The Bitchtucci Voter Guide: May 2k20, PDX

Originally published grassroots-style as a Gdoc on my social media, sorry for the late post on this platform!

Ok, some feelings first

Unnatural death looms pretty close, doesn’t it? For some of us, even just reading the words “unnatural death” at the top of this paragraph conjures something familiar. Unnatural death is that heavy sigh we exhale when we think about how poverty makes us die quicker, how addiction makes us die quicker, how incarceration makes us die quicker. Though we were in no danger of forgetting, COVID-19 reminds us like a snide bully that we have no safety net, that when the social contract rubs up against late stage capitalism, workers and poor people and brown people die first and most. It’s not like we’re going to vote a safety net into existence with this one election, you say.

And you’re right. I am not here to write a treatise on the efficacy of electoral politics. People with lots of conviction like to say, “The political establishment will not save you.” I am in agreement with them — with you, if that’s you. Voting will not save us. Even our very best elected officials and laws are only with us to a point. All political projects were designed to protect industry and property, not love or humanity. (Who said that, Michel Foucault or Marianne Williamson?) So I don’t even desire redemption for the establishment, though I know it has me and everyone I love clutched in its teeth. Some laws do protect against certain abuses of power, but what feels like being saved, to me, always comes down to relationships. It’s about who will hold you after you’ve been put in a terrible spot, who will console you, bring you noodles. It’s about who makes the effort to stick around.

When I think about my own relationship to electoral politics, I think about a single mama hustling on all fronts. I think of my own mother, but also a million mothers, a soft, warm, strong, funny amalgam. There she stands at the bus stop, plastic bags rustling around her wrists containing whatever bullshit: shrimp chips and rice and extra napkins from the deli counter that she’ll slip into our kitchen drawer for later. She works too much, is tired, doesn’t have the resources to plan any further ahead than she just did. It is impossible to demand that she have ideas burning on all fronts. But she does anyway. She is able to make miracles happen as a basic survival skill. She makes twenty dollars at the supermarket go further than a science fiction writer could ever dream. Drinking a cup of Folgers instant coffee at home, she sits at the cluttered table and tears out a junk mail coupon with practiced precision because we don’t have scissors. She couldn’t possibly be expected to remember what to buy or how to use it before it expires, but she does anyway, because hello, that’s a dollar saved. That dollar isn’t nothing to us. That dollar is a FUCKING DOLLAR.

With savage precision, with dextrous strategy, knowing that things are unfair, knowing that this is a drop in the bucket, she slides the coupon across the counter at checkout. The feeling of embarrassment begins in her stomach but she keeps her face dignified and neutral. That’s my dollar saved.

I know we want an overhaul of the system, want to deeply know and live the truth that political legitimacy ought to be determined by the people. Abstaining from voting is not the battleground where we prove that point: that comes from education, activism, getting organized. Abstaining from voting is just actually not making the most oppressive corners of American politics quiver in their shoes about the power of the people united.

The reason some conservatives are so wicked about gutting voting accessibility is because of their basic prediction that if more people are able to vote in an increasingly diverse and pissed-off America, if more felons and new voters and trans people and brown people vote, they will lose. If fewer people vote overall, conservatives keep winning because their base turns out no matter what. So if you’re gonna abstain, at least let’s not act like this is an activist strategy. It can be about emotions or accessibility — that’s real. But it’s not a strategic way to undercut the legitimacy of the system of electoral politics. For me, I do care about short-term laws and policies. I think if you’re reading this, you do too. That’s our fucking dollar.

I honestly just want fewer of us to die unnatural deaths. Let us not falsely imagine what politics can do, but let us be unrelenting. The thing in our bodies that feels skin-crawling when we experience or witness something unfair is the very thing that reminds us that the status quo is not acceptable. We are going to dig our heels in for every small gain on every front, for every dollar we keep in food stamps, schools, renter’s rights, emergency workers’ salaries. We seek to alleviate even small suffering in the short-term for our people, because small suffering placed upon a life of large suffering can feel unbearable. When we try to lift that burden, even in the vituperous arena of electoral politics, I understand it to be an insufficient but important act of love.

On to business, my curly sweet darling wisteria vine.

• Election Day is Tuesday, May 19, 2020. You can safely return your ballot by mail (free postage, finally!!!) as long as it is picked up by Thursday, May 14. If you miss that window, slip your ballot into a dropbox until 8pm on Election Day. Bring hand sani for those nasty-ass handles, you little freak. ;)
• If something has gone awry, like you recently moved and didn’t update your address, or you’re accidentally quarantined with your ex and that’s mostly okay until he picks a fight with you about who’s liking your selfies on Insta, or a crow took your ballot out of your mailbox using its long, wise beak in a fulfillment of a family curse that has nothing to fucking do with you but does explain your entire life of shockingly bad luck, don’t worry because you are entitled to pick up a replacement ballot literally until the end of Election Day. I have done this before. It’s a real thrill. The people who work at the elections office are truly so kind and angelic. In Multnomah County: 503–988–3720/ TTY 800–735–2900 Fax: 503–988–3719 or elections@multco.us. You can call or email ahead of time and they can have your ballot waiting at will call for minimal wait time and social distancing considerations.
• It’s nice to track your ballot because our days are mundane and nearly identical. Your ballot is moving in the world while you are at home moving from your bedroom to your kitchen. I know this is a very old and boring COVID joke but what can you do. It applies.
• If there are barriers to your ability to return or drop off a ballot, like you are immunocompromised, have a disability, don’t have a car, can’t walk to a dropbox, etc., just know that I fucking love you and I believe your vote should actually count double because your life is truly more vulnerable to the effects of shitty policies. Quote me on that. I asked our county’s election office and they said that you can still call or email and speak with the Voter Assistance Team, who might be able to help coordinate picking up a ballot with appropriate social distancing measures. If that’s not an option and you also lack a community safety net who might be willing to pick up your ballot for you, I invite you to DM me with your neighborhood and I will do my best to coordinate on your behalf or even pick up myself.
• If you’re able-bodied/have a car/a solid immune system/aren’t in regular contact with immunocompromised folks/occupy a combo of identities that allow you greater access in the world (you have a gut instinct for whether or not you fall into this category), I recommend that you cast a wide net to see if anyone would benefit from you making a contactless porch pickup of their ballot, especially after May 14th, the last day to safely mail ballots through USPS. If, for instance, in your personal practice you feel comfortable with contactless food delivery, this is a good litmus test for where you stand on personal risk calculus.
  You can pull this off: mask and glove up, throw envelopes into a bag, and so forth. Vote by mail is still much more accessible than polls, but statewide elections accessibility safeguards like ballot pickup for folks with disabilities are stretched thin. If we aren’t willing to inconvenience ourselves to ensure that the people in our circles have access to vote if they want to, then what the fuck game are we playing? If COVID-19 means that elders and people with disabilities turn out in lower numbers in this election, then of course our voting rights systems were the first to fail, but also, able-bodied people have failed in any pretense of solidarity work. This is simple, tangible action.
  Don’t put yourself in harm’s way and don’t guilt yourself, but if you have the ability to serve others right now, just do it. Is this the spirit of social distancing, Marissa??? you ask, raising your eyebrows at me. Imagine me taking a sip of very good coffee and blinking wanly at this question. We have to be in solidarity with everyone in our communities, and the election is very high stakes. If we can, we must.
• I consulted, in addition to all the usual media sources:
• The State and County voters’ pamphlet (large text available here)
• The League of Women Voters guide
• Vote411 4ever til I die.
• The City Club of Portland’s stash of recorded debate coverage
• The NW Labor Press’ union guide for Oregon (helpful if you’re not in PDX too!). You can see multiple endorsements and decide which unions align the most with your politics. Dope and brief. (Unlike this guide: anxiety-ridden and long. lmao.)
• Street Roots interviews
• The Sunrise Movement endorsements
• The APANO voter guide (with translations in Spanish, Vietnamese, and Chinese)
• Stalking certain candidates’ Facebook profiles
• The hot political gossip of my very smart and well-connected friends
• Ballot jams: Lately, I have been wistfully singing “Devotion” by Margaret Glaspy and feeling extremely called out in the line-by-line, though it’s actually a big project of mine in my mid/late twenties to take the blame when applicable — don’t @ me. Sometimes I play “Soul” by Sam Cooke and try to cry while staring at my face in the bathroom mirror at night. I dunno, I just do.

