Poor by choice

This month's issue of Brainstorm Northwest includes a great essay by Dave Lister, a Portland small business owner, business advocate & writer. I usually find Lister to be a bit too irreverent in his writing, but this month's topic is spot-on in the analysis of the liberal state of Portland.

(The magazine, which takes a conservative slant on the issues facing the city, has a website, but does not place all its articles online. No link is available for Lister's article.)

Lister begins by talking about when the first President Bush visited a vessel repair shipyard in Portland, which offered good-paying jobs to hundreds of families through government contracts. Bush was met at the organized-labor shop by catcalls & boos; it may have been this visit that reportedly caused Bush to label Portland "Little Beirut." A year later, the contracts dried up and the shop closed.

Since then, Portland's reputation as Little Beirut has only become more well-earned. Protesters (sometimes violently) take over city streets for the protest du jour, then blame the police when they have to use non-lethal means to restore order. Seven Portlanders are convicted on terrorism charges (with help from the Patriot Act), including one who worked as an intern in the previous mayor's office. Reed College, as far left as you can go in Portland, invites Colorado professor Ward Churchill to speak. The city becomes the first in the nation to withdraw from the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), as newly-elected Mayor Tom Potter cites free speech concerns about the Patriot Act while simultaneously making it clear that any city workers who speak with the media will have a mighty uncomfortable life. The city commissioner who oversaw the loss of millions of dollars through the city's water bureau is suddenly the point man in the city's efforts to buy Portland General Electric from Enron. The council, while cutting nearly $10 million from the budget, decides to finance political campaigns with public money (which is ironic, considering Potter refused to accept large donations during the campaign, while opponent Jim Francesconi raised a million dollars in a losing effort).

And none of this even touches the city's approaching-legendary antipathy (at best) toward business growth. Lister writes, "The policy decisions of the last 12 years have resulted in diminishing school enrollment as families flee to the suburbs, declining business tax revenue as all manner of businesses jump the county line, and one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation."

It is events like these, Lister notes, "that has the rest of the nation asking, 'What are they smoking out there?' "

Lister answers the question by recalling the words of Frank Ivancie, who served in the early '80s as the only pseudo-conservative Portland mayor of the last 35 years:

Why would the city's leaders take a harder turn to the left, when a turn to the right is so clearly indicated? The answer to this question can be found by attending City Council sessions and observing the crowd.

Former Mayor Frank Ivancie coined a phrase to describe a certain segment of Portland's population. The phrase was "poor by choice." Portland replete with people who are poor by choice. The poor by choice work part time in the secondhand boutiques, take classes now and then at PSU, and talk about the revolution while they sip coffee in the peoples' cooperative cafes. The poor by choice post lofty thoughts on anarchist weblogs, turn out in droves to protest any social injustice, and blow red lights on their bicycles.

And the poor by choice attend Portland City Council sessions . . . big time.

Last month I went to hear Commissioner [Randy] Leonard's proposal to pull out of the JTTF. The poor by choice had packed the chamber. It was so packed that I had to take a seat in the balcony. As I sat silently in the middle of a crowd of poor by choice, who vigorously waved their hands whenever anyone spoke ill of the FBI, the Bush Administration or the Patriot Act, I imagined myself looking out from the commissioners' dias. And then I understood. From the commissioners' perspective the people before them were the constituency. The hard working, taxpaying folks weren't there. The parents of school children weren't there. The business owners weren't there. Anyone not there was unseen, and not part of the constituency.

In the past, Portland's job creators have participated in the political process by funding the campaigns of the candidates who share their views on what's needed for the city's economic health. When the council adopts "clean money" campaign financing that participation will end. The only way they will be heard then is to go downtown and mix it up with the poor by choice.

The question is, will they? Somehow, I don't think so. I think they will vote with their feet. And walk away.

When businesses like Columbia Sportswear move to the suburbs because they couldn't get anyone to listen to their concerns in the city, when Portland School District attendance has dropped by more than 40 percent in the last 40 years, and when a slew of smaller companies are quietly dropping out of the city because of the impact on their bottom line, one thing is clear: Lister's belief that people will vote with their feet is not just conjecture. They already are.