may 2026
special
election
portland, or
I am wondering, like all modern girls do, could I hotwire a Waymo and drive it into the river?
When my body is in bed like this, heels and ears pressed to the mattress, I visualize the bed spreading, oozing out to meet the walls. The bed undulates a bit as it becomes unwieldy. My bed could even expand beyond my room, covering the quiet street. Here I can Google anything.
Though Google was never really my ally, recently it has become so profit-hungry as to be almost useless. The anemic sponsored results assure me that Waymos are virtually impossible to hotwire. I am no closer to learning how to impose my capricornian will upon the sort of contritionless bionic car that would kill a beloved bodega cat. My phone company would sell out my search history data in the blink of an eye to serve the Feds. It already does. Besides, I wouldn’t do that to the river. Back to zero, then.
This Spring, our chronically aw shucks Mayor Keith Wilson announced his support for Waymo’s nascent bargain to start mapping Portland streets. He attempted to manufacture consent for this slide into this job-killing AI devilry by saying that fewer human drivers and their pesky human errors could mean fewer traffic deaths. Don’t talk stupid shit like that me or to the ghost of Kit-Kat the bodega cat. Evilly, since Waymo has human employees in the cars right now to do preliminary mapping, they don’t need permits to comb the streets, collecting image and location data unfettered by safeguards or regulations. From my bed, which is so large now that it touches 82nd Avenue a dozen blocks away, I imagine the cameras and sensors taking in everything like a whale’s baleen.
Two members of the Oregon House tried to pass a bill earlier this year that would have permitted Waymo across the state — it didn’t make it through. But, sinisterly, Waymo issued a statement that it is “working with state and city leaders to create a regulatory path to deployment.” I can only assume that gross corruption will grease the wheels (sorry) of this latest cursed project. If we have any chance at hell in regulating or blocking such a thing, we have ourselves to thank as voters who installed skeptical progressives into our Portland City Council and House and Senate seats.
Many of these races were determined by very, very few votes — a few hundred, or even less. If you’re reading this, you probably don’t need the hurricane shot I wish I could wet slap (caveat: lovingly; you’d like it) on the truly checked-out and disengaged. After all, Emily Dickinson, middle part icon, blissfully unaware of crypto bros in vexingly oligarchical states of power, nevertheless did day:
Not knowing when the Dawn will come,
I open every Door.
SHE SAID EVERY!!!!!!!!!
A little primary election could be a door. How couldn’t it be. It is free. It is low-lift. It’s nothing to pat yourself on the back for.
But these material conditions are hanging by floss. Please participate, and check on your people to make sure they do the same. Don’t cede anything without a struggle. We have judges in family courts on the ballot: people who will either intimidate foster kids or treat them and their families like human beings. We have pressure to exert on our governor to go FURTHER for our current pains if she expects us to re-elect her. We are being asked to consider the people who will allocate affordable housing monies. We have a make-or-break transportation ballot measure that we should pass even though we’re broke as fuck, and I’ll tell you whose fault it all is. We have EXTREMELY high stakes state and federal offices, including a nail-biter US House of Representatives race where we have the opportunity to toss out an AIPAC-bought “Democrat” who has split with our other representatives on even the most middle-of-the-road peacekeeping proposals. It makes my mouth actually produce saliva to think about taking a job from an AIPAC shill.
Housekeeping ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
Election Day is Tuesday, May 19th. Polls close at 8pm. Find your nearest ballot drop-box. Official drop-boxes can accept ballots all the way until 8pm. If you prefer to mail, it’s okay to drop your unstamped ballot into your mailbox or any USPS drop-box until about two days before the election (I’d advise using USPS no later than Saturday’s last pickup). Because of federal cuts to USPS, they can no longer guarantee that ballots dropped into the mail on Election Day will make it. This is one of countless examples of systematic Republican despoliation of voting rights and accessibility. Vanquish this attempt by planning ahead. Your public library is a drop-site, and they will give you an “I Voted” sticker.
You can pick up a replacement ballot at the county Elections Office all the way until 8pm. You can track your ballot here. It’s worth it to double-check in case they think your signature doesn’t match.
I hope you use this voter guide as one of many sources before you come to your own conclusions. I don’t work in politics; I work in mental health and public ed. I am not an expert. I aggregate credible stories, gossip, and shit-talk. You have no fucking idea what we are capable of as a community.
Positionally speaking, I am a mixed Korean-American dyke who grew up in a low-income immigrant family, and I have a middle-class job and stable housing now. Naively or not, I do care about each small way we can make the world a better place, and that is because my mother raised me to believe in myself and others. I owe her, Meehwa Yang 양 매화, every shred of my heart, ethics, and critical thinking. I learned from her agonies and I learned from her untouchable wholeness. With incalculable gratitude, I owe my perspective to my mother 엄마, my family, the families and kids whom I am continually humbled to serve, my friends and community members who share their lives, their feedback, and their struggles with me — so many before me and alongside me. My perspective also has many limitations, and god knows I’ve been wrong before!
I consulted: the incomparable Multnomah County Voters Pamphlet, your one-stop shop to see what the hell candidates have the say for themselves, plus their most pertinent endorsements (also available at this same link in different translations, large print, and so forth); Oregon Public Broadcast, Street Roots interviews; Imagine Black’s voter guide; the Portland Democratic Socialists of America’s endorsements; the outstanding IG account @bynumisabummer; the voter scare tactics around progressive challengers to snoozey, corrupt Dem incombents in Washington County that were reported on by the Oregon Capital Chronicle; Portland City Councilor Angelita Morillo @pnwpolicyangel’s clear, concise coverage of the aforementioned topic, including exposing funders, and much more; Next Up Action Fund’s House and Senate, Washington County, and Youth Choice voter guides; East County Rising’s endorsements (many in Gresham and beyond!!!); the Merc’s endorsements; AFSCME Local 88’s endorsements; the Oregon Working Families Party’s voter guide; Basic Rights Oregon PAC (statewide recommendations!), and of course, my extremely sexy and wise sources. My DMs remain open now and in the future for your insights.
