Portland, Oregon City Council

The Portland City Council, (officially the Portland City Commission), is the legislative body of the City of Portland in Oregon and forms part of the Government of the city.

Portland runs on a commission form of government, the largest city in the United States to do so. The council is composed of five members, referred to as Commissioners, which includes the Mayor, each elected at-large for a term of four years. One of the Commissioners elected to be the ceremonial President of the Council. There are no term-limits for Commissioners and Commissioners are all officially nonpartisan.

Commissioners are each assigned to run and oversee various city Bureaus (eg. Police, Fire, Environmental Services, Water). These assignments are occasionally switched around with the exception of the Police Bureau of which the Mayor is always Commissioner based on tradition.

The City Council convenes on Wednesday mornings and Wednesday afternoons in the council chamber on the second floor of Portland City Hall, and meetings are open to the public.

In 2022, Portland voters approved a ballot measure that amends the City Charter and changes Portland's form of government. This will go into effect on January 1, 2025. Under the new form of government, approved by voters in 2022, Portland will operate under a unique system. The mayor will no longer be a part of the city council, and instead of five at-large positions, the council will have twelve districted seats. Three councilmembers will each represent one of four districts, each with approximately 160,000 residents. Special elections will also no longer be used to fill vacancies in the council. The elections will continue to be officially nonpartisan. The first election for this new form of government will take place on November 5, 2024.

Districts
Beginning in 2024, the council will be districted as follows:

History
The Portland Charter was the subject of much debate circa 1911–1912. Rival charters were drafted by four different groups. One of these proposed charters was unusual in that it would have used Bucklin voting to elect the mayor and implemented interactive representation of the people through the commissioner system; each commissioner's vote would have been weighted according to the number of votes he received in the election. eventually, the city council submitted an entirely different charter to the people, which was accepted. The city commission government form then came into use in 1913, with H. Russell Albee being the first mayor under the new system.

2022 Charter Reform
Ballot Measure 26-228 in the November 2022 election was an amendment to the city charter that moved the city away from a commission system of government. It removes the five-person board that includes the mayor to a twelve-person board plus a separate mayor. The new city councilors will be elected using proportional multi-winner ranked-choice voting, with three members being elected each from four districts, instead of the standard first-past-the-post method. It also removes responsibility for direct management of city bureaus from commissioners to a city manager overseen by the mayor and confirmed by the council. Previous attempts to reform the city charter had been defeated seven times since 1913, including as recently as 2007. Portland is set to become the most-populated city to adopt proportional ranked-choice voting to elect city council members.

The first city council elections under the new districts will occur in 2024. In preparation for transitioning management of city bureaus to a city manager, Mayor Ted Wheeler announced he would group city bureaus into five related service areas.