Tyranny of the minority gets complicated

Editorial Opinion

Charter reform was supposed to make city elections free and clean, but in the first test of the system, all-new ways to game the system have emerged.

The promise was that ranked-choice voting would turn rival candidates into teammates. Negative campaigning would go and cooperation would be in.

Even political insiders thought contenders could all be friends.

Dean Nielsen of CN4 Partners said ranked-choice voting coupled with multiwinner districts could lead to slates of candidates helping each other to victory.

“With multiple winners, is your opponent really a competitor, or a potential colleague?"

Kari Chisholm of Swift Public Affairs suggested, "In a ranked-choice context, your closest ideological neighbor can actually be an ally because you want their voters to pick you as their second choice.”

And Jake Weigler of Praxis Political said, "My advice to every candidate is that you can swap donors; they can give to you as well as another candidate. With multiple winners, we now have ways to create mutual advantages that are quite rare in campaign life."

The notable consultants quoted above shared their wisdom on the main campaign clearinghouse, Rosecityreform.org, in May.

Is it any wonder that many candidates applied that thinking and made reciprocal donations to help each other to unlock public campaign assistance?

At least four City Council candidates are being investigated by the Oregon Department of Justice for colluding to qualify for matching funds. Willamette Week reported that 10 others also participated in such swaps.

In their defense, no one seemed secretive about what they were doing. They shared emails and were overheard speaking openly at public events. This is the first run for office for almost all of the 100-plus council candidates, and they were not warned of this pitfall at campaign workshops held by the city.

Two national voting reform organizations that underwrote the initiative passed by city voters in 2022 reasoned that lowering barriers to elective office would help underserved population groups. No longer would it be necessary to raise huge campaign chests, gain the support of powerful special interests or appeal to a broad spectrum of the electorate. No need to capture a majority of voters; 25 percent is good enough in this system.

Candidates who could not hope to win over most of the voters could gain office by appealing to each other, forming clubby cabals, sharing the wealth and ultimately perhaps even the power. In a process in which each voter can cast six votes, there would be enough go around.

What’s so wrong with politicians becoming friends?

Their first duty should be to their constituents. Candidates should be fighting for our interests, not for those in this expanding class of would-be politicians.

It is in legislators’ interests to expand their powers, increase their compensation, loosen ethics standards and make rules favoring incumbency. If a body is made up of allies who do not question another’s motives, it becomes much easier to pass such laws and to do so without dissent or discussion.

The donation-swapping scheme drained public campaign funds that were not legitimately earned, defrauding taxpayers. Even naïve office seekers should have sensed that the ploy did not pass the smell test.

But the real culprits may have been the smart people in well-funded national campaign reform organizations that spoon-fed the Portland Charter Commission this uniquely concocted system of ranked-choice voting and multiwinner districts. Portland’s extremely generous 9:1 campaign matching funds program also put the cheese on the trap.

The core philosophy behind these machinations on our electoral system is the bigger issue our city must address. If we no longer believe that majority rule works—or at least can be made to work—we will fall for other touted ideas of the day.

To address fears of the majority having too much power, the upper hand will be granted to those speaking for a minority of voters. There’s a term for that, but somehow in our rush to reform our electoral system, no one spoke of tyranny of the minority.