I don’t typically comment on unopposed races unless I have strong reason to. I stick to Portland and Multnomah County. Please send the Next Up Action Fund’s Washington County voter guide to your homies on the Westside!!!! SO WE CAN ELECT NAFISA FAI, MYRNA MUÑOZ, TAMMY CARPENTER, AND SO MANY OTHER TRUE PROGRESSIVES!!!
I have been listening to Akofa Akoussah all season, especially these twosongs.
Good luck, I love ya.
Candidates *ੈ✩·
US Senator: Jeff Merkley
Merkley’s been a staunch Democrat, with all of the baggage entailed within our two-party system (too slow on the uptake for certain causes, but he’s gotten there, in most cases), yet I feel that he’s swinging more and more progressive over time. I intepret this as responding to the voter base as we get louder about class war — he doesn’t want to be thrown to the wolves when we finally get our shit together (inshallah) and elbow out the corrupt, elitist, incrementalist Dems who are freaked by even the most palatable Mamdanis and AOCs of the world. Great. We have to make the Pelosis and Schumers of the party afraid of the consequences of being just nauseatingly rich and unscrupulous as their Republican counterparts. Notably, AIPAC has criticized Merkley of weakening Israel by blocking weapons sales. Purr!
US Representative, 1st District: Suzanne Bonamici
Another reliable Democrat. In May 2025, she co-sponsored HB 3565 Block the Bombs, which was a super muzzled but important attempt to curb US transfer of some of the worst munitions to Israel (like bunker-buster bombs, JDAMs, and 155mm artillery) unless specifically authorized by Congress and used in compliance with international law (lol). This has not passed and is still being tossed around in Congressional session, but it’s nice to know that our Rep will attempt to pass it. You could consider calling our Oregon reps and asking them to work extra hard at the coalition-building and deal-making that it will take to move the needle on this. Will it pass, even if there’s a ~blue wave~ this election season? Likely not…This is an EXTREMELY depressing time in history, with the Supreme Court essentially allowing GOP gerrymandering to increase their representation in the House and Senate…but we do not give up the fight, ever. :)
US Representative, 5th District: Zeva Rosenbaum
I HAVE MY EYE ON THIS SEAT AS ONE WHERE WE CAN MAKE THE MOST IMPACT THIS ELECTION. LET’S TAKE THIS SEAT FROM JANELLE BYNUM, Y’ALL!!!!! BYNUM IS NO BETTER THAN A REPUBLICAN AT THIS POINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My complaints with Janelle Bynum have been extremely well-summarized by the @bynumisabummer account — please consider SHARING from this account to your swayable friends, family members, coworkers. Allow me to clear my throat and simply recite:
-Bynum voted yes on the Laken Riley Act twice, while every other Democrat voted no. This law requires the government to detain an undocumented immigrant who’s merely charged (not convicted) with certain crimes, locking them up until they’re deported.
-She joined with the GOP to oppose California EV standards. H.J. Res. 88 is a joint resolution that nullifies the EPA’s waiver granted to CA for its Advanced Clean Cars II regulations - the Biden-era waiver that let California phase out gas-powered car sales by 2035. Oregon adopted California’s standards under Scion 177 of the Clean Air Act. When the waiver dies, Oregon’s enforcement dies with it.
-She received $3,563,367 in AIPAC money. She promised “Ceasefire immediately” on the campaign trail (OPB, Oct. 2024). In Congress, signed a DMFI statement with no ceasefire language and no conditions on military aid. She refused to co-sponsor HB 3565 (Block the Bombs), despite Rep. Bonamici, Rep. Hoyle, and Rep. Dexter signing on.
-She voted to make Trump richer. She did not vote No on the GENIUS Act, which Sen. Jeff Merkley commented on thusly: “Passing the GENIUS Act stamps a Congressional seal of approval on President Trump selling access to the government for personal profit. It is profoundly corrupt.”
-She did not represent her constituents who overwhelmingly do not support the war in Iran by staying silent on H. Con. Res. 38, and the War Powers Resolution failed by just 7 votes (June 2025). Every Democrat who stayed silent — including Bynum — made it easier for Trump to launch a second war in Iran in February 2026.
TIME FOR SOMEBODY NEW! Enter Zeva Rosenbaum. Let’s give her as much credibility as we can to dig Bynum out of this seat. If we can remove Bynum from the primary, I believe we can elect Rosenbaum successfully in November. We’ll have to. Courage!
Rosenbaum hates AI and data centers. In my opinion, THIS IS THE NUMBER ONE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE RIGHT NOW because we are approaching a tipping point in entrenchedness. INDIVIDUALLY, YOU MUST RESIST THE AI INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AT EVERY TURN. Turn it off your devices and emails and Google searches, and stop using it for recipes or information-gathering or to make your resumes. I hated when I had to disable my email spell check because it became part and parcel with allowing AI to sift through all of my emails. But I did it. Bravely misspelling from here on out!!!! I am so serious. Knock it off. Using AI as a shortcut in your day-to-day life is unsexy and vile.
