Trade-in time

One of the worst clichés in journalism is to say that somebody got an early Christmas present, but it's hard to resist using that as the lead for the news that Jessica "Chevy" Vega Pederson has announced that she's not running for re-election as the chair of the Multnomah County commission. County residents, say thank you to Santa.

The Vega has been about a bad at governing as you could imagine. She makes predecessors like Diane Linn and Deborah Kafoury look like Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill. Stubborn as a donkey, and tyrannical with the commission agenda, JVP has also been a veritable font of bad policy ideas, and a staunch proponent of the view that the solution to every problem is higher taxes.

For years I've thought that the junking of the Chevy would be cause for great celebration, but now here I am having trouble clicking my heels together. Next year, the county will switch to a "rank choice" election, with no primary and just a sudden-death shootout in November. Voters won't really get to focus on the differences between the best candidates; instead they will waste most of their time weeding out the crazies. I'm not optimistic that a grownup will be elected to replace the soon-to-be departed.

In addition to the chair, we'll be voting on one commissioner, from District 2, which encompasses north and inner northeast Portland. Last time that district voted, we got Shannon Singleton, one of several blisters on the heel of progress in the county, and it's not likely she'll be dethroned by anyone better. Singleton may run for county chair herself, and if she wins, it will almost certainly preclude the county making any real progress with its non-stop disasters of street squatting and drug addiction for another four years. 

One can only hope that former commissioner Sharon Meieran will run again for chair. In 2022, she challenged Vega and almost won. Meieran, a former emergency room doctor and before that a lawyer, closed a huge vote-total gap between the primary and the general election, but didn't quite get over the top. If the campaign had gone another two weeks, I'm convinced she would have won. 

As a county commissioner, Meieran frequently butted heads with Pederson, and polling has indicated that the public liked Meieran's positions far more than they did those of the feckless county chair. In terms of intellect, discipline, pragmatism, and people skills, there is really no comparison between the two.

Now that Vega's time is limited, something to watch out for is the crazy way that vacancies are filled in Multnomah County elective offices. (See page 3 here.) In some cases a departing commissioner  – and I think this also applies to Chair Jessica – gets to name their interim successor, subject to rubber-stanp approval by the rest of the board. The last time a vacancy happened, a guy drew a county paycheck of $12,000 a month for nearly a year while still being paid something like $20,000 a month as CEO of a local nonprofit. And even leaving aside the double-dipping potential, if Vega were to quit early and designate a successor, that person could run for chair next year under a "retain me" banner, with at least a mild version of the advantages of incumbency.

The county is badly in need of a change in direction. Let's hope that 2026 is the year we finally get it.