BLOGTOWN

Atlas Marshall, who goes by the drag name Nae Nae Dominatrix. COURTESY OF ATLAS MARSHALL

Marshall, who goes by the stage name Nae Nae Dominatrix when she performs at drag shows, was at some food carts on SW Ankeny around 2 am Thursday with her partner, Seth Johnstone, and several of their friends. Marshall and one of those friends approached a group of people who were also near the food carts, and asked if the friend could have a cigarette.

One man in the group, whom Marshall said “seemed very intoxicated,” insulted the appearance of Marshall’s friend. Marshall, sensing they should leave, said “Let’s just go,” to her friend. That was when the man noticed Marshall and started verbally harassing her.

“He called me a faggot in a wig,” Marshall said. “He turned all his aggression and anger towards me, and continued to call me a faggot and this and that. And I was just like, ‘Dude, fuck off.’ And he continued to get closer to me, and came up at me with his fists up, telling me to shut up.”

PPB Chief Danielle Outlaw speaks at Thursday's press conference. BLAIR STENVICK

On Thursday, Outlaw and Mayor Ted Wheeler announced that an investigation led by the Independent Police Review, a branch of the city auditor’s office, had cleared Lieutenant Jeff Niiya of any wrongdoing. Niiya was under investigation after text messages between him and Gibson—which were obtained by the Mercury and Willamette Week through public records requests and published in February—raised the question of if Niiya had been overly friendly with or protective toward Gibson and his fellow Patriot Prayer members.

After announcing IPR’s findings, the city released a trove of documents used in the investigation, including a transcript of an interview between Niiya and IPR investigator Andrea Damewood. (Full disclosure: Damewood writes food and drink reviews for the Mercury, but does not have any involvement with our news reporting.)

Their conversation is wide-ranging, and at one point they discuss the nature of police liaison work. Niiya makes the point that it’s common for police liaisons to communicate with people who could potentially pose a danger to officer or public safety, and also asks that IPR look “for improvements in the process” of both how PPB’s liaisons are trained and how they do their jobs. Niiya then says this:

“What has happened with me and how can we do better because when the chief of police knows—our current chief of police is someone else that knew about my text messages. There's text messages that you have between me and the chief and Joey, so when the highest level of people in this organization are aware of things, they need—they need to understand that there is a chain that everyone's held accountable and that we need to do better around this.”

LUHUANFENG / GETTY IMAGES & MERCURY STAFF

Carmen Rubio never imagined running for public office.

“I wasn’t sure I would have access in the same way that traditional candidates have access,” says Rubio, the executive director of the Portland nonprofit Latino Network. She says she was deterred by Portland voters’ history of electing well-financed candidates—mostly white men—as city commissioners.

But then Portland approved a new public campaign financing program: Open and Accountable Elections (OAE), a system built to give all politically minded Portlanders a fair shot at winning a local election.

To qualify for OAE, candidates for city council must first collect contributions from 250 Portlanders, each of whom has donated less than $250 to the candidate’s campaign. (The number of contributions doubles to 500 if the candidate is running for mayor.) At that point, the city will match all previous and future campaign donations up to $50 at a six-to-one rate, using money from the city’s general fund. That means if a candidate collects 500 contributions of $25, the city will turn their $12,500 total into $75,000. (The city will only match the first donation an individual makes to a candidate.) Candidates participating in the May 2020 primary election will be the first to be allowed to use OAE.

The potential financing boost provided by OAE was enough to change Rubio’s mind about running: In early July, she became the first candidate to announce her run for city council, crediting OAE as a motivating factor. She’s one of several candidates hoping to replace outgoing Commissioner Amanda Fritz, who brought the idea of OAE to City Council in 2016.

“Open and Accountable Elections allows me to be competitive,” says Rubio. “And it puts voters—not donors—squarely in the center of my campaign.”

Rubio is one of five candidates who have already registered to participate in OAE—and more have signaled their intent. Registering isn’t a guarantee that an individual will actually raise enough money to qualify for OAE, but it’s given the city an idea of what kind of participation to expect.

For OAE staff, candidates’ early engagement with the program is a positive sign, indicating that Portlanders want a more equitable way to run for office. But with eight months until Election Day, they also worry the program may be a victim of its own success. If more than two or three candidates participate, OAE’s small budget might bottom out—forcing the city to renege on its financial promises to candidates. While City Council has an opportunity to bulk up the OAE budget this fall, it’s still not clear if enough commissioners believe the program is worth investing in.

For people who support local campaign finance reform, the stakes are high.

“I don’t want to see this fail,” says Commissioner Nick Fish. “It could be the last chance we have to have publicly financed elections.”