The AI bubble can pop. Remember when they tried to tell us that crypto was the future, and how it never truly became monoculture, instead mostly relegated to nerdy fedora obsolescence? Let’s do the same with AI. We need extremely strict legislation to curb AI and data centers, especially because the Big Beautiful Bitch-Ass Bill essentially has cockblocked meaningful federal regulation for at least the next ten years. It’s hell lmfao. We need as many elected officials as possible FINDING A WAY to hamper the expansion of AI. Rosenbaum promises to be one such elected.
Rosenbaum won’t take AIPAC money. When I emailed her to ask for a very clear stance about Palestine and Israel, she responded herself, “I very much stand with Palestine and, while I support the Jewish people, I do not support Israel or any further aid being sent to them.” I would want to see Rosenbaum join Oregon’s bloc of other progressive women representatives on this matter.
Rosenbaum aligns herself with the new progressive wave of democrats who eschew corporate corruption in favor of working for the people. Working for the people!!! IMAGINE THAT! As a regular shmegular working person, Rosebmaum would have a lot to learn in terms of operationalizing legislation to fight corruption and reduce income inequality, but so would every newbie to the role. I would rather elect someone with the right VALUES, knowing that a competent staff would help guide and teach the ropes. VALUES cannot be understated.
Governor: No endorsement at this time
Welcome to the Kamala Harris Democratic School of Mediocrity And Losing A Surefire Race!!!!! Much like the Harris team totally thought that we hated Trump enough to get out the vote even though Kamala was pissing everyone the hell off by taking a weak-ass stance against Israel and acting like Biden’s economy was fine, only to find that a loss of faith from the most progressive voting bloc (often young people, for instance) led to low voter turnout, Kotek inexplicably seems to be completely fumbling PUBLIC EDUCATORS, some of the most reliably progressive and organized voters in all the land! While I was in the nosebleeds, Kotek was courtside at the Portland Fire’s first home game probably feeling nervous about the primaries, probably running through a ton of information like any responsible lesbian would, but ultimately convinced that public educators — at least 41,000 of us represented by Oregon’s Educator union, the OEA — hate Republicans enough to vote for her anyway.
But what if it’s close? It sure was four years ago.
From the Oregonian:
Four years ago, [evil witch Republican gubernatorial candidate] Drazan received 43.5% of the vote to Kotek’s 47%. In the metro area, Drazan lost big to Kotek in Multnomah and Washington counties, but beat her by about 5,000 votes in Drazan’s home county of Clackamas. In the new poll, 63% of Clackamas County voters and 58% of Washington County voters said they had a negative impression of Kotek.
Driving to Costco in Northeast Portland, I see a billboard which simply reads, “ED ‘NO TAX’ DIEHL FOR GOVERNOR.” How can he promise No Tax? But these are the kinds of gaudy, substanceless tall tales that Republicans feel comfortable rattling off. And they’re so, so good at falling in line.
I don’t believe in being a snowflake leftist who needs all of my politicians to have amazing taste in nouvelle vague cinema and Das Kapital on their coffeetables. We’re talking about politicians and I do not wish to be bereft and optionless when instead I can just be the Das Kapital reader I wish to see in the world. However. I do expect my Good Enough Democrats to earn my vote by supporting one of our most basic and beloved public institutions: PUBLIC EDUCATION.
Kotek has long drawn my ire for coming for Preschool For All, seeming to walk in stride with the insane conservative, tax burden-reducing interests of bad-faith actors such as the Portland Business Alliance.
Kotek has failed to receive endorsements from the major educator unions like OEA, PAT, and others. Enrollment is dropping because of lowering birth rates (shoutout to millennials and gen Z adults who can’t afford to have kids, or who dread having kids in this current environmental and political climate), which Kotek has specifically cited as a reason not to increase education funding, part of which is tied to cost-per-pupil.
In the meantime, many school districts are in millions of dollars in debt, for many reasons. Among them: a completely incoherent method of funding education from national to state to local sources and a pissbaby inability to tax corporations their fair share, which would EASILY cover what is needed; widespread inflation; federal cuts to education from the Trump administration, who added some special cuts for Oregon and other states he doesn’t like; the increased cost to run schools (old facilities just finally needing repair or replacement; new climate change extreme weather conditions necessitating different infrastructure for heating and cooling; rising rates of utilities and supplies, and so forth); expensive this one will change everything, at last!! curricula in an unregulated and profiteering education venture capitalist market; short-term emergency monies from COVID running out (much of which was used to simply hire the amount of staff that it actually takes to run a school); cost-of-living raises for teachers (all well below the rate of inflation, and even with strong unions and hard-won raises, no school district I know is paying educators anywhere near what they’re worth); and so on.
The Oregon educator unions have asked Kotek to increase Oregon’s funding of education to account for these things. By merely maintaining current state funding streams, many districts, including Portland Public and Reynolds, have to lay off hundreds of staff positions. Kotek has basically said to figure it out.
As if unions and districts have not been trying to figure it out, trying to extract blood from a stone.
To add insult to injury, one of the ways that districts try to preserve staff is by taking furlough days, in which educator unions vote to accept pay cuts in the form of unpaid and unworked days. PAT just voted to do this for next year. Kotek said that districts can’t do that anymore because it cuts into instruction time. Further, she said that districts need to restore their instructional days to what they were before 2020.
When her team was asked if forced restoration of days that were cut as a last resort to preserve staffing was an unfunded mandate that would de-facto lead to staff cuts, a representative simply said, “No.”
The president of PAT, Angela Bonilla, went so far as to say that this no-furlough order could be political retaliation for not getting endorsed by the major education unions.
