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Portlanders will open their ballots this November and get their first taste of the ranked-choice voting systems (there are two) that they approved two years ago.
But the November ballots won’t ask them to greenlight another city government overhaul.
A coalition of progressive groups announced late Friday afternoon that they are delaying a campaign on a ballot initiative that would hand decisions on 2% of the city’s discretionary budget directly to Portland voters. The backers had been aiming for this November. They now hope to place a measure on the November 2026 ballot.
The coalition, Community Budgeting for All, didn’t give a reason for the delay. A spokesperson for the campaign didn’t immediately respond to questions.
But the backers said they had collected 26,000 signatures since late December, when the City Elections Office granted permission for signature gathering to begin. They would need to submit 40,748 valid signatures to the city by July 5. In other words, they would need to gather in one month nearly as many signatures as they’ve gathered in the past five.
Two of the groups backing the initiative, Next Up Oregon and East County Rising, were also champions of Measure 26-228, which overhauled Portland’s government with a city administrator, ranked-choice voting and geographic City Council districts.
Participatory budgeting, which asks voters to craft a sliver of the city budget by choosing between community-built projects, is already used in New York City, Boston and Seattle. In Portland, it would give voters a say in about $15 million of the city’s discretionary funds.