Some progressive activists in Portland are claiming that a move away from our current council-manager form of government to an executive mayor form is an anti-racist cause.
Their argument is based on an analysis posed in a master’s-degree history paper from a former University of Maine student claiming the 1920s Ku Klux Klan influenced one of our dozens of charter formations, almost 100 years ago.
This analysis leaves out information from a historian interviewed by the Charter Commission, explaining that Portland was one of several hundred other cities switching its form of government in the early 1920s to combat corruption. This narrative also ignores the dozens of subsequent revisions to our city charter over the past 100 years approved by the citizens of Portland, including our current charter created entirely by Democrats in 2008.
Proponents of the executive mayor form of government have introduced no data to support the idea that the form of government produces better outcomes for people of color, and conveniently ignores the glaring racial inequality of our most unjust and corrupt city administrations in the country.
For certain, in recent years, the tragic, high-profile killings of Black Americans at the hands of police officers in executive mayor-led cities such as Minneapolis, New York City, Baltimore, St. Louis and too many more have awakened Americans to our systemic problem of police brutality against people of color. But despite our country’s growing awakening to systemic racial injustice and police violence, executive mayors in these cities have not faced accountability for their failures to address these issues, nor produced better outcomes for their residents. Mayor Jacob Frey, Minneapolis’ incumbent when George Floyd was murdered by police in 2020, was recently reelected. He won handily over his two closest challengers, both running on more progressive platforms.
There are, however, significant downsides to an executive mayor form of government. According to City Lab and The Atlantic, the top 10 cities with the worst income inequality in America are all led by executive mayors.
Flint, Michigan, the predominantly Black city notorious for its poisoned public water supply, demonstrates how poor governance by reelected Mayor Dayne Walling can wreck lives. In Baltimore, Mayors Sheila Ann Dixon and Catherine Pugh were charged and sentenced for theft, tax evasion, fraud and conspiracy.
While opponents of a council-manager charter model fixate on the sins of the 1920s, these very real, very damaging scandals all took place within the last decade. Meanwhile, researchers at University of North Carolina’s School of Government found that municipalities with council-manager systems were 57 percent less likely to have corruption convictions than municipalities with mayor-council systems.
There is more we can – and must – do to protect our most vulnerable residents and communities, tackle income inequality, and make Portland a more welcoming city for people of all walks of life.
But given the evidence, progressives must ask: What racial justice gains or meaningful progressive reforms would we see in Portland under an executive mayor form of government that we couldn’t achieve with a council-manager model instead? And are we willing to accept the risks to our community to realize these goals?
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