Skip to main content
WW first reported Jan. 8 that three of the city of Portland’s five state lobbyists were departing shortly before the legislative session kicks off Jan. 17—a blow to the city’s ambitious legislative agenda.
While the reasons behind two of the departures aren’t entirely clear, sources familiar with the matter tell WW the lobbyists were frustrated by the reach of Portland’s legislative hopes.
The city’s wish list includes $26 million in discretionary homeless spending, sending state troopers to write speeding tickets on city streets, and reevaluating the state’s rules around forcing citizens with mental health issues to undergo treatment against their will.
Those pleas reflect the city’s ongoing and, by some accounts, deepening crises: mental and behavioral health, homelessness, and record gun violence and traffic-related deaths.
But without the lobbyists shepherding ideas between the city and the region’s delegates in the weeks leading up to the session, Portland-area lawmakers are concerned about the prospects of the city’s agenda.
WW asked those lawmakers about three of the city’s most consequential legislative requests, and what they think the chances are they’ll find enough support from the governor and their colleagues.
$26 million in discretionary homeless funding:
The city of Portland is asking the Legislature to allocate each city in Oregon $40 per resident to use at each city’s discretion to combat homelessness. That comes out to $26 million for Portland.
Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office hasn’t specified how it would use those discretionary dollars, but lawmakers have a strong suspicion.
“Read between the lines: They need it for the sanctioned camp sites,” says Rep. Rob Nosse (D-Portland), who gives it a 7-out-of-10 chance of passing.
The mayor’s camp proposal—six sanctioned encampments, each with capacity for 150 people—is perhaps the most polarizing issue among city politicos in years. Both Gov. Tina Kotek and Multnomah County Board Chair Jessica Vega Pederson pledged their support for the camps prior to their election, but Vega Pederson has since hedged when it comes to funding them.
The mayor intends to ban unsanctioned camping within a year and a half of setting up the sanctioned encampments, though that’s an ambitious timeline for an administration that has yet to secure funding to operate the camps or the land to place them on.
The mayor’s office says it’s not aware of any lawmaker who has taken up the proposal to put it in bill form.
“That’s part of my problem with having no government relations people [at the city]; they’re the ones who bring in a politician to close the deal,” Nosse says. “You would hope it’s a Portland-area person to do it.”
Change civil commitment standards:
The city is asking the Legislature and Gov. Kotek to adjust the rules surrounding involuntary commitments for citizens suffering from mental health crises who are deemed unable to consent, including “lowering the threshold for civil commitments to align with comparator states” and increasing the length of time people can be held against their will.
In his request, Mayor Wheeler wrote that the state “can’t wait” until an ongoing work group formed by the Oregon Judicial Department to reassess civil commitment laws finishes its work in 2025.
Civil commitments have been controversial for decades, bringing into focus issues around the rights of individuals unable to care for themselves. Wheeler first asked publicly that the state reevaluate its laws in a public forum last November as he spoke to Central Eastside business owners.
Portland lawmakers think it’s a long shot the city will get what it wants. That’s because it’s putting the horse before the cart: There’s nowhere to put people who have been civilly committed.
“That’s a really hard lift. Because until we understand if we can stand up more residential treatment facilities, we can’t deliver on that,” Nosse says. “We’ve got to do better if we’re going to increase civil commitments.”
Oregon State Hospital is full, and only a handful of patients there were civilly committed. Instead, the state requires private hospitals to take civilly committed patients, and those hospitals are arguing in an ongoing lawsuit that they’re not equipped to deal with such high-needs patients. It’s a political hot potato.
Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Portland) agrees the requested reform wouldn’t have the intended effect.
“There is a major disconnect between how law enforcement may evaluate a person and decide they are at imminent risk of harming themself or others and how medical care providers make that determination,” Dexter says. “This is critical, as a peace officer may retain someone against their will and bring them to a care facility only to have that person released due to the different thresholds the two sectors may have in making this judgment.”
What frustrates Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin (D-Corvallis) is that the political winds now blowing in Salem mean the proposal will take up more time during the session.
“I’m afraid the political discourse has shifted to casting all of these people as criminals who are disrupting our communities,” Gelser Blouin says. “We could civilly commit everybody, but there aren’t any services. Where would these people go?”
Send state troopers to Portland:
The mayor’s office and the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office are requesting that the state send Oregon State Police troopers to enforce traffic laws on Portland streets for the next year to quell traffic-related deaths and violent crimes like drive-by shootings.
The city’s request comes after a year of record-breaking homicides and 67 traffic-related fatalities, a 35-year high.
Traffic stops are a flashpoint for the debate around structural racism in police departments. Portland police stop a higher proportion of Black drivers than white ones, and despite a policy change championed by Mayor Wheeler and Police Chief Chuck Lovell two years ago to shrink that discrepancy, it’s instead slightly increased.
But concerns over racial disparities in traffic stops may come to a head with overflowing frustrations about crime and the appearance of a low police presence in Portland, and it’s unclear which one will win out.
Rep. Travis Nelson (D-Portland) says he approaches the proposal with “some skepticism.”
“I understand that citizens really want more when it comes to traffic enforcement,” Nelson says. “But I’d also expect that citations issued by those officers be tracked. Demographic data, locations they’re patrolling. Are they always patrolling North and Northeast Portland, or are they down in Northwest?”
Much of Gov. Kotek’s approval rating four years from now will hinge on Portland’s image—and bringing down the city’s perceived lawlessness and homelessness are the two areas voters will be keenly watching. Rep. Nosse thinks it’s a no brainer: “That’s a great idea. She should do that.”