About this guide

You could have skipped ahead of all of my drivel straight to candidates, but here you are. Hello. I love you. The guide is this long because this election has more shit on it than that one Round Table pizza left untouched at your childhood birthday party because all the normcore brats eat pepperoni and that’s it. In addition to the natural rhythm of term-based politics, I think the current political moment has inspired lots of folks to run for office, meaning we have extremely crowded races. I like this trend and believe it should be nurtured when feasibility allows, and I hope we remember certain names as worthy contenders even if they do not emerge victorious. I also know that Republicans are consolidating their forces behind fewer candidates and I worry a little about splintering, a byproduct of Dems and Independents naturally being more tolerant of nuance (it’s all relative, I know).

You will notice that I’m assuming you have a Democratic ballot if you’re reading this. I do recommend reading all of the Republican statements, and not just in a sneering liberal superiority complex way. We’ve gotta know what’s out there if we hope to engage in meaningful conversation with all members of our community (lookin’ at you, middle-class white ppl, with a particular responsibility to do so). But, like, I would direct you toward US Senate hopeful Robert Schwartz’s statement on page 25 of the state voters’ pamphlet for gems like “DO YOU WEAR SANDALS ?” “OR BOOTS?” (sic) as a fre$h new way to lean like a full capitalist sheep into the farcical bootstraps myth. Honestly a visionary???

You’ll notice that I often won’t comment on a candidate running unopposed. Some of those people are p. cool, and it’s worth reading the state voters’ pamphlet to see their pixelated little faces and read how they articulate their relationship to the job. Doing so can crystallize your understanding of the local government positions that many of us feel a little mystified by, like: what does a county commissioner do? (Balance county budget shit, enact and administer local ordinance shit, hire county employees and other labor agreement shit, etc.)

You’ll also notice that I sometimes weigh political capital highly. You may be dismayed by this because of your very apt displeasure with establishment politics. You will notice that my justifications sometimes align with annoying establishment rhetoric, like, “This is a position that will require a lot of pre-greased hands if we want to maximize effectiveness right now” or “We don’t want to split the vote and let the conservative challenger win” and um. You’re correct that this is infuriating. As always, your vote is yours alone, and when I was stuck I tried to say why so you could decide for yourself. I do weigh VERY heavily matters of feasibility and electability and how much good I think a candidate will be able to do with their particular connections and experience, in part because so much has been eroded by the depravity of recent politics, and in part because longtime pre-Trump systems are finally being laid bare and there is the potential for a lot of practical overhauling to happen right now (after all, a national crisis sows discontent and radicalizes people. Yeehaw!). I think to dismiss feasibility and pragmatism in the face of all this is pretty naive and dangerous to our most vulnerable people.

Generally, this dynamic makes me think of certain voters of color who swan dove for Biden in the Super Tuesday primaries because they did not feel safe to take a risk on a candidate like Bernie. Many liberals, some younger, many white, accused those voters of being short-sighted or cowardly or simpleminded or attached to name recognition. This is grossly disrespectful and misunderstands what risk feels like when you do not have certain societal safety nets. Voters of color, especially black voters, went on record saying things like: Look. There’s a lot at stake and we’re not convinced that this other guy can get the job, and if we have another four years of Trump, that literally harms me more than it harms you. This is true.

Those liberals (and of course, also other people with identities who are harmed continually by the failings of center-left moderate politics) came back and said, “But if we could all just elect the more radical person, we could move closer to a world that helps all of us!!!!” It feels agonizing to know that this is also true.

For us here in Portland, when I believed that the race might be split in a way that would dangerously favor a more conservative or woefully less effective candidate, I tended to favor the most viable candidate with even marginally better politics. When I believed a more radical person had a shot and deserved our vote, I endorsed them. I wish it weren’t this way. But remember. Voting will not save us.

Where’s your nicest pen? I love you. Let’s get to work.

