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Good morning, Portland! What a week. In case you haven’t heard, the fascist took a colossal beating at the polls earlier this week. While the darkness sets in thanks to the changing of the clocks, there are some bright spots poking through this era of American politics. This weekend, expect rain, but be prepared for anything. My app hasn’t been correct in months. Good luck!
Let’s get to the news 📰
IN LOCAL NEWS:
The Multnomah County Elections Office is down to its last vote counts, including last-minute arrivals and postmarked ballots. The election isn’t officially over until the county certifies it on November 30, but some trends are coming clear. For some candidates, the math ain’t mathing. On Thursday night, Multnomah County chair candidate and seasoned political actor Julia Brim-Edwards conceded the race via email, saying she ran for county chair to “disrupt the status quo.”
“While I won’t be leading as county chair, I intend to keep fighting for this community and driving the changes that need to happen,” Brim-Edwards said.
Shannon Singleton, who is leading by 14 percentage points in the race for chair, declared victory in a press release the same evening.
“I heard loud and clear the work that needs to get done to improve services for people experiencing homelessness, behavioral health challenges, or struggling with the affordability crisis,” Singleton said. “I am beginning the work now to start on the first of the year in a full sprint.”
Other local candidates are also conceding their races as the vote tallies sharpen. Read the latest from the Mercury‘s Election Strike Force.
And then Multnomah County proved it can walk and chew gum at the same time:
City workers are set to go on strike next Monday, barring an 11th hour miracle. The City of Portland Professional Workers Union, which represents 800 city employees, authorized a strike with 93 percent voting in favor, and notified the city last week. A strike could impact a host of city services, payroll for thousands of city employees, and 911 operations if a malfunction happens. These are the workers who resolve issues in all of the city’s bureaus, including emergency response. To be clear, you can still call 911 in case of an emergency. But “the glue that holds the city together,” as CPPW members call themselves, won’t be around to fix any issues that may arise. Workers are planning an 8 am picket at City Hall Monday, so long as a last-minute bargaining session Sunday doesn’t yield an agreement. Read the full story here.
A City Council committee voted 11-0 Thursday to refer an ordinance to the full Council that would add a universal human rights screen to the city’s investment portfolio. The policy seeks to ensure the city does not invest in companies that facilitate a host of atrocities internationally and in the United States, including genocide, slavery, torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity, or other labor, and environmental impacts. That would also include immigration and customs enforcement atrocities in the United States. Discussion of the policy was fraught with tension last month, with three councilors making claims that the councilors who brought the language forward had a secret, antisemitic aim, despite the policy naming no specific country or group of people. Some local human rights advocates, including Jewish elders, rejected that characterization, describing the claims as “weaponized charges of antisemitism” that could ultimately make Jewish people less safe. One month later—and ostensibly because election barbs were no longer necessary—the policy passed to a full Council discussion at a later date. Read up on the backstory here before the discussion ramps up again.
IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:
You really don’t ever have to hand it to Gavin Newsom, the transphobic and anti-homeless corporate governor of California. But someone on Newsom’s team and persistent advocates must have somehow convinced him to err on the side of good in a big way Thursday when he commuted the death sentences of all 548 people on the state’s death row. That’s nearly a quarter of those facing execution in the nation. Newsom said he believes that “state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us.”
Advocates are celebrating the move, including in Oregon, where a moratorium has been in place since 2011. Bobbin Singh, executive director of the Oregon Justice Resource Center, offered full support for California’s “momentous decision.”
“Opposing capital punishment means standing against a profound injustice: a racist system that has sentenced innocent people to death, operates arbitrarily and with error, and tortures individuals,” Singh said. “The death penalty is a moral outrage, demanding an obscene human and financial cost while failing to deliver justice. Californians—and Oregonians—are better off without it.”
Ok, Newsom. Good job. You can have this one.
New dumpster just dropped:
Days after the election, Democrats on the US House Judiciary are back to doing what they do best: delivering lead balloons to ecstatic kids’ birthday parties. (It seems the people have enough footage to know what ICE is up to, and to know exactly what elected officials must do about it. HINT: it isn’t body cameras.)
The midterm elections are still proving to be quite the boon for Democrats, with two US Senate races offering a chance to expand their majority by two more seats. In Mississippi, Scott Colom is leading Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith by roughly 1,800 votes; he would be the first Black senator from the state since the Reconstruction Era and the first Democrat since 1982. In Alaska, Democrat Mary Petola is leading her opponent by just over 600 votes with 75,000 ballots left to be counted. If those leads hold, the “blue wave”—or “blue tsunami,” as the face-palmingly immortal cliché goes—would leave the Dems with a 56-44 Senate majority in 2027. The people, it turns out, do not like the fascism. Whether the Dems will exert something close to what the people are asking for remains to be seen.
Sliding into the wet weekend like:
