Portland is the all-purpose whipping boy of downstate Oregon.
The three counties of metropolitan Portland -- Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington counties -- are the economic engine of Oregon. It is where the population is, where the jobs are, where the tax money is raised that subsidizes the rest of the state. The thanks Greater Portland gets for its leadership is criticism and contempt.
Greater Portland is where the political power of the state is centered. It has the population, so it has the votes and the representation. Portland-area voters skew heavily Democratic. Downstate small cities vote purple. Oregon's rural areas are bright red. This voting pattern is predictable and common across America, given American polarization based on cultural and lifestyle issues, rather than economics. Americans who are OK with diversity and institutions with shared benefits (mass transit, libraries, sewerages, educational and cultural institutions) tend to live in more densely populated areas. Cultural conservatives sort themselves into places with rural acreage, wells, and septic tanks. These are generalizations, of course, but it shows up in bright red and blue colors on maps of voting behavior. Portland voters gave some 75% of their votes to Biden. Rural counties in Oregon gave some 75% of their votes to Trump. That means rural Oregon is outvoted fair-and-square by democratic means, but it is outvoted just the same. Downstate Oregon resents Portland for its success.
Portland -- the bugaboo symbolic "Portland" of its current brand and reputation -- strikes downstate people as something to avoid at all costs. The bad apple. The enemy. The political bully. Since I support the three Jackson County ballot measures that would update the county charter, it may seem counter-productive for me to lead readers to the website of the PAC that opposes the measures. Their arguments are incorrect and irrelevant, and therefore harmless, but they serve today's purpose. They are an excellent example of downstate opposition to all things Portland. Here is the start of a page giving reasons to oppose the measures
The Jackson County measures bring the number of commissioners from three to five; they make them nonpartisan. They bring their salaries down from $143,000/year to nearer the state average for counties our size -- $70,000/year -- a salary still double that of what we pay state representatives and state senators. Multnomah County has four commissioners, elected by district, and one chairman, elected at large. The four commissioners who represent districts are paid $125,000; the chair is paid $207,000.
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| Boarded-up storefronts |
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| City street encampments |
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| Costume-play anarchists, summer of 2020 |
The Multnomah County district attorney, Michael Schmidt, refused to prosecute crimes openly committed by thrill-seeking hoodlums and anarchists. The Portland police responded to the failure to prosecute by staging an unofficial police strike. They stopped making arrests. Why bother if suspects were immediately released? That gave permission for more consequence-free lawbreaking. A mood and reputation grew that crime was rampant and uncontrolled in Portland, and that Democrats soft on crime. The bloom is off the Rose City.
It isn't true, but it is useful.
16 comments:
To state that the lies published by the anti Restructuring forced are harmless in categorically wrong, Peter. The readers of your blog are largely more informed and involved than the average voter in Jackson County, and too many of the "average" voter will swallow the lies hook, line and sinker. The main reason the R party is against making the Board nonpartisan is to prevent more Voter participation.
Hopefully, by opening the the Primaries, more qualified people (those sick of the divisiveness) will opt to get involved in running the County and increase Transparency, on the issues affecting us all.
"Southern haven"? You mean like Alabama?
Rural Oregonians don’t just resent Portland. They don’t even want to be in the same state with it. Most of them would rather be in Idaho, but rather than move there, they want Idaho to move here. These are people who don’t even believe Biden is a legitimately elected president and who would rather die of stupidity than receive a free, life-saving vaccine. Good luck trying to reason with them.
Anyone who backs the State of Jefferson and Idaho movements should support these measures to give better representation to Jackson County residents.
I hope the measures' sponsors will connect the dots.
These measures have my full support.
In Portland, the family of a 9 year old girl has filed a lawsuit against the school district and county alleging she was raped by 2 boys in the school bathroom. The school did not call police or inform the parents. Instead, the school practiced 'Restorative Justice', suspended the boys for ONE DAY, and expected the girl to continue to attend school with her rapists.
These stories make people feel like the values of people in Portland are whacked out, simply unbelievable. They vote for a DA who lets violent offenders walk free instead of protecting the community.
Schools in the Portland area have not recovered their enrollment after the pandemic. Parents try to find better alternatives if they believe their children won't be safe at school.
Liberals should really look at the safeguarding failures they are allowing with their ideology.
