What’s the Deal with Oregon’s County Commissioners?
The year is 2020. The federal government is left in shambles amidst a pandemic and major civil rights movement, while the small city of Portland, Oregon has transformed into a hotspot for activists and the Black Lives Matter movement. Many Oregonians are seeking help from their governor, the Portland mayor, and congressional members, but one elected position is seemingly missing from those responsive: county commissioners.
County commissioners are one of the most influential elected officials, as they effectively are responsible for governing their entire county. In Florida, a commissioner opposed mask regulations, leading to a state-wide movement against facial coverings. And right here in Oregon, commissioners are responsible for overseeing all of the state’s reopening guidelines, as well as requesting advanced phasing.
In my next installment of analyzing Oregon’s local government, I turned my data lens onto county commissioners.
Across Oregon’s 36 counties, there are 118 commissioners — roughly 3 for each county. 78 of these officeholders are male, while the other 40 are female. Already, this is a huge gender disparity, one that was not quite evident in the school board members. While school boards are roughly equal in its gender distribution, over 66% of commissioners are male, which is a glaring majority. And with only, at most, five commissioners on a council, many of these counties have only male officeholders. The only county with exclusively female commissioners is Multnomah, the county that contains most of Portland.
When looking at the party breakdown of these positions, it is not surprising that the same trends we witnessed for school board members are evident in the county commissioner breakdowns.
The county commissioners are either registered Independents, Non-Affiliates, Democrat, or Republican, a less diverse pool of affiliations than the school board members. The breakdown within these parties are similar to what we noticed with the other elected officials. The Republican and Democratic parties are predominately men and women, respectively.
However, Oregon is a relatively diverse political microcosm. Oregon voters are registered for several parties, and most of these are relatively equally men and women. It is also important to note that while Oregon offers a non-binary gender identification on voter registration, all commissioners are either cisgendered men or women. For the purpose of analytical comparison, we used the male or female registration identifications in these visualizations.
Within these individual counties, once again this discrepancy is not reflected. All of Oregon’s counties are split almost evenly between male and female votes, with most slightly more populated with female voters. Gilliam county is the one exception, with 52% of voters being male. Interestingly, all of Gilliam’s commissioners are female.
Male Commissioners
Of the 78 male commissioners, 59 (76%) are registered Republicans. 13 (17%) are Democrats, 5 (6%) are Non-Affiliated, and 1 is a member of the Independent party. Many of the male commissioners are elected in more rural counties in Eastern or Southern Oregon, where most voters are also Republican. This political party breakdown is somewhat reflected in the counties where these commissioners hail from, another trend we saw with school board members.
Female Commissioners
While there are significantly fewer female commissioners than male, the political representation is almost flipped. 27 of the 40 female commissioners are registered Democrats (67.5%), while only 11 are Republicans (27.5%). These commissioners are elected in more urban counties, surrounding major metropolitan cities like Portland or Eugene, where voters are also predominately liberal.
Overall, the affiliations of Oregon’s commissioners are not reflective of the state as a whole.
The commissioners are often more conservative and male than the rest of the state. While these political affiliations echo the county’s political breakdowns, they are disproportionate to the rest of the state.
Most fascinating is the quantity of Non-Affiliated voters compared to the county commissioners. No affiliation is the second most popular affiliation for Oregon voters, with approximately 965,805 voters registered (or 34% of voters). For many political hopefuls, this is the group to appeal to — whoever wins the non-affiliates wins the race. These metrics are no where to be found in the commissioner affiliations, where only 6 officeholders are registered Non-Affiliates. The Non-Affiliated populace drops from 34% dominance to a dismal 5.1%. Why aren’t Non-Affiliates running for county commissioner?
Many people turn to their state legislatures for guidance and assistance when tackling an economic or social issue. In Oregon, their influence is minimal when compared to county commissioners. The state legislature meets for one year-long session, but then breaks for a mini-session the next year; county commissioners, on the other hand, typically have five day work weeks and usually hold weekly public meetings. In many counties, the commissioners are paid double or triple than the legislators. In Lane County, for example, state legislatures make around $21,000 while commissioners make $80,000.
Benton County describes their commissioners as “executives, legislators and as a quasi-judicial panel” that is not separated by state and federal power. Many parts of Oregon is considered unincorporated land without a city council or mayor — these roles are fulfilled by the county commissioners. For these Oregonians, their first line of local government is county government, which has a huge impact for their political representations.
Local government is important to ensure that local voices are reflected and valued in politics. While Oregon may seem like a liberal state, things change when we interrogate its local governments. Oregon’s political breakdown is similar to the rest of the United States; the larger cities are mostly liberal, while the rural areas are more conservative. Women are more likely to be elected in metropolitan counties, while men hold many of the positions in the unincorporated areas. This phenomenon is not exclusively Oregonian; it is experienced by many states across the country.
At one point in the chain of government, the affiliations shift. Oregon becomes less of a politically diverse and male-dominated state, to a liberal majority with an abundance of female politicians. That shift was not in school boards or county commissioners, but maybe we can find it in district attorneys. Stay tuned to next week, where we conduct another data-based analysis of Oregon’s DAs.
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