Another theory about the anti-furlough day policy is that Kotek made this call shortly after a Republican attack ad blamed her for Oregon’s low graduation rates (these far predate her) and posed the question about why our school year is shorter than other states’. But Kotek has bargained wrong by pissing off progressive voters who care about public ed funding. Swing voters are NOT tracking the number of school days to decide that they like Kotek again after hearing about this niche policy adjustment, but progressive voters ARE tracking education funding and feeling alienated.
I completely agree that more instructional days would be better for Oregon students. But we need CURRENT staffing levels (and actually MUCH INCREASED staffing levels — we’ve already been through post-COVID funding cuts to the tune of hundreds of staff in the past few years) AT THE SAME TIME.
Why do we need existing or increased staffing when enrollment is decreasing? Well, because we ALWAYS needed more staff. And importantly, our kids are unwell, and all other social services are being slashed right now, too. Far fewer kids who struggle to feel successful in the (insane and ableist) structure of gen ed public school are able to be supported through their insurance companies to access alternative placements or therapeutic schools. Families turn to schools for the kinds of food, rental assistance, and resource support they used to get from social and governmental agencies. Behaviors and dysregulation are more extreme than ever because of the dreadful crush of late-stage capitalism, and because their attention spans are tormented by the short-term dopamine spikes of tech addiction. In the twelve years I’ve worked in public education, I haven’t seen more homelessness than this year, starting with a flurry of January 2026 evictions — not even during lockdown. We have more families than ever sleeping in cars, accessing shelters, or slipping through the cracks of being accurately counted as homeless because they are doubled up or tripled up with friends or family members.
The number one thing I see making inroads in this BEHEMOTH, GLOBAL CLASS WAR LEVEL CRISIS AND PUBLIC EDUCATION CRISIS is relationship. Small class sizes and adequate support staff for kids to feel like they have trusted adults to turn to. Our great public educators try to do it no matter the circumstance, but I will tell you that my teacher colleagues are already hanging by a thread because last year they had 19 students and this year they have 35.
The Kotek administration imporing us to just fiiiigure it out feels not just out of touch. It feels…cold. It sounds like some shit an emotionally unavailable white dad would say.
The ask is for the Kotek administration to declare a state of emergency, open up an emergency legislative session, and tap into the Education Stability Fund, which is funded by the lottery for education during budget crises. Oregon legislators would also have to pass accessing funds by a three-fifths vote of both chambers. The ask is not even to fully fund schools — just to ameliorate the positively medieval changes that are coming down the pike.
Many of our Democratic Oregon legislators talk about how now is not the time to access these emergency funds because even darker times are ahead, especially as the effects of the bitch-ass Big Beautiful Bill will move much more responsibility for paying for Medicare and SNAP to states (in Oregon, from 2027-2031, it could be in the ballpark of hundreds of millions or even a billion dollars). MIND YOU, WE ALREADY PAY FEDERAL INCOME TAXES TO FUND THESE SOCIAL SERVICES. The Big Beautiful Bill wants us to pay for these twice so that billionaires can get richer. They want people who rely on Medicaid and SNAP to literally die or grind so hard in survival mode that they have no mental capacity to organize for better working conditions. They want schools to flop so mightily that poor and middle-class students don’t get high-quality educations, and they want to send upper-middle-class and rich kids to private schools and charter schools. :) And Trump timed many of these cuts to happen after his presidency so that Americans who feel completely fucking fucked by these cuts blame whatever Democrat is in office by then.
The comfortable lead that Dems have over Republicans in this state is narrowing. The best way to recruit voters is by getting results and improving people’s actual lives. This means making life more affordable, funding high-quality public education, and spending the money we have. It also means using the money while we’ve got it because when the funding cliff comes, if progressives and Democrats have made life better for the average Oregonian, the average Oregonian will be much more likely to keep re-electing them to continue to create positive change, which could lead to broader changes to funding such as…you guessed it…taxing corporations and the ultra-rich their fair share. :)
Public education — releasing SOME of the Education Stability Fund, at least — is a clear, legible, and relatively small place to start. We cannot lose ground on high-quality public education.
I forget which fucking billionaire asswipe said it, but one such white man was quoted this year as saying that he would like to see intelligence privatized in the future. Not intelligence as a euphemism for surveillance technology. Intelligence as in critical thinking and access to information. Understand what this means. The reason charter schools and privatization of education have been enormous projects of the Radical Right since even before Project 2025 made this plan explicit is because our overlords do not want an educated, critical-thinking proletariat: they want obedient workers, consumers, and followers. A robust, well-funded public school system is extremely dangerous to that project.
The richest of the rich love to defund education so that upper-middle-class families also decide to send their kids to private and charter schools, driving an even bigger wedge between the poor and middle class. The middle class has always been a buffer between the working poor and the ultra-rich, and as conditions get worse for the working middle class and the poor, the ultra-rich need a bigger buffer.
Limiting who has access to education has ALWAYS been a way to protect the ultra-rich. Not to bring the Gutenberg printing press into this, but think of the monarchies and the Catholics who only wanted the Bible produced in Latin so that the general public would have to get their spiritual guidance filtered through them.
Consider that the richest Americans don’t send their kids to public schools, which are increasingly controlled by millionaire ed tech venture capitalists, learning apps, corporate-controlled textbooks, new and ever-changing curricula that require hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to adopt and roll out. They don’t let their kids have phones, and they’re sending their kids to play-based schools that don’t use iPads and have robust funding for low student-to-teacher ratios.
But these same rich bastards want middle-class and poor kids at these schools, addicted to their cell phones, and buying things I cannot even begin to understand on Roblox. Why do we allow the government to continually underpay and cut teachers and promise that AI or learning apps will adequately meet instruction needs that we already know are best carried out by human teachers, teaching assistants, counselors, and administrators?
WHAT THE FUCK are our Democratic leaders doing if they’re not digging their heels in to preserve public education, IF NOT EXPAND IT??????????????????????????????????
On the Republican side of the coin, the race is extremely crowded. Evil Christine Drazan is back at it again, featuring transphobic dog whistles that are sure to thrill the base. She came extremely close to winning last time, and I expect her to be the GOP frontrunner again. Ed “No Tax” Diehl claims he’ll cut 10% of state spending, a truly insane way of saying that he wants citizens to pay for services that they’ve already paid for with their taxes. Other incredible gems include an old-school fedora type named Kyle Duyck who touts his white-ass pedigree in case other Reddit eugenicists are moved by the poetry of things such as: someone in his family line was a bureaucrat during one of the most prosperous periods of the early Dutch Republic, and on the other side of his family — and I have to quote it directly because it sparks joy — “my Newton ancestor — the uncle of Sir Isaac Newton, arrived on the Mayflower, seeking freedom and opportunity in the New World.” Imagine furnishing a voters pamphlet where you cite being descended from THE UNCLE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON as a blood promise that you’re qualified for the job. LMAO!!!!
State Representative: Willy Chotzen
A true progressive in this seat! He’s fairly new to us — let’s keep him and see what he can continue to build. Chotzen used to be a math teacher, but eventually became an attorney. He talks about how he worked at a legal clinic and helped people with evictions, wage theft, and foreclosures. He’s a modern thinker about the insane shit we’re facing with big tech right now. In his first term, he’s thrown himself behind sponsoring and supporting some of the country’s most progressive location privacy bills — The Oregon Location Privacy Law, HB 3899 and House Bill 2008. Among other things, HB 2008 blocked children’s data and location (within 1,750 feet) from being sold to data brokers. At a time when school funding is being strangled from money scarcity from the feds on down, I do believe Chotzen (a former teacher, whose partner is still a teacher) will keep throwing his weight behind more funding, not less.
Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries: Christina E Stephenson
BOLI is a branch of government that protects workers’ rights by upholding state labor laws, fielding complaints, runs apprenticeship programs to help workers build skills, and enforces reasonable housing and public accommodations for housing rights and workers rights. It is…really important to have someone in this role who is truly committed to workers’ rights. Christina E Stephensen already holds this office and she should keep it. Under her leadership, at last $17 million has been returned to workers who had their wages stolen or rights violated on the job. Endorsed by teachers, nurses, labor unions, the Working Families Party, Basic Rights Oregon PAC (gays), etc.
Judge of the Circuit Court, 4th District, Position 2: Chris Behre
Circuit courts see most of the general jurisdiction cases we picture when we think of people going to trial — family law, criminal cases, juvenile, civil, domestic relations, and so on. Circuit court judges interface with the public A TON. While these positions are nonpartisan, a judge’s experience, values, and relational temperament are all incredibly important when it comes to just, person-centered application of the law.
For position 2, the endorsements tell it all — Chris Behre has secured all of the progressive-leaning endorsements, like Reps. Thuy Tran, Willy Chotzen, Shannon Jones Isadore, Lamar Wise, and Travis Nelson, Commissioner Shannon Singleton, the Working Families Party, and AFSCME Local 88, while Juliet Britton has……..one of the most conservative members of the Portland City Council, law and order guy Eric Zimmerman, and…one….volunteer….from Lines for Life crisis line. Lmfao. This could be literally anyone and is an enormous stretch.
Juliet Briton was the executive director of the Oregon Psychiatric Security Review Board, and during her tenure, she has developed a reputation for frequently advising that people stay highly medicated indefinitely. Further, a source shared that if she disliked or didn’t believe in a patient, they would be kept at the state hospital for huge periods of time rather than be reassigned to outpatient or other reintegration programs. If multiple public servent-minded people in your field have such a sour taste in their mouths when they speak about you, that is a sign to look inward. On our end, as voters, we ought to block publicly elected bids for more power and influence.
Behre, on the other hand, speaks in the voter pamphlet and on his website about his father, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and who was denied Social Security Benefits over and over, until an appellate judge heard his case and granted benefits that helped the entire family gain stability. He cites this as his aha moment into pursuing public servancy. This is so near and dear to my heart — getting Disability Social Security benefits after two denials, and later Section 8, helped my own mother finally have her own savings after decades of the kind of teeth-grinding poverty that unjustly kept our entire family moving through the muck from crisis to crisis. I strongly favor a judge with lived experiences around the transformative power of alternative placements and social services when they preside over mental health, homelessness, and other social crisis-related cases.
Behre was a public defender (we love), a current union member (PSU professor), and has spoken specifically to increasing access to interpreters for defendants, compassionate and trauma-informed legal work, the importance of top-down implicit bias training for all legal staff, and how judges should be mindful of how courtroom dynamics can be traumatizing to the public when they are at their most vulnerable, so judges should therefore avoiding power plays in the courtroom.
Judge of the Circuit Court, 4th District, Position 5: Joanna T Perini-Abbott
Perini-Abbott is a local law professor at Lewis & Clark, with experience as a civil litigator and a public defender. Multiple sources came out of the woodwork to tell me about her warmth and competence as a professor and as a judge. In her Willamette Week endorsement interview, she says that she sets aside a quarter of her practice time to take federal court cases for criminal defendants who can’t afford a lawyer. She’s been an Oregon State Bar examiner and is known to have a deep and detailed understanding of the law. Perini-Abbott is endorsed by some favorites we like to see — the Working Families party, progressive Rep. Willy Chotzen, and labor unions like UFCW 555 and Local 88.
Her opponent, John Casalino, seems to be generally well-liked by folks who have interfaced with him as well. He has spent most of his career as a prosecutor and district attorney, with 14 of those years being a child abuse prosecutor. Folks who worked with him say that he was steady, fair, and seemed to genuinely help child abuse victims find their footing even after trial. People call him fair and impartial, but I cannot ignore his Nathan Vasquez endorsement. The Nathan Vasquez District Attorney office, in its crusade for public safety or law and order, prosecutes ridiculous misdemeanor charges in a way that makes my stomach turn.
Judge of the Circuit Court, 4th District, Position 12: Peter Klym, by just a hair
This is a dramatic race. Adrian Brown is the current judge in this position, previously a civil rights attorney, and is the only incumbent whose seat is being challenged. She is embroiled in conflict with DA Nathan Vasquez (who called her “not qualified,” among other things), which would not ordinarily draw my eye too much, as I am known to disagree with for being a real law-and-order, high-conviction type guy.
But when I look to other people who interface with Adrian Brown, I see trends — people who find that she doesn’t come to decisions quickly, leading to trials that drag…a lack of consistency across rulings…frustrated people who work in the legal system in one form or another who have requested not to be seen in front of her anymore. In some endorsement interviews, she didn’t adequately take accountability for or satisfactorily address these criticisms, instead sidestepping. And although she’s a circuit court judge, she didn’t speak much about her connection to community.
She won her last election by emphasizing her social justice-minded application of the law. In a federal case that sued the Portland Police Bureau over officers’ use of force against people with mental illness, a deputy city attorney Ellen Osoinach, said that Brown worked to expand the settlement to disability and mental health care workers as stakeholders, depending the case to account for “the wider failures of Oregon’s mental health care system.” This history of disability-centered approach is probably part of the reason she earned endorsements from the ED and legal director of Disability Rights Oregon. Values-wise, Brown seems to be coming from the right place, with a track record of good work right alongside shortcomings that could conceivably be attributed to: understandable and common human error, inevitable in an overworked and overburdened legal system, personality differences, and so on.
Peter Klym filed to run against her, perhaps seeing this controversy as an opportunity to step into the role. He is a public defender, and speaks directly to managing trial time efficiently so that people don’t have to take burdensome time off work. I think very highly of his endorsement from Multnomah County Commissioner Shannon Singleton, who is a truly dedicated public servant. He has spoken about judges being super consistent, but also informal, adaptable, and recommending prison as a last resort. He did also mention that he wants to visit and familiarize himself with agencies and programs to which he’d be referring clients — when we talk about wanting to avoid incarceration, we also have to be able to support folks in transformative change in other ways. A judge who has a clear understanding of best fit and referral criteria for, say, a domestic violence perpetrator group, or a parental skills support agency that can help in cases of neglect, can meaningfully reduce incarceration while not leaving these tricky, unsafe behaviors woefully underaddressed. He’s endorsed by East County Rising, who said, “[We value] Peter’s familiarity with the issues of East County due to his large body of work with people East of 82nd, acknowledging the disproportionate amount of arrests due to over-policing.”
Both Adrian Brown and Peter Klym speak about restorative justice and racial inequities in the legal system, and I believe both have this lens. In this case, I weigh endorsements heavily, especially since many of them are able to take the time to interview both candidates. I appreciate that the Portland Mercury was about as on the fence as I was, and also as judgmental of Vasquez. If we elect Klym into the same conditions of overwork as Brown faces now, we should keep a close eye to see if he can actually fare better with trial efficiency, partnership with agencies and programs as an alternative to incarceration, and so forth, or if he just ends up getting away with those things because he isn’t a woman. Coin toss, y’all — I can completely understand a vote for Adrian Brown too.
Judge of the Circuit Court, 4th District, Position 14: Kristine M Almquist or Joe Hagendorn - COIN TOSS
Position 14 is a dizzyingly crowded race. This position in the circuit court is reserved for family law cases — custody, divorce, domestic violence cases, protection orders, name and gender change cases. I found the Oregonian’s candidate questionnaire extremely helpful (read here).
You’ve got Bradford Gerke, primarily a divorce lawyer, who says that he dreams of serving as a family law judge, but that he doesn’t have extensive community, nonprofit, or board experience because he was focused on his career and raising his family. Accordingly, his endorsements are thin: on his website, just two client testimonials. In this extremely community-facing and referral and resource-demanding position, it could behoove Gerke to spend some time building more community relationships to boost his qualifications.
There’s Michael Lee, who has done quite a bit of juvenile prosecution work, and who cites his army and national guard experience under the “prior governmental experience” section of the Multco voters pamphlet. In interviews, Lee spoke about having qualities such as “decisiveness,” which would be important in his “dominion over his courtroom.” As you can imagine, I am not drawn to these kinds of dry, male, hierarchical descriptions. Lee is further tainted by his endorsement from Nathan Vasquez (Multco DA).
