The Portland City Council on Wednesday failed to elect a council president for 2026, after eight hours of at times heated discussion and nine rounds of voting.
The council threw in the towel at 5 pm Wednesday and will resume deliberations and a tenth vote on Thursday. The race for the president’s role, as it stood on Wednesday evening, is between current Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney and Councilor Sameer Kanal.
Over the course of eight hours, the council took nine votes. Each one tied at 6-6, with all six members of the progressive caucus voting as a bloc for their fellow Peacock, Kanal, and the remaining six councilors voting as a bloc for Pirtle-Guiney, who’s regarded as more of a centrist.
As the day dragged on, the divide between the Peacock caucus and the non-Peacocks on council became increasingly sour, personal and heated.
Discussion after each round of voting spanned nearly every topic imaginable. For the first few rounds of voting, discussion was cordial, with councilors asking the two candidates to discuss their vision for the council and their leadership style.
Peacock councilors appeared united on a number of points throughout the day: that new council leadership is important so that leadership culture and norms don’t become too entrenched; that Kanal could develop consistent procedure because he’s a process wonk; and that Kanal would challenge Mayor Keith Wilson and the administration in a more full-throated way than Pirtle-Guiney ever had. Their primary allegation throughout the eight-hour meeting was that Pirtle-Guiney uses her powers unequally by boxing out Peacock councilors and slow-rolling their policy proposals. (Pirtle-Guiney denies this.)
Meanwhile, more centrist councilors took aim at Peacock, characterizing it as a private club that operates with a herd mentality, and charging that a Peacock councilor wouldn’t wield the president’s gavel neutrally.
Councilor Steve Novick during the morning hours led the criticisms against Peacock.
“I’m deeply uncomfortable with the idea of electing a member of the Peacock group to the presidency,” Novick said. “It’s not a matter of ideology. I’m worried that a member of a close-knit group will certainly be subject to the perception of unfairness, if not the reality.”
He said he feared that a Peacock president would “feel peer pressure to act in a leadership role the way that group wants them to act.” (Councilor Olivia Clark, for her part, said that electing someone who is under active investigation by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission makes her uneasy.)
Councilor Candace Avalos, who ran for council president in 2025 against Pirtle-Guiney but lost, made the initial argument against her, alleging Pirtle-Guiney had exercised her presidential powers unevenly. She also implied that Pirtle-Guiney had fostered an environment of fear, saying it was important that the president foster an environment of “psychological safety.”
“Councilors should be able to raise questions without fear,” Avalos said.
Prior to a 20-minute recess mid-morning, Koyama Lane took her aim at Pirtle-Guiney. (She would continue to sporadically criticize the president throughout the day.) The two have had a contentious relationship during the council’s first year. She described how on Tuesday night, she asked Pirtle-Guiney about whether it was more appropriate for the vice president to preside over the meeting, seeing as Pirtle-Guiney was open about running for the position again. She said that after hedging and delays by Pirtle-Guiney, the president told her that she would maintain the gavel.
“I find that level of control concerning,” Koyama Lane said. “The emphasis placed on presiding is disproportionate and it reflects a pattern I’ve experienced throughout this year about power sharing.”
Following the brief recess following the first vote, the council reconvened.
The second vote resulted in another 6-6 tie, as did the third, fourth and fifth votes. (A midday lunch break featured Green warming up a condensed can of spicy chicken noodle Campbell’s soup and Zimmerman eating homemade enchiladas drenched in sour cream. At that point, spirits remained somewhat high and senses of humor were intact.)
As the morning turned into afternoon and subsequent tie votes were cast, Peacock councilors took specific aim at what they said was Pirtle-Guiney’s resistance to share decision-making with Koyama Lane.
“You’ve framed the bureaucratic process of agenda-setting as inherently boring and unsexy, as a way to hide how absolutely critical that meeting is,” Morillo said. “The meeting where we decide the agenda items…that’s actually a critical power point.” Avalos said she had routinely felt “disempowered” by Pirtle-Guiney.
Pirtle-Guiney defended her leadership, saying she had tried her best to spread the many administrative tasks between her and the the vice president so that they could accomplish more, and that she had tried to empower committee chairs.
The council into the fifth and sixth votes remained deