Technically, Portland City Council finally adjourned a meeting that began January 7 on January 14, after it elected Jamie Dunphy to serve as its president for 2026. Dunphy’s election came after some 13 hours of deliberation over three days stretched across a grueling week for Portland leaders and community members.

City Council remained in a 6-6 tie through multiple meetings leading into Wednesday’s vote. A caucus of six progressive members didn’t budge on their steadfast support for Sameer Kanal until late Wednesday, when Kanal took himself out of the running and nominated Dunphy.

Dunphy represents District 1, which covers the city east of 82nd Avenue. The young government structure is intended to create a more representative government, including a broader geographic area that many argue has not been represented in local government as much as neighborhoods in the central city.

Before the vote, Dunphy was reluctant to accept the position, but said if elected he would use the role to distribute the power of the presidency rather than consolidate it.

“If the only way out of an entrenched 6-6 stalemate is for me to step into this role, then I'm willing, not happy, but willing to do this in service of this institution,” Dunphy said. “I do believe deeply in this new form of government, in ranked-choice voting in multi-member representative districts.”

The stalemate exemplified some of the pitfalls of the new charter and the Council structure. With 12 members, tie votes are inevitable. Currently, the Council has no mechanism to break a tie under city rules, although the mayor has the power in a tie for legislative actions. Dunphy won in a 9-3 vote.

City Attorney Robert Taylor issued a memo January 2, 2025—when the council had reached a deadlock in its first presidential election—saying it was the role of the council alone to determine its president.

“[T]he election of the President and Vice President appears to be an internal organizational task assigned by the Charter itself solely to the Council under Sec. 2-110,” Taylor wrote.

Councilors raised various ideas for how to change the rules over the course of their debate, including an idea from Kanal and now-Vice President Olivia Clark to use ranked-choice voting for the election. Councilor Loretta Smith went so far as to challenge the city attorney’s legal opinion. She suggested councilors use their office budgets to sue the city and seek a judge’s ruling to determine whether or not a tie can be broken by the mayor during a vote for council president.

“We're deadlocked right now,” Smith said. “And unless we do something, we have to have an outside party tell us and tell us what is it, in the charter.”

But the Council eventually elected Dunphy, and moved quickly to elect Clark as vice president with 11 votes. Smith voted no.

The vote came after a tense week at City Hall. The first day of voting, January 7, ran for some seven hours before the meeting was adjourned without a decision. The meeting carried into the next day, but was disrupted shortly after it began when US Border Patrol agents shot two people in East Portland. The meeting recessed and picked up again January 14.

The process remained heated throughout the week, reaching a fever pitch as the final day began. The Mercury published a story on January 13 showing that a local developer and some political activists sent offensive text messages about progressive city councilors of color during the first meeting. The messages laid bare much of the ongoing discussion around race and entrenched power in City Hall in a time when local government is battling for broader representation of Portlanders.

The topic of race appears unavoidable in the city’s young form of government, and pointed discussions appear poised to continue in a tense political environment. Councilors mentioned the Mercury’s reporting multiple times throughout the day, including then-Council President Elana Pritle-Guiney, who made an extended comment before the official meeting began.

“Before we begin conversations about leadership for this next year, I need to address some of the rhetoric that we saw on display about my colleagues of color that was published in the Portland Mercury yesterday,” Pirtle-Guiney said. “Because this needs to be a place where everybody is respected. It was pretty horrific. It was racist, it was sexist, it was homophobic. Disagreement over issues, disagreement over priorities and process are a part of this work, but name calling isn't and racist, sexist and homophobic name calling is absolutely unacceptable. It has no place in these chambers, and it has no place in Portland. I hope that's something that we can all agree on. And when I say all I do mean everybody in this room, not just the folks who are up here on this dais.”

The reporting came up again toward the end of Wednesday afternoon’s meeting, when Councilor Dan Ryan from the dais accused the Mercury of not giving him sufficient context to provide a statement in response to the messages. Read the full story here.