Are the socialists on the Portland City Council disqualified?
The latest musings from the caustic but thought-provoking far-right Portland blogger Max Steele have got me brooding. Are the four avowed socialists on the Portland City Council violating the city charter by entering into private contracts with the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America?
It's a stretch, perhaps, but not a long one. The charter says:
No official appointed or elected to elective office shall, during the official’s term of service, hold any other office or position of profit, or pursue any other business or vocation, or serve on or under any committee of any political party.
If the DSA is a "political party," and it sure behaves like one, then anyone who serves on or under any committee of the DSA is not legally eligible to sit on the council.
Now, the local DSA chapter apparently does have something called a "Socialists in Office Committee," and according to evidence dug up by Steele, some or all of the four socialistas currently on the Portland council – Green, Morillo, Koyama Lane, and Kanal – have signed agreements with that committee. (The Marxists are big on getting politicians' promises in writing.) If that isn't serving "under" the committee, it's certainly serving "under contract with" the committee.
And just to be sure you consider how heavy the hand of the DSA is with these councilors, take a look at this page containing the organization's candidate recruitment pitch. There we read:
If we award you our endorsement, in turn, you take on your own fairly substantial commitment to Portland DSA. Regardless of the ballot line you run on, DSA is your party. You should expect to serve as an “organizer-in-chief” and have a priority relationship with us, including regular meetings with Portland DSA representatives, coordinating your work in office with our organizing and legislative priorities, identifying your support needs in office and seeking ways we can meet them, and using your pulpit to agitate, movement-build, and recruit to DSA around widely and deeply felt issues.
Hmmmm, "DSA is your party." And they have a committee with which you have signed a secret agreement affecting, or even governing, your conduct in office. Is that to "serve on or under any committee of any political party"? Maybe an opinion from the city attorney or state attorney general would be in order.
Gad-zooks, thanks for that Professor BoJack!
ReplyDeleteI'll also note about the money-side of it - there's definitely campaign money changing hands, but the national DSA contributes here as an "unregistered committee" (with an office that's basically on Wall St., WTF is that about). Local contributions aren't affiliated with a committee either, they're posted like any individual contribution.
I'm quite aware that our state's campaign finance system is a totally corrupted free-for-all, but you'd think the Democrats would want to thwart what would have once been their-own contributions from going to DSA candidates. Perhaps pushing DSA to be an official Party would cut even-more into Democrats' fundraising-??
(And *yes* to an investigation/opinion before this entire sh!t-show goes any farther.)
I’ve mentioned before, that I’m old enough to remember when the only avowed communists in the Portland area were on the Reed College staff. I’ve been naive about the movement making a transition from an academic setting to an elected office. It’ll eventually fail. But, I’ll be to old the witness that.
ReplyDeleteThe Democratic Socialists does not show up as a party, not a financial contributor in OrStar, the Sec of State's portal. I wonder if there is a violation of law here?
DeleteThe new city charter continued the term "non-partisan" in council elections. DSA is clearly in violation of that. Think anyoone will sue them?
ReplyDeleteThe DSA is a fake party to keep the sheeple aligned to the Democratic party. This is sort of like the Tea Party pretending to be an alternative to the Republicans. No third parties are allowed in our Oligarch run country.
ReplyDelete