Candidates

• President: Bernie Sanders
  Let me first say that I believe Tara Reade. Let’s not talk any more about Joe Biden’s poisoned chalice right now because oh my god. Take a sip of water. Is your palate cleansed?
  We’re voting Bernie because he suspended his active campaign but still intends to collect delegates. If you want to push the eventual Democratic nominee further left, it’s advantageous to allow a progressive candidate to continue accruing delegates as bargaining leverage. This is an extremely tangible way for the Biden camp to quantify just how much they should be looking at Medicare for All, free college, and myriad other lefty issues championed by Sanders. Because of the demographics of our state (aka lots of middle-class, well-educated, young white ppl in the dense urban areas), had Bernie not suspended his campaign, we’d look like a landslide Bernie state. In 2016, Bernie edged out Hillary in the primary by double digits, snagging 56.2% of the vote. My guess is that Sanders is building a list of strategic demands of the Biden camp as a condition for campaigning or supporting him more robustly as we approach the November election. If you have your doubts about how much push and pull exists on the road to establishing a presidential platform, consider this thrilling Politico article detailing the behind-the-scenes demands Warren gave to Hillary as a condition for not running in 2016 (deep sigh, wistful wince, now move on, babe). In the messy political game of guessing which issues make voters turn out, the least we can do is give Uncle Bernard our vote. Even if Biden (or maybe this thing will seriously blow up and Dems will end up being an Andrew Yang/Elon Musk ticket) can reliably count on Oregon voting blue in November, we want to give the more progressive side of the party as much fodder as we possibly can going into the Democratic National Convention, sponsored by Zoom. Consolidating progressive primary votes with Bernie does make more sense than giving a protest vote to, say, Liz Warren, who not only suspended her campaign but dropped out of the race (I would have endorsed her had she stuck around) (though she has broken my heart by standing by her Biden endorsement in the midst of the sexual misconduct allegations; why not say nothing, Liz? You wanna be VP that bad, Liz?) (god, where’s my water).
• US Representative, District 1: Suzanne Bonamici
  Bonamici, the incumbent, has spent her career voting in favor of education funding and reducing the use of high-stakes testing, defending pro-choice policies, and labor rights. She has earned the support of educator, service worker, Teamster, and many more unions. Because she is a preestablished face on the Science and Climate Crisis Committees, it serves Oregonians more to keep her in office PUSHING for progress in this time of political depravity that I was talking about than take a risk on the two challengers, Amanda Siebe (a cool disability justice advocate) and Heidi Briones (who supports Universal Basic Income — we’re going to be seeing a loooOOOoot more of this).
• US Representative, 3rd District: Earl Blumenauer or Albert Lee
  Lord, let us please never reach a day where we automatically vote for the incumbent white dude. Lord, let us always use critical thought before we do such a thing. Blumenauer will almost certainly keep his seat; he is a beloved incumbent who is actually doing a laudable job at being progressive. He has also become a household name during the COVID-19 crisis because pretty much everyone agrees that his economic stabilization spreadsheet is the best in the biz. As a counselor in east Portland, I’ve put it in every resource update I’ve shared with my overwhelmed families, some of whom have never really spent much time with a spreadsheet before. They’ve sat parked in their cars to use the free WiFi in the McDonalds parking lot, listening to me say, “Okay, the document is huge, give it a minute to load. Do you see the Utilities tab at the bottom? Click through. Got it? Okay, I know you’re sick of calling 211. If you want to go straight to an agency, your best bets are going to be lines nine and ten.” In an election year, Blumenauer knew it was the right call for optics and for ethics to put staffers on this, painstakingly updating and verifying so you don’t have to.
  Albert Lee is hoping, I think, to gain momentum in a way that mirrors Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s meteoric rise to politics. His campaign differs from hers in a few ways. First, AOC looked at a safely blue district and rightfully shined a bright light on the fact that old time Joseph Crowley was way too moderate and more beholden to special interests than his own constituents, who would greatly benefit from a more radical approach to Democratic politics. Unlike Crowley in NY, Blumenauer in OR is pretty damn progressive, supporting DREAMers, paid family leave, reproductive rights, and even co-sponsoring the Green New Deal. Second, AOC went out into the district and knocked on doors and did the work of energizing voters, reminding us that with enough effort, grassroots is where it’s fuckin’ at. Lee has the misfortune of running against an incumbent in the middle of the coronavirus. It’s possible that he would have tried to use this inspiring door-to-door approach if he could. But he can’t.
  So, like, it would be nearly impossible for him to unseat Blumenauer here. And that’s okay, because the amount of pies Blumenauer still has thumbs in for the Green New Deal make me want him to keep his seat — there is so fucking much behind-the-scenes work we want him to be able to continue if we want it to become a reality.
  So we can do some risk calculus here. Since Blumenauer’s seat is very safe, we can choose to vote for Albert Lee to give him some political legitimacy. It is good, good shit for his future campaigns if he takes a decent percentage of the vote. It signals to stakeholders that voters will be ready for a change when Lee runs again, either for this seat or for a different office. We like Albert Lee (a fellow Korean!!!!), and we hope to keep seeing him on the scene. Lee’s lived experiences as a biracial blasian kid, survivor of domestic violence, and childhood homelessness are valuable and weighty. I looked for his campaign to weave a narrative that connects his political and professional experience more directly to the role of Representative, but never felt like I could sink my teeth into anything; I will be hoping for tighter political storytelling in Lee’s future. Controversially, I always assume that people of color are naturally more qualified, so Lee gets a lot of esteem from me, bolstered by his leadership on the board of APANO, his fundamental understanding that capitalism is trash, and the motherfucking chutzpah it takes to tell the Portland Tribune flat-out, “U.S. foreign policy — and this is going to be bold — it’s been a white supremacist foreign policy for years.” He says this as the child of a soldier and a South Korean woman, and as a veteran himself. I gasped. Albert, positively dashing.
• US Representative, District 5: Mark Gamba
  This is a race where shakin’ shit up and voting for someone who isn’t the incumbent is something to consider. Schrader has helped support nice things like Full Day Kindergarten in his tenure, sure, but has also been really moderate and even quite conservative in his voting, like against raising the minimum wage. Gamba wisely critiques some of Schrader’s donation sources as being rather shady. Importantly, as mayor of Milwaukie, Gamba has the political chops to justify a big risk at a vulnerable time. He comes with pep, a clear vision for progressive priorities, a shit-ton of hot endorsements from teachers, labor unions, other state politicians, and the youth of the Sunrise Movement.
  WW does caution against too radical a candidate here, since this district stretches into more rural parts of Oregon and Dems have only a +5 lead in the face of a close November general election; Schrader does have a track record of motivating voters outside the urban centers, they argue. Consider this risk as you vote, and ask yourself: if I’m gonna vote for Gamba, the more progressive candidate, am I also willing to donate, to get out the vote, to volunteer, to fight to keep this district blue with a hard race ahead?
• Oregon Secretary of State: Shemia Fagan
  This race is the reason this voter guide is so goddamn late. I think it’s the most important vote of the whole fuckin’ May election.
  Let’s begin at the beginning. As you know, 2020 was a census year. I just gave myself goosebumps when I typed the word “census.” By December of 2020, based on the responses, the Census Bureau will deliver apportionment counts to the President and Congress, and this means we are REDISTRICTING, HONEY!!!!!! Getting another seat in the US House, honey????!!!
