Who's Your Daddy?

Portland redesigned its entire government in 2022 to junk its commissioner format and install a city administrator. The new 12-person city council has deadlocked frequently since it launched, evenly divided between socialists and progressive Democrats. The most recent skirmish was finally settled when the mayor cast his first tie-breaking vote, prompting a floor fight about whether he is anyone’s daddy. Total elapsed time from charter rewrite to paternity dispute: under 12 minutes.

By way of background, the increasingly toxic council spent five weeks arguing over two competing plans to restore some of the positions lost in a financially challenged budget just last month. The disputed difference was 0.12 percent of the city budget, a margin that in most households would be resolved by checking the couch cushions.

The socialist-led plan came to a vote and tied, 6-6. Under the charter, a tie summons Mayor Keith Wilson, who is not a member of the council, has never cast a vote there, and now had to decide whether to support either plan. The council president formally offered him up to two minutes to explain his historic first vote.

He uttered just eight words to explain his “no” vote, and the ordinance died 7-6. The surviving plan then passed 10-2, mostly because the losing side concluded that saving 30 workers beat saving none, which is less a compromise than a hostage negotiation with oneself.

It was at this point that Councilor Angelita Morillo observed that the council had been forced to call “the daddy of the city of Portland” to break its tie. Councilor Loretta Smith rose on a point of order. “Who are you calling Daddy?” Morillo clarified: “He’s your Daddy, not mine.” Smith responded that she already has a Daddy. The council president gaveled for order, which is the parliamentary equivalent of a parent counting to three.

Somewhere in the crosstalk, Smith also said the only two words of the entire exchange that qualify as an argument in favor of the mayor’s role. His authority is, she pointed out, “Charter given.” She is correct. The tiebreak is right there in Section 2-401. The voters ratified it. The Charter Commission—on which sat one of the city counselors on the losing side gave the mayor this power as insurance against deadlock.

The Portland Mercury filed its coverage of the first tiebreaking vote of the new government directly beside an invitation to name a baby porcupine, though the publication nominated its own entry: “Daddy.” Television stations aired the clip. Nobody aired the part where Councilor Sameer Kanal spent the morning reading the charter’s police-accountability protections into the record, or the part where the city’s own budget director acknowledged telling bureaus to underspend, which is understandable, because fiscal guidance rarely competes with a televised paternity dispute.

For Portlanders who prefer their city politics with footnotes: sociologist Max Weber drew a line between authority people obey because it’s written into law and authority they obey because one person is treated as a parent figure. In the habitually nasty climate this council creates, someone has to be the adult in the room.

Morillo’s metaphor framed the council as having a father figure. Smith’s rebuttal insisted the council merely has a rulebook.

Behaving in a dignified manner while conducting the people’s business is not a lost art, and the majority of this council has lived up to that standard. Smith, for her part, defended the decorum while racking up three points of order in five minutes. The council president, himself aligned with the socialist bunch, barely lifted a finger to maintain order.

The entire episode makes one wonder whether the 2022 charter overhaul really created a weak mayor—one who no longer oversees a bureau, casts regular policy votes, or has veto power. Indeed, by charging the mayor with the obligation to break a deadlock, Portland voters moved his chair to the head of the table. Every future 6-6 council knows whose desk holds the 13^th vote. The council will have earned its adulthood on the day a fight this consequential ends without him.

Wednesday was not that day. Instead, the city named a porcupine.