Elizabeth Savage, former high school teacher, family law attorney, and part-time pro tem judge, seemed an early frontrunner because of her family law background. She cites the many twists and turns of her own life experience as key to making her a fair and compassionate family law judge, but has ruffled some feathers by sharing criticism of — of all people — therapists who are reluctant to testify in family law cases because of their oaths to confidentiality and desire to remain safe confidantes for their clients. Savage seems to characterize this as inconvenient at best, or obstinate and obstructionist at worst. As a child therapist myself, I would in almost all cases wish to avoid testifying, even if I believed a major change would be in the best interest of my client. There’s usually A LOT of evidence that something is amiss, even without the testimony of a therapist. After you break confidentiality and disclose what was said in a confidential therapy session, even at a judge’s orders, your relationship with your client is altered forever. When I imagine a child in a precarious enough position for custody or placement to be in the hands of a court, I shudder to think of the therapist, perhaps one of the only stable and trusted figures in that child’s life, receiving ire for not wanting to be asked to testify. Keep in mind that therapists are already mandated reporters, so if a therapist credibly fears for a child’s safety, they’ve likely already done their part by reporting a concern for Child Welfare to investigate further.
Heidi K Brown is a strong candidate — a city attorney for Portland with experience as a public defender, including four years in juvenile court working on complex abuse and neglect cases. She has advised the city on delicate matters such as our sanctuary city status, and stresses the importance of care and compassion as well as fairness in the application of the law. There is a different Heidi K Brown who wrote a book called The Introverted Lawyer: A Seven-Step Journey Toward Authentically Empowered Advocacy and I spent a really long time comparing their photos and biographies to determine that they are, in fact, not the same person. Shoutout.
Now we’re down to Kristine Almquist and Joe Hagedorn, who both have great experience, great endorsements, and the sorts of warm, even-keel temperaments that would serve them well in these heated and stressful family law cases.
Almquist was a public defender for juvenile and ODHS cases, and more recently has become a juvenile judge and referee over the same sorts of cases she litigated. She is known within the child welfare community for having a kind, welcoming demeanor that makes people feel safe even in vulnerable and unstable moments. Naturally, family law has the tendency to bring out a person’s most escalated and defensive sides. Because she has the competence, follow-through, and experience to be a great family law judge along with a warm, calm disposition, Almquist emerges as a top choice. She recognizes that there is a significant breakdown in trust between the public and family law, and that people dread court because they assume that terrible things will happen to them in addition to the terrible things that have already happened. I like to think of a super warm, respectful, calm judge presiding over these sorts of cases. Endorsements from many other circuit court judges, Local 88, the South Asian Bar Association, the Oregon Arab Iranian Bar Association.
Likewise, Joe Hagedorn is known for his calm temperament, fair interpretation of the law, respectfulness, and empathy. He is a former public defender, juvenile defense attorney, and judge pro pro tem and referee on the Multnomah County Juvenile Court. Hagedorn cites a desire for restorative, not punitive, justice, which is key. He has a reputation for following through on his word and being competent and effective. He is endorsed by lots of family law and county judges, former Governor Kate Brown, UFC 555, the Working Families Party, progressive favorites such as Metro Councilor Duncan Hwang (a great judge of character, in my opinion), Multnomah County Commissioner Shannon Singleton, and Portland City Council progressive darlings Tiffany Koyama Lane and Mitch Green. Interestingly, the Willamette Week(who ultimately endorsed Hagedorn too), observed, “When we asked his competitors whom they would pick if not themselves, Hagedorn easily won out.”
Metro Council President: Juan Carlos González
González was elected to represent Washington County’s District 4 of the Metro Council, and he’s running for Metro Council President using Zohran Mamdani-esque ads comparing the Portland Metro Area to a great taquería and naming his reliably lefty priorities: affordable housing, transportation, clean air, water, and green jobs. Indeed, land use planning is a main priority of the Metro Council, and in his eight-year tenure, González has supported the building of 5,000 additional affordable housing units and land-use reform that will allow for up to 20,000 more. When we think about land-use reform, this is mostly about zoning and permits, but I do hope that González will balance the need to preserve undeveloped green spaces as nature sanctuaries when possible with the need to build dense new affordable housing. I appreciate his support of the Parks & Nature Bond, the Affordable Housing Bond, and the Supportive Housing Services measure. He has been anointed by a landslide of the progressive endorsers: the Working Families Party, Jeff Merkley, Ron Wyden, Khanh Pham, Ricki Ruiz, Duncan Hwang, Ironworkers Local 29, IBEW Local 48, UFCW Local 555, Next Up Action Fund, Basic Rights Oregon PAC, NAYA Action Fund, East County Rising — it really goes on and on.
Metro Council, District 1: Ashton Simpson
Simpson represents East Portland, including my beloved Rockwood neighborhood — this is where the public school in which I work is located. In my eight years there, we’ve had more than one parent hurt or killed by pedestrian accidents — usually cars hitting people because they’re going too fast or because there aren’t enough or well-defined or well-lit crosswalks or sidewalks. I love Simpson’s emphasis on walkability and pedestrian safety. He’s a big Oregon Walks guy. He responded to the Street Roots questionnaire (green flag), while his opponent did not (red flag), sharing that when it comes to homelessness mitigation, he prioritizes success metrics that center permanent housing placements, not bed-night counts.
Endorsed by Imagine Black, East County Rising, the Working Families Party.
The Willamette Week called him the smartest person in most rooms, and asked him for his biggest kitchen fail. He responded, “I don’t fail in the kitchen.” I KNOW THAT’S RIGHT!!!!
Ballot Measures ༺
Oregon Measure 120: Increase Fuel Taxes, registration/title fees for roads, tax on wages for public transportation services: YES
We shouldn’t even be in a position where this is on the ballot. In the Spring of 2025, Oregon Democrats put forth the Oregon Transportaton ReInvestment Package (TRIP), which would have addressed the ODOT funding issues that we’re still contending with with this ballot measure. TRIP proposed increased fees and taxes too, and would have protected public transportation funding, safety fixes to highways and roads, Safe Routes to School, and other things we like to see our government taking care of. Passing TRIP proved impossible, and it died on the last day of session.
Enter attempt number two from Oregon Democrats to fix this issue a long time ago: HB 2025 (2025 Regular Session) would have raised an estimated $14.6 to $15.5 billion over the next decade, preserving hundreds of ODOT jobs and keeping our roads safe from landslides, potholes, and other snafus. Of course there was a great deal of Republican pushback, as well as infighting within the Democratic party. Love to see us squander our supermajority in this elegant fashion! Because HB 2025 failed to unify Democrats, a much smaller band-aid bill was proposed.
This bill can be thought of as a bare minimum keep the lights on bill: House Bill 3991, a $4.3 billion package of taxes and fees, PASSED in Salem back in Fall of 2025, long before the unconstitutional War in Iran and $5/gallon gas prices. The bill included a gas tax, increased title and registration fees, a higher payroll tax for transit projects, and so forth — the things we see on the ballot now.
When HB 3991 was presented, Republicans proposed an amendment which reflected their extremely unreasonable No Tax Plan and did not make meaningful concessions or act in good faith to compromise. No new taxes, they said. Instead, take $146 million from climate initiatives, including $47 million from the Bicycle and Pedestrian Program, $39 million from the Community Paths Program, $24 million from the Zero Emission Incentive Fund, and $18.7 million from the Climate Office. These are not reasonable compromises to ask for at a time of immense climate collapse. Republicans repeatedly requested to divert funds away from transit, saying that most Oregonians drive, therefore we should focus on funding the highways.
When the bill passed anyway, Republicans said fiiiine, we’ll lobby for a referendum that will send this to the voters instead. It worked. People hate paying taxes and many signatures were collected. That is why we are voting on this today. Republicans stalled, hemmed, hawed, and got the transportation package to be voted on by the public. And now the timing couldn’t possibly suck more.
Keep in mind that unregulated oil profiteers already artificially inflate the cost of gas.
Voters are hard-pressed to want to pay for increased gas taxes (I DON’T RELISH IT EITHER!!), and I believe this will fail. The timing is just too atrocious. Most Democratic leaders in the Oregon House and Senate believe it will fail too, though ODOT stands at a funding crisis precipice and the failure of this ballot measure will certainly mean harsh cuts to jobs and services. Roads will suffer. It will suck. These things will all be more expensive to fix once we allow them to break down, and our Democratic supermajority — whom the majority of Oregonians elected to allocate resources and make decisions to fund our public works — really, really tried to pass a sensible transportation bill in a timely manner.
I quite agree that any tax on sales disproportionately affects low-income people, especially because folks who can afford EVs do not pay for gas or gas taxes, but still use roads and transportation infrastructure.
But we have to do something. Increased taxes to pay for increased expenses is inevitable unless we do something really amazing like…fairly tax corporations and the ultra-rich…which we cannot seem to figure out how to do in Oregon. Climate change weather conditions and temperature fluctuations are accelerating unsafe road conditions like potholes and landslides; people are fucking texting while driving and traffic fatalities have skyrocked in the past 15 years; we struggle to find money for basic pedestrian safety measures like fixing or expanding sidewalks and high-visibility crosswalks.
Though this ballot measure is unlikely to pass, please do vote for it to show your support for funding the absolute bare bones transportation necessities while not slashing our much-needed climate initiatives. If it fails, we need to let our legislators know that we support another strong transportation package and that we need this one to stick.
We should also throw our hats in the ring for ODOT reform — there is certainly room to shore up spending so that is truly in the public’s best interest. A lefty source within the Oregon legislature points to the billions of dollars we are spending on big freeway expansions at the IBR and Rose Quarter, wherein freeway contractors and consultants are very much becoming rich while our roads are crumbling before our very eyes and the Oregonians who rely on public transportation are told to get fucked.
If we can’t agree to pay taxes to fix the roads that we use every day, I have to ask…what are we willing to fund? Sorry, are you wanting to live in a world where individuals are in charge of paying for and repairing roads?
Multnomah County Measure 26-261: Five-year levy: Oregon Historical Society Library, Museum, educational programs: YES
This is a five-year levy renewal that would keep property tax rates the same: $0.05 per $1,000 of assessed property value, amounting to roughly $12.50 to $14 annually for a typical home. The levy funds will support the OHS museum and library, as well as four historical societies in East County: the Crown Point Country Historical Society, East County Historical Organization, Gresham Historical Society, and Troutdale Historical Society, ensuring free and low-cost admission, school group visits, and the like.
I think we really need to fight tooth and nail to preserve in-person cultural centers and museums. We are nothing without culture.
Detractors say that taxpayers don’t care about this. If we stop funding our museums and libraries…we will all just slip further and further into being iPad children…with no culture…no sense of time and place…I just…cannot bear…
Please fund this, and maybe plan a visit. Lmao. Touch grass.
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If you or someone you love is worried about finding food, look here for free food near you.
If you are looking for ways to support Portland’s immigrant community right now, in addition to any individual family fundraisers you come across, I recommend and uplift the work of PIRC, who provide hotline support, as well as tangible legal and living resources.
I know you haven’t forgotten about Gaza — consider eSims for Gaza, Tamara’s family fundraiser, any of the families listed by Operation Olive Branch.
If you’ve had a chance to share resources with folks in need and would like to treat me to a little coffee or something, I’m @marissayangbertucci on venmo, cash app, and paypal ✿
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Like you, I crave a better world and I believe we can get there. Thank you for going through this one small door and participating in your own life, and our shared city.
xoxo,
bitchtucci * ੈ♡‧₊˚