  Okay but. Historically, the census is racist as shit!!!!!! Census workers have been “afraid” to go into black and brown neighborhoods to get accurate counts, there’s very limited information in different languages, and of course, redistricting then gets completely fucked over by gerrymandering little lizards who say they love America but want to pretend that certain Americans don’t exist. Census workers are supposed to take the summer to reach out to homes that haven’t responded yet, and I have a deep, deep sinking feeling in my stomach when I think about how the coronavirus may be a barrier against accurate census-taking. (If you haven’t filled out the census for your household yet, DO THAT SHIT!!!!!) We want the census to reflect our population accurately, because growing numbers in Oregon will certainly result in additional federal representation, and because MONEY follows population ratios. Money for schools, hiring more teachers and counselors and staff to work at those schools, public works, and so on.
  SO IF WE KNOW WE ARE REDISTRICTING THIS YEAR, our Secretary of State (who will have the final word when Oregon legislators inevitably stalemate) just…could not…be…more important. Here’s a scantily-clad selfie of me reacting to this.
  I initially looked at the very legit list of endorsements for Jamie McLeod-Skinner and thought to myself, “Great. Here’s a pragmatic lesbian in the flavor of lesbian nurses with lanyards, invested in rural Oregon, a long-game candidate.” When she speaks, she is measured, well-paced, thoughtful. Supporters say she listens well and will make starting small businesses more accessible through education and outreach. Her website’s priority page is well-organized and manages to make a case for how she has life experience relevant to the Secretary of State post even though she isn’t an insider in Oregon state politics.
  But this lack of experience in the Oregon political system has me wary, especially since the Sec of State is first in line for succession should the current governor leave office early (this is, after all, how Kate Brown first walked into Mahonia Hall).
  And McLeod-Skinner is also doing this weird misleading thing of running ads all over tarnation about being the only candidate in the race not to accept corporate money. But Shemia Fagan is also not exactly drowning in corporate funding; you can check her campaign finance breakdown and see for yourself. In fact, as a Rep and Senator in Oregon, Fagan has voted again and again against corporate interests. And McLeod-Skinner, perhaps in an attempt to seem moderate or extra bipartisan (florals for spring? groundbreaking), has said that her angle on the redistricting that’ll follow census results will be conciliatory, a bipartisan commission of some kind. A genius friend of mine who works in progressive politics in Oregon told me on the phone, “Sorry, but she doesn’t know what she’s up against. It’s not like we have normal Republicans in this state who are reaching across the aisle.” We’re living in hell, might I remind you, where truly being bipartisan will require being able to look at census results and legislative suggestions (yes, from Dems and Republicans alike) and act with singular responsibility and clarity against gerrymandering recommendations that may come from the more destructive Republicans in office who are drenched in dirty corporate money. To have already promised a “bipartisan commission” makes me sweat because of what hijinks we open ourselves up to. You never invite a vampire into your home before you know what you’re up against — Jamie, are you really a lesbian who hasn’t seen Buffy?
  In her opening statement at the Secretary of State debate, the microphone makes a howling feedback sound in the hands of Shemia Fagan, who laughs, looking like a zany Zooey Deschanel in New Girl. So kooky! Such a protagonist! I could feel myself being charmed, so I leaned forward, squinting my eyes, hoping to hear the thing I was waiting for one of the candidates to say: I would use this position to spank Oregon legislators who disrespect voters by walking out instead of voting when they know their side will lose. She did this without using the word “spank” (alas), saying that she’d honor voters by ensuring that those elected to public office in Oregon show up to work.
  This very position is the thing the WW criticized her for, arguing that by strongly addressing capitol walkouts, she is making this race partisan. I am…amazed at how boring this argument is. Are we really looking at this fucking bullshit and saying that someone who is against it is being partisan? Are we really acting like running away to go hang out on a Koch brothers ranch instead of voting on climate change legislation is anyone’s right? Are Republicans with integrity (ikr) really wanting to die on that hill? The last time OR Dems walked out was in 2001 because of some gerrymandering-ass redistricting bullshit; by contrast, as of February 2020, OR Republicans had walked out five times in ten months. They did this to protect corporate interests. They argued that these issues should go to voters knowing that corporations dump kajillions of dollars into misleading ads whenever they want to kill a ballot measure. They conveniently don’t remember that the reason voters elect legislators is so legislators can pass policies in a timely manner? We live in…a representative democracy??? I’m ????
  Fagan is a true-blue progressive, but I don’t know why that in and of itself would make me think that she’s going to be a soft auditor of public institutions. She has received the endorsement of most public education unions in the state. As a member of my public education union, I roll my eyes at the presumption that these endorsements will cause Fagan to do anything except support the just allocation of public funds to public education. In my experience, we welcome audits, and we truly, earnestly give the biggest fuck about our students and families. Fagan’s voting history shows that she’s more likely to spend energy shoring up corporate corruption than getting public schools to trim the fat (sorry, but what fat?), sure, but I’m not so sure that this is a bad thing for our next Secretary of State’s term. I want an official on the State Land Board who is endorsed by reproductive justice organizations, who understands that clean water and well-preserved public land are reproductive justice and racial justice issues because of who is most impacted by climate change. I want the candidate endorsed by PCUN farmworkers and Latinx working families, and by Oregon educators.
  Mark Hass has lots of experience and may emerge as frontrunner here. By all accounts, he is fair, even-keeled, involved in conversations supporting victims of sex trafficking here in Oregon, and according to my sources (aka my sister did meet him one time), a very nice guy. I’m honestly just at a place in my political engagement where a cis white guy needs to blow the other candidates out of the water to get my vote; in a race with two qualified women, he doesn’t sweep me away. I have been walking the neighborhoods in Portland every night for weeks. I feel like I’ve seen every flower bed in this damn town. I am telling you right now that I’ve only seen one Mark Hass lawn sign, and in the window of that same house was a Pete Buttigieg sign, still smiling proudly down at us in May 2020. Glean from this what you will.
• State Senator, 18th District: Ginny Burdick
  Burdick, in SW Portland, is an effective career Dem. She plans for this to be her last term in office, and wants to focus on property tax reform while serving as the chair of the State Revenue Department. I believe her long career in the weeds and nuances of Oregon politics will make her a valuable voice on that topic, which is fundamentally going to be a housing question. She is a very reliable gal who has worked on strengthening gun control legislation here in Oregon, advocating that foster youth be granted additional flexibility in qualifying for the Oregon Promise, and creating protections for young adults who are immigrants and unable to be reunified with parents due to abuse or neglect. Her deep leadership on esoteric or even rather mundane areas of expertise make me want to keep her around — Committee on Rules and Executive Appointments, Committee on Legislative Counsel, let’s gooOOOoo.
  I think challenger Ben Bowman, a young school board member with enthusiasm for serving students, wanting to spank Republicans for walking out of the capitol, and bold climate change action, has a promising career in politics and I hope we will see him run for this spot again if he doesn’t win. It’s a wise move to make his intentions known now so that he will be fre$h in the minds of voters when the seat opens up after Burdick’s retirement.
• State Representative, 33rd District: Serin Bussell
  Lots of strong leadership in this tough race. I landed on Bussell because she has been shoulder-deep in governmental policy and leadership, reliably progressive the whole time, and I think her experience will make her quick to produce tangible gains for vulnerable Oregonians, particularly as we flail after COVID-19. She is a graduate of the Oregon Labor Candidate School, so comes equipped with lots of tried-and-true pro-worker strategies, and she has the strongest track record on racial justice of the candidates in this race.
  Policy-minded doctor Maxine Dexter would also have rich experience to lend as we rebuild Oregon post-pandemic, and I appreciate her consideration of mental health, prevention services, and the intersection of public health and climate change.
• State Representative, 36th District: Laurie Wimmer