Democrats and liberals resent the fact that the US Senate is slanted more towards rural areas because every state gets two senators regardless of population. They say that this distribution of political power is “undemocratic“, and “disenfranchises“ them, allowing those rural voters to impose their culture and values, for instance, on issues like abortion.
But when Democrats and liberals in a state like Oregon impose their culture and values on rural areas, that’s considered to be perfectly OK. Apparently those rural folks deserve to be dominated by these cultural elites so that their deplorable cultural and values can be eradicated.
There is an intrinsic problem with a democracy. The people with the most votes get to form the majority. Most people consider it fair that majority rules. Yes, majorities impose their will over minorities, with some protections in the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
A situation where Texas, Florida and California have the same senators as do Vermont, Delaware and Wyoming is a giant distortion of the democratic principle--a far greater distortion that the writers of the Constitution could have imagined. It lacks the foundation of democracy, that majorities should have power. In Oregon, the democratic moral principle is preserved. In the current US senate, given the disparate growth of states, it is not preserved. Indeed, it is overruled.
That is the difference between Tri-county Oregon voters having power over rural Oregon and the U.S. senate in which the minority has the cominant power. The moral principle behind the current Senate makeup is that "we were here first. M own proposal is for California to divide into seven states, Texas into five, Florida int four, New York and Pennsylvania and Illinois into three. Any state that can be divided so that there is at least 5 million people in each state should do so. If we vcannot change the senate rules, we can change the population of states.
The Medford City Council has 8 City Councilors, and 9 total elected officials if you count the Mayor. The Jackson County Commissioners have 3 elected officials. Does this mean the Medford City Council has a bigger government than the County?
I'm confused by how having more electeds mean you have a bigger government. Hell, New Hampshire has 400 members on their House of Representatives. Clearly that state has the biggest government of any state by this rationale.
I would respond to Peter by saying that I think at the moment we have too many attempts by Group A to dominate Group B instead of a more general live and let live policy. As a result, we have way too many culture war issues that are polarizing and dividing this country.
The situation described by Ayla Jean is hardly a reflection of “liberal ideology.” In fact, it’s about as far from acceptable practice as it gets, which is why the school is being sued for $9 million.
As for Democrats and liberals resenting the slant of the U.S. Senate, I happen to know a few liberals and never heard them complain about that. What I do hear a lot of complaints about is the refusal by Republicans do anything about gun violence, address the issue of anthropogenic climate change or even admit the outcome of the 2020 election. Those are cultural values that no sane person would be OK with.
They claim Salem doesn't listen to them, yet oppose measures that would increase their own political representation. Go figure.
Michael, why do you think wanting equality is dominating?
Aside from stirring up the hate you carry, these so-called culture wars have not affected you one bit.
Or does your blood pressure rise if you go in to a bathroom that doesn't have a urinal?
You have a problem with someone filing a lawsuit? I don't.
Multnomah County has some great attractions (Powell's, OMSI, the zoo), and is very agnostic.
Jackson County should be more like Multnomah County.
Michael, if you want better representation then you should support these measures.
I live in the Portland area (although thankfully by the grace of God and good luck not within the city of Portland).
I know plenty of liberals. Most of them complain bitterly about the “undemocratic” nature of the US Senate. I read widely, including plenty of political commentary by liberals. I have read many articles by liberals complaining about the same thing.
Dysfunctional ideas like “restorative justice“ come from the far left, and enough of the liberals in Portland have voted for them so that they get put into practice around here. The results are out-of-control criminal activity, which is just what anyone with a lick of common sense would expect.
One of the foremost proponents of this lunacy, far-left Multnomah County DA Mike Schmidt, is up for reelection this November, and is very likely to be defeated, because crime has gotten to the point that even the liberals in Portland are starting to be unable to tolerate it.
“Michael, why do you think wanting equality is dominating?”
That’s not what I think. I think that just like conservatives, liberals are happy to impose their ideas on others when they get the chance. Conservatives sometimes get that chance via the unequal distribution in the US Senate. Liberals sometimes get that chance because urban liberals outnumber rural conservatives.
I think that in both cases, it is not good to have one culture dominate another. I think it would be better to live and let live.
We would be better off if conservatives did not try to impose their beliefs about abortion on liberals. We would also be better off if liberals did not impose their cultural beliefs on conservatives. Did urban liberals really need to prohibit rural conservatives from hunting cougars with dogs?
Are we better off with the current proliferation of culture wars?
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