO IT FOR YA HIPSTER FRIENDS WHO NEVER LOOK WHEN THEY CROSS THE DAMN STREET.

Multnomah County 26–174 Five year levy: Oregon Historical Society Library, Museum, educational programs

• FUCK YEAH. LIIIIIIITERALLLLLYYYYYY protect the Oregon Historical Society at all costs. A no vote will mean Multnomah County will stop funding and the OHS will have to pray that the state of Oregon or some wealthy benefactor will pick up the slack. So. Unless you are that wealthy benefactor, please vote yes. There is argument that our county shouldn’t be the only one taxed, but Multnomah has the wealth, and our county is disproportionately served by the OHS. Do it so our public school kids can gain access to our history. Do it so the OHS can continue the work of trying to reform its own accounts to make our understanding of Oregon history more robust, including the ugly parts.

President

• Hillary Clinton (D): Yeah, I know. She’s a war criminal and her “I’ve got hot sauce in my bag…get it?” gag was just one painful reminder of how cringeworthy and harmful she can be re: race. But I’ve done the research for months and sat with it and agonized over it and watched the debates and here’s what I’ve got:
• I’m not really here for Bernie Sanders. Sorry not sorry. I think a lot of those same harms will come to pass under a Sanders administration. I see symbolic proof of this when he says he’s pro-women’s rights and still speaks over women moderators and candidates (see meme: When will Bernie Sanders finally get the glass of water he keeps flagging down the server for?). I’m a queer, first-generation woman of color and I’m not wrong to distrust him. In a broken two-party system, I don’t have too many idealistic visions about changing the system from within. Even if he seems like a nice enough fellow with “better,” “more progressive” ideals in some ways, his high horse abstention from the kind of coalition-building (and croneyism, sometimes, sure) that two-party systems attempting to keep a Dem majority need is distressing to me. We need a president who can rally the Dem forces to accomplish baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasic shit like keeping Obamacare from being repealed. I’m gonna vote for the establishment candidate here because, surprise! We have an establishment political system that requires all that gross shit to get stuff done. Until we can decolonize all three branches of government FROM THE BOTTOM UP (which is how I believe nearly ALL meaningful sociopolitical change happens), putting an “anti-establishment” (who, by the way, is still effing establishment) figurehead on top isn’t sustainable. In my opinion. Humbly.
• To be quite transparent, the threat of Obamacare repeal is the definitive voting issue to me. My mother depends on state healthcare and if we see rollbacks or concessions, her life will be directly negatively impacted. The majority of my students and their families depend on this state healthcare, and many of them have only just gotten access to services for the first time in their lives. I am not feeling blithe or idealistic about this. If the hotly contested, still privatized in many ways Obamacare was so rough to get through, I don’t believe Sanders’ promises that we will accomplish universal healthcare in four years. It’s gonna need to get through Congress first, bro. We need to hold our ground on Obamacare and build from there, not start over; even if one day we might reach utopian universal healthcare, what about the real lives — mostly low-income, so many people of color, so many queer and trans people newly being covered — being impacted in the transitionary period? My students in debate use the weighing mechanism “reverse utilitarianism” to illustrate the concept of praxis that minimizes harm for the most vulnerable (versus util, which simply seeks to do the most good for the most people). I say hey to that.
• We can pretend that identity politics don’t matter and that it’s a cheap shot and reductive (and yeah, those are things), but on a day to day basis, I see that it would be really beautiful and meaningful for young girls to see a woman president. Here’s a conversation I had with one of my fourth grade girls:
  Marissa: Who do you want to win the presidential election?
  Student: Not Hillary Clinton.
  Marissa: Cool, why?
  Student: Because I want to be the first woman president.
  I love this student, but I don’t wanna wait until she’s 35 for the first.
• (See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnHaVqj4vDA for ref.)