  This is a rather wild wide-open seat because it’s tied to the power vacuum that longtime progressive Jennifer Williamson left when she decided not to run again in favor of running for Secretary of State (she dropped out of because of a bizarre and sketchy leak of her campaign finance expenditures that felt anticlimactic and not like a true “gotcha” to me). There are some strong candidates running for this spot, so I am looking at electability because Republicans are running a challenger for this seat in the November general election and we want to keep it blue. I think we can expect an ugly race, especially because class and race issues in downtown PDX and deeper SW can edge toward intolerance. In a race where I was compelled by the public health platform of pediatrician Lisa Reynolds and labor-forward thinking of Rob Fullmer, I am landing on Laurie Wimmer who boasts more recognizable endorsements and name-recognition due to her long career in Oregon politics. Importantly, she is no moderate, though she comes with some establishment-type endorsements. She gives a shit about family medical leave, gun control, racial justice, and pro-choice healthcare.
• State Representative, 42nd District: Rob Nosse or Paige Kreisman
  I leaned on the Mercury’s endorsement to help me make my decision in this race. Incumbent Nosse is gay, historically very progressive, and historically very responsive to consituents. He lost the support of several unions when he weighed cutting PERS (the retirement package for many public servants) over having to lay off employees. This choice…sucked. It was a Kobayashi Maru. I hope we can keep electing progressives to all parts of the house and senate and pass fucking tax increases (still mad about the corporate flooding of ads that killed Measure 97 in 2016 😇!) so we can find alternatives to cutting from those who deserve support, and I expect Nosse and other progressives to be searching for ways to restore support to PERS in the future, and indeed, Nosse has his eyes on continuing to push for corporate taxes that serve the people better.
  A fresh new face who vows to be progressive and not make the same kinds of concessions as Nosse is Paige Kreisman. I tended to favor Nosse for his preexisting political capital and ability to continue advancing in an increasingly hostile house, but I think she is worthy of your vote if you rank ideology higher in your priorities. Paige Kreisman snagged the endorsement and financial support from Oregon educators unions like OEA, AFT, and PAT because Nosse let ’em down. She is trans, which rules in and of itself. Poke through her Issues pages for smart, specific solutions. I hope we see more of her.
• State Representative, 46th District: Khanh Pham
  Khanh is beloved in Portland for very good reason. She has been doing the work of getting to know this community for years and years and years. And years! Pham is my favorite kind of candidate: a community organizer (heroes of stage and screen, folks) who humbly served the community using her particular skills intelligently and strategically for ages, now looking into political office as an extension of that service, not as a ploy for power. She wants to bring the people with her, and her history of listening well, acting with integrity, and possessing a clear ethical voice will make her an exemplary Representative. She is pushing for clean energy, including policy alignment with the Green New Deal, explicitly reminding us that climate change disproportionately affects people of color. When I scrolled to the image on her website featuring issues scrawled on flipchart paper with magic markers, I experienced a HIGHLY somatic reaction of comfort and trust rolling over my body like drinking a long sip of hot chocolate. If you don’t start brainstorming with stakeholders on flipchart paper that just barely sticks to the wall, who are you? As an Asian-American myself, I always look for Asians who address anti-blackness explicitly because our community has a lot of responsibility to clean our act up. If you look at her statements and social media posts on the subject, she uses language that feels effortless, personal, deferential to black expertise, reflecting a longtime and authentic engagement with this belief, not stilted in the way that folks just jumping on the bandwagon for appearances are.
  Endorsed by teachers, lawyers, labor activists, and you, I hope.
• Judge of the Supreme Court, Position 1: Thomas Balmer
  Back in 2018, challenger Van Pounds also ran and lost for position 3, and his statement in the voters’ pamphlet looks similar to the one he furnished before; namely, Pounds believes that citizens should be able to vote for their judges, rather than continue a widespread pattern in Oregon of being appointed by a governor in a bit of a loophole-y fashion. This critique mostly lands well on my power-to-the-people heart, though I can imagine scenarios in which governors may feel it is urgent to appoint someone whom they deep most credible. Whatever. The point is that I have the same critiques as before. Pounds’ angle for election is mostly on the principle of the the thing, and not enough about what kind of interpretation of the law he possesses that is better than Balmer’s. That aspect of the argument is key to address. Further, I will cite once again the WW story in which Van Pounds’ coworkers in the Department of Consumer and Business Services called him “the least credible person in the unit.” This alarms me!!!!
  So we have incumbent Thomas Balmer, who has been on the Supreme Court since 2001, when he was appointed by Gov. Kitzhaber. I find his tie in this photo to be jaunty and preppy in a surprising way. There’s a lot of boring stuff I could say about the very ~*esteemed*~ posts he’s held and organizations he’s served on, but instead I’ll just say that I appreciate that he specifically named the courts, often a location of creepy discipline and punish police state type shit, as a space that has potential to triangulate root causes of criminalized behavior: “In recent years, we have worked with…key players to create ‘problem-solving’ courts — drug courts, veterans’ courts, mental health courts — that attempt to get at the underlying problems that often contribute to criminal activity.” Now, I am famously against criminalizing any of this behavior…and also famously against the entire prison industrial complex with which courts collude and co-construct…but like. Gotta love an answer like this.
• Judge of the Court of Appeals, Position 11: Kyle Krohn
  I endorsed him in 2018 and I’m at it again, y’all. Krohn is still running because he believes that judges should explain their decisions because this will result in more transparency and a better public understanding of the legal system. His no-bullshit website is honestly amazing. He volunteered as a speech and debate coach at his high school alma mater after undergrad, and everyone who knows me knows that I believe speech and debate people are of the highest order. He takes ethics and accountability super seriously, and I would be interested in what a very different style of judge could do if given the chance.
  He’s challenging incumbent Joel DeVore, who has tons of experience and endorsements from peers. I do appreciate his attention to backlogged cases, though this is a red flag for an overburdened court system that will require lots of partnership to untangle, and while it’s hard to find information about how ~effective~ a judge has been, I couldn’t find red flags or big scandals. He’s widely published, and his opinion on complex legal matters is often sought.
• Judge of the Circuit Court, 4th District, Position 12: Rima Ghandour
  This is a hot race! It is truly a pain and a delight to have to make a difficult choice between several good options. I see Sonia Montalbano and Rima Ghandour as shining stars in this race. Montalbano is more established in the legal community, and she scored many compelling endorsements, including from the former Chief Judge of the Grande Ronde Tribal Court. An indigenous endorsement signals a lot of strong things to me. I appreciate, too, her involvement with women-in-law organizations, the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, and labor nonprofits like SE Works and the Human Access Project. She seems to have broad support in the community and I wouldn’t be surprised if she won. She would be extremely deserving of your vote and she very nearly got mine.
  I am sticking it out with Rima Ghandour because — do not laugh — my heart is just very compelled by the ways she uses the law to serve our community. Ghandour, herself an immigrant, has worked to serve immigrants who are most vulnerable to the law, including DREAMers and folks impacted by the Muslim travel ban. She thinks about access to the physical structures of law, mindful of disability access and voices not always brought to the table. When I think about the role of the Circuit Court (“[Criminal], civil, domestic relations, traffic, juvenile, small claims, violations, abuse prevention act, probate, mental commitments, adoption, and guardianship cases,” OJD), I think about a public-service oriented thinker, an Arab woman who has won awards for her service to diversity and equity, and I just really value what this new kind of voice could do in those kinds of cases.
• District Attorney, Multnomah County: Mike Schmidt
