Rigged system may not reach intended results

Editorial

The first precept grasped by young humans may be a sense of injustice. A 2010 article by Yale psychology Professor Paul Bloom published in the New York Times, “The Moral Life of Babies,” described research in which babies as young as one year showing anger toward puppets impeding other puppets, even in one case smacking the “naughty” puppet on the head. And don’t get them started should an authority figure reward a naughty puppet. Hell hath no fury like an indignant infant.

Crying foul is in our DNA. I recall grade school classmates whining, “That’s not fair,” to which one of our teachers blithely retorted, “Life isn’t fair.”

While babies may come to a sense of injustice early, their notions about forming a more fair and productive society may lag a few decades. There’s a good reason our presidents must be 35 years—not 12 months—old.

The naïve crafters of Portland’s charter reform package adopted in 2022 played one note: Certain population groups cannot overcome past injustices on their own, so oppressive institutions and hierarchies must be overturned on their behalf. Those currently on top of the heap must be brought down, giving opportunity to the previously oppressed. They never mentioned “zero-sum game” while enacting that concept in total.

Like inverting a snow globe to put the snowflakes on top, such a reversal of poles in society would likewise create only temporary disruption until the old order settles in again.

The Charter Commission believed that giving citizens with limited resources and narrow voter appeal the chance to rule and even prevail over candidates supposedly born of privilege and therefore able to win over a majority of the electorate.

Turning our political system upside down will not naturally lead to a better world. Being among the “have nots” does not naturally endow one with the wisdom, skills or networks to solve complex problems. In some cases, underdogs may rise, perhaps parlaying special fortitude and empathy, but failure and suffering do not automatically create leaders.

So the Charter Commission naively conceived of a world in which people who “looked like us” would be in charge. They rigged the game, which apparently sounded righteous in their own circles, but they never discussed the social and political aspects of human nature, alternative political theories or how governments function.

The assumption was that those who had faced discrimination and institutional bias should be moved to the front of the line without having to develop a compelling theory about how local government can right wrongs and serve the common good. The art of compromise—finding common ground with people who disagree with you—was not what they were about.

I doubt the new council will match the vision of Charter Commission members, three of whom are themselves candidates for seats they custom-ordered. Some among the 12 new council members may be on the radical left, but most of the declared candidates so far are of other stripes.

In District 4, four candidates have a history with neighborhood associations, the sector the Charter Commission tried to mute by creating districts much broader than any neighborhood. One commission member explained that large districts would pit neighborhoods against each other, each concerned only with what is in their own backyard.

That critique will be put to a test in this year’s election. Are neighborhoods narrow self-interest groups, or are they people who believe in good government for all? Perhaps the neighborhood vote will be a minor factor, indistinguishable among broader themes. Politics is all about careful plans that vanish in the fog of elections, after all.

One immutable truth about our new local system of government is that lowering the bar for elective office will lower the standard for all aspirants, not merely those it was intended to boost. Fair is fair, as even the youngest among us would recognize.