  I did a fuckton of research about this race, following the big drama of this being the first true election for this position in ages, digging into both Schmidt and Knight’s legal careers, and honestly, it comes down to this. Schmidt is the real deal according to other lawyers in Multnomah County, which is a huge relief because his platform has all of the things we are foaming at the mouth to see: refusing to cooperate with ICE, meaningfully engaging in the work of clearing old drug convictions, reducing the criminalization of homelessness, and being tough on cops when they fuck up and need to be held accountable.
• Portland Mayor: Sarah Iannarone or Teressa Raiford
  THIS MAYORAL RACE HAS TAKEN TEN YEARS OFF MY LIFE.
  THIS MAYORAL RACE OWES ME A MILKSHAKE.
  Here’s the bad news. Ted Wheeler is one of the only familiar names in an extremely crowded race. This means that if he takes a simple majority, which he abolutely could do because he has that sweet sweet name recognition and his challengers were handed a fucking pandemic to block their ability to do the backbreaking grassroots organizing is takes to unseat an incumbent in an often moderate, fake-liberal city, he will win. If he doesn’t get a simple majority, we’ll head to a runoff in the general election this November. THIS is the strategy we’re holding onto here. None of Wheeler’s challengers have run an adequately competitive race to win a simple majority outright from under his nose this May. Some of this has to do with the COVID cockblock, and some of this has to do with campaign infrastructure that even my most fave radical challengers suffer from. If they were going to make a feasible run for this seat, they probably would have needed to run very different campaigns up to this point. We would have needed door-to-door grassroots shit. We would have needed talking points and compare/contrast videos to go absolutely viral in this city. (The Artists for Teressa Raiford events series is really cool and comes close). We would need really different phone, text, and optics campaigns. In an electoral and media system that routinely produces mainstream victors, even with our public financing election reforms, if we REALLY wanted a radical candidate to be a threat, there should have been a concerted move to consolidate power and strategy and resources amongst radical hopefuls, and perhaps to rally in a stronger way around fewer candidates.
  Of course, any of the more left-leaning candidates would be delighted to win, but I think their strategy is also about visibility and presenting different models of a political future to challenge the status quo and critique the Wheeler mayorship. So what we want to do here is buy some time and hopefully get ourselves a very interesting runoff election where some more progressive players can get more campaigning time, and more opportunity to build strategy.
  Our first goal here is to turn out 51% of the vote for candidates other than Wheeler so we will go to a runoff election in November. By that logic, you could vote for whoever you think aligns best with your politics and doing so will give legitimacy to that candidate, who might be able to use that to leverage future policy moves. For me, that candidate is Teressa Raiford. But consider also: in such a crowded race, this is also a gamble. We do want a frontrunner to emerge who would beat Wheeler in the general. That candidate is Sarah Iannarone. Hear me out and make your own choice.
  Teressa Raiford is the underdog who comes the closest to being a radical with a shot, almost entirely because of the relationships she’s built and because of continually pressing for consideration in venues like social media. She has been putting herself on ballots to make political waves for ages. I endorsed her as a write-in candidate for Sheriff in 2016, and again in 2018 because I respect the critique she’s making as a brilliant, populist black woman who has tons of lived experience in the failure of public institutions. Raiford has made it quite clear that she is sick to death of politics as usual and the way that black and brown people suffer and die because of it. She has worked hard to listen to the people of this city, and has been organizing for systems reforms for over a decade.
  Sarah Iannarone is a longtime policy wonk who has Liz Warren “I’ve got a plan for that” vibes. Some folks lament that ousting Wheeler will considerably slow down tangible gains for the city because of how sticky the turnover process is, and I can understand that consideration especially when we account for how important continuity with COVID-19 response must be. I believe Iannarone is someone who would be able to transition extremely quickly because of her long history of partnerships and involvement with city institutions, and indeed, she might have a fresh start at collaborating more smoothly and transparently with our city council. Iannarone’s policy papers are extensive, detailed, and more often than not favor a kind of pragmatic compassion that concedes that doing things in a way that minimizes harm for the vulnerable might take longer or involve more steps, but that’s okay, because here are those steps, and we can do it. I love that she isn’t afraid to use the word “socialism” in her articulation of goals for public works like Trimet. She would push Portland closer to Green New Deal levels of compliance. She says she would work to establish a zero-tolerance policy for racist cops and would remove armed police officers (SROs) from Portland Public Schools. I’m listening.
  I think Ozzie González is smart and interesting, but he doesn’t snag my “long shot” candidate endorsement because I think Raiford edges him out in terms of connecting with the people of Portland in a broader, more populist way. I look forward to keeping an eye on him for future moves in the city, particularly if I can find any information that leads me to believe that the construction company for which he currently serves as Sustainability & Diversity director, Howard S. Wright, isn’t gleefully churning out shiny chrome buildings that contribute to vicious gentrification. Cuz that’s what it looks like to me.
  I truly love that Cash Carter’s statement in the state voters’ pamphlet includes a section called: “How I felt in the presence of this candidate,” which begins, “Cash Carter seems really cool.”
  Voter turnout is extremely important for this race because we’re not going to be stuck with Ted Wheeler just because this campaign season couldn’t quite get its shit together. Sure, he’s not the King of Portland singlehandedly making decisions. Lots of other agencies and offices have their slice of responsibility to take for the last few years of politics in PDX, and we know that some unrest comes from him being a focal point of power in Portland when in fact this is a commission-style city where the mayor doesn’t have a ton more power than any other county commissioner. But let us not forget that he’s increased funding for homeless camp sweeps, all while hosting absolutely lukewarm and impotent community forums during which everyone agrees over and over again that we ought to address root causes of homelessness. Why, yes. We sure ought to. When the public at city council meetings direct vitriol toward him for their life-of-death concerns, Wheeler feels distant at best, annoyed at worst. This 2018 article is handy to assess what a challenging term it’s been, for reasons in and out of his control. He used the same breath to propose more cops and more housing resources in the 2018 budget. He was rude and lowkey racist to Jo Ann Hardesty and the mayor’s office responded, “He’ll be aware of racial dynamics…and also he has to keep enforcing order in meetings.” Let it be known to all the trash boyfriends in their twenties who want to use the quarantine to learn to be less douchey that this is a great example of a non-apology.
• Portland City Commissioner, Position 1: Candace Avalos
  Carmen Rubio is a strong frontrunner in this election and she deserves to be. Rubio has been doing fantastic work in the community and her leadership with the Latino Network shows those of us with deep fatigue about the nonprofit industrial complex that organizations can absolutely be pillars of the community to fill in gaps that government services are failing to address and serve needs in a razor-sharp way. Her reputation is…dope. She comes from migrant laborers and hasn’t forgotten, and it’s high fuckin’ time to elect our first Latinx city commissioner.
  I’m giving my vote to Avalos (also Latinx) because I want to bolster her impact in the community and help her pave a way for a new generation of leadership in this city. Avalos has a very strong view on police accountability, and I am tentatively excited when I think about how many others in this election have run on that same platform. Could it be…that a new network…of people who hold cops to higher standards…will make…a difference???!?!?!?! I am also encouraged by the way Avalos has adapted her campaign during the COVID-19 crisis. She is super smart and working hard to be responsive and connect with voters in new and interesting ways, unlike a lot of other great candidates in other races who have just been a bit paralyzed and slow to adapt. Avalos’ flexibility and commitment to listening to voters at a grassroots level is truly thrilling for a little cynic like me to see. She’s public-service minded, cares about students in public institutions, is curious about paths forward with rental assistance in a state where a huge mess of outdated laws block meaningful rent reform (RENTAL ASSISTANCE IS THE NUMBER ONE SERVICE THAT PEOPLE IN POVERTY IN PORTLAND ARE ASKING FOR ), and has a certain energy and perkiness that is tempered by her own experience as a mixed-race woman of color seeing people like her get overlooked. If she doesn’t win this election, keep her name in your mind and get involved with her future leadership endeavors.
• Portland City Commissioner, Position 2: Tera Hurst
  God, please, let’s elect her. There are some other good candidates in this race, but Tera’s particular effectiveness in extremely tough policy spots is fuckin’ inspirational. For this endorsement, I leaned heavily on the expertise of my friend Shilpa Joshi (a sharp, badass, queer brown femme), who has worked with Hurst as the Coalition Director of Renew Oregon. Together with the Renew team, they have been pushing for comprehensive climate change policy for years in one of the most tense, most confusing, and most infuriating political environments EVER here in Oregon.
  Hurst, even in horrifically dark pressure-cooker environments, calls all voices to the table, communicates clearly and effectively, keeps an eye on who isn’t at the table or isn’t comfortable enough to speak. Whereas other nonprofits grind good-hearted, self-sacrificial workers to the bone (in the nonprofit world, these workers on the ground tend to be mostly women, and many POC), Hurst’s labor practices are more flexible, carve out more room for employees to be human and need breaks and bounce back after we make mistakes. I am looking for this energy on city council: persistence toward justice, clear integrity and the imagination to achieve a good outcome for marginalized folks in the long-game without cowing to short-term concessions that exclude our most vulnerable, and true policy nerd expertise that will allow her to hit the ground running in a role with lots of bureaucracy and red tape.
  Let’s talk about efficacy. Hurst is the executive director of the policy advocacy team that helped bring HB 2020, one of the most progressive pieces of climate change legislation, to the floor of the Oregon capitol building, supported by a broad coalition of tribes, young people, rural farmworkers, and more. Republicans in the Senate fled twice to avoid passing this, because the most substantial part of the bill requires polluters to pay their fair share. This year, when Republicans dipped out again, we saw Governor Kate Brown pass an executive order on climate change right the fuck away, causing me to cry at work reading the newspaper article in the staff room. Thank god, I thought. And the sneaky little Republicans got their way: the executive order couldn’t make corporate polluters pay, but it is far and away one of the most progressive executive orders on climate change in the country, including provisions for labor protections and workers’ right standards, racial equity, rural farmworker protections, and so on. This triumphant moment for climate change legislation — this clever plan B, this persistence in the face of darkness — that’s Tera Hurst. Shilpa says, “Tera goes up against the most powerfully evil and nefarious elements we have in our political system like corporate polluters. Nobody else who has had opponents like that is on this ticket. No matter how dark it got, she had a plan. It blows my mind.”
  ELECT HER!!!!!!
  Honorable mention to queer, HIV+ Dan Ryan with a background in educational equity nonprofit work, who genuinely wants to see broader cooperation in this city to serve the community.
• Portland City Commissioner, Position 4: Chloe Eudaly
  I am going to pull out every single beautiful tulip in this fucking town if I read another article saying that Chloe Eudaly has been “too brash” or “too forward” or “too principled” in her tenure as city councilor. THAT’S FUCKIN SEXIST TONE POLICING AND IT’S BORING AS SHIT!!!!! Eudaly came into this office aiming to be a thorn in the side of landlords, especially huge property management companies, and she has done that and I believe would continue to do so. She has not been perfect, and she has some fuzziness on how to accomplish racial justice issues that makes sense because of her positionality as a white woman, and there was some drama in her attempt to shake up neighborhood associations (which…come on…we really should shake up a little). As a scrappy disability rights advocate, renter, and bookseller, Eudaly is used to having to do things herself (girl, same), and this means that she will continue to challenge herself to manage a large government team effectively. But she’s been able to accomplish really fresh, interesting, people-forward shit even at high risk to her political capital, and I want to see what else she can do. My very thoughtful QTPOC friend Emily Lai says succinctly, “I really appreciate that she put herself on the line for the city code change that could have increased representation + resources for ‘marginalized communities.’ Going to bat on code change has been considered political / career suicide.”
  I will say that I like Mingus Mapps and I think that if you have hesitations about Eudaly’s leadership, he is a really viable alternative. Here were my hesitations about him: I have questions about why Eudaly got the Portland Teacher’s Union (PAT) endorsement when Mapps used to work with Portland Public Schools in governmental relations, and I do get a weird taste in my mouth when I think too much about arguments that he could be “more cooperative” than Eudaly (y’know, sexism). But he’s a super, super smart person of color (a professorial type, like, Hahvahd, u kno) who would bring much-appreciated racial representation to city council, and I believe that he worked hard to improve the lives of Portlanders through his government work in Crime Prevention and Neighborhood Associations. I appreciate his compassionate approach to preventing homelessness with short-term rental assistance.
• Metro Councilor, District 5: Chris Smith
  This race makes me sweat.
  I’m going with Chris Smith, who has done the hard work of really making himself acquainted with the needs of this district, particularly through the lens of transportation, climate change, and accessibility. He literally has been serving the public of Portland in unglamorous and crucial ways for his entire career and I am eager to give him a chance to be a bigger player. He is a huge transportation geek, faaaaamously winning the Community Cycling Center’s Transportation Trivia in 2012 lmao. I can imagine him on Metro Council piping up with an entire lifetime of listening to people who are negatively affected by poor land use and thin transportation infrastructure and adding so much richness to the conversation. I believe this slice of expertise would make him a balanced and much-needed addition to the table, particularly as freeway expansion, accessibility, and democratizing public transit are hot issues cropping up in Portland right now. There’s something about him that I just, like, love. I highly recommend giving his website a peruse and admiring each photo, all that clear and earnest prose, all that humble articulation of experience and effort.
  Also great are Mary Peveto, who has earned the vote of several of her smart co-workers of color at Metro who have had the time to vet her integrity with marginalized voices, and Mary Nolan, the clear frontrunner, a well-organized politician with a really solidly blue voting record as a state legislator. Karen Spencer, a woman of color business owner, has strong professional leadership experience and all the right priorities, though is still newer to civic engagement when compared to competitors. None of these candidates can bring the particular sliver of expertise that Smith does with transportation and land use accessibility.
  Unfortunately, I have hesitations about Cameron Whitten, whom I’ve witnessed embroiled in conflict with many organizations, employees, and other QTPOC, without a lot of meaningful reparative work with damaged relationships. As a QTPOC myself (though I am not black), I wish only good things, growth, and productive credibility-restoration work for him so he can earn voters’ trust in future leadership endeavors.
• Metro Councilor, District 6: Bob Stacey
  We like that Bob Stacey had his hand in crafting Ballot Measure 26–210, proving that he’s actively attempting to address houselessness. I like that he scored endorsements from APANO, the Portland Association of Teachers, and the AFSCME labor union, among others. He’s engaged in legislative processes to address climate change and we want him to keep doing that.
  I do love that challenger Leigha LaFleur, first of all, has an amazing name, is a Wiccan Priestess for Bernie, and wants to address waste management. Truly a progressive angel and I hope to see more from her. Incumbent Stacey will almost certainly win, so a vote for LaFleur could be a cool way to assert that you value weirdness, integrity, and the very fucking important idea of sending your change-forward energy into your ballot. We need that energy tbh!

Ballot Measures

• Portland City Measure 26–209: Renew Motor Vehicle Fuel Tax for Street Repair, Maintenance, Safety: Yes
  This simple renewal of funds (meaning the tax rate won’t change) is very much needed to keep our streets at the baaaaare minimum of functionality. If you think the potholes are bad now, GOD PITY US if this doesn’t pass. Climate change is giving us weird weather that is taking its toll on streets, so please vote yes.
• Metro Measure 26–210: Supports homeless services through higher earners’ tax, business profits tax: Yes
  Let me say for the one millionth time that I am extremely bored of arguments that say we shouldn’t pass ballot measures if they aren’t perfect when human lives are caught in the balance. Show me one perfect ballot measure that is unilaterally beloved and doesn’t contain some fuzzy points. I’ll wait. I’ve got time.
  This ballot measure has some fuzziness, due partly to needing flexibility in spending in the face of engaging in constantly-evolving work. If a ballot measure was written with too many conditions, the city might find itself in the position of coming up with a creative solution but being unable to fund it because it doesn’t fall precisely into the language of the ballot measure.
  This ballot measure would tax earners of $120K+ and business profits by 1%. Counties will be tasked with creating locally-responsive teams to address houselessness, including shelter beds, rental assistance, and so on.
  Opponents just really hate taxes and don’t trust government solutions. Imagine me filing my nails and gazing out a raindrop-covered window. Yawn. Some Chambers of Commerce in the area do assert fairly that businesses are having a rough go because of the COVID-19 crisis, and I know livelihoods are at risk. Notably, this bill is not taxing businesses until they break even and turn a profit, and ALSO, if we look at the COVID-19 crisis on balance, would you say that houseless folks or small businesses are suffering more? I’m gonna go ahead and venture that homelessness is the tougher situation here, and that we’re seeing huge devastation during this pandemic AND that we’ll see a shitton more need once renters have to start paying back accrued rent. Portlanders love to bemoan our absolutely pervasive houselessness crisis, but are reluctant to put their money where their mouths are. Get outta my face and pass this ballot measure.

At the heckling of my friends, here are ways you can support me. If you enjoyed this guide and have means, I made a registry at BB&B with just a Microplane. GOD, I really want one. Hahahahahah. Is that unforgivable? HAHAHAHA. I also am not too proud to refuse any help you can sling my way to support paying for my mama’s rent. Cash app/venmo @marissayangbertucci. I love you. Couldn’t do this without you.

Take care of you. You have seen these lists absolutely everywhere, but again, here are resources for surviving the impossible now.

xoxo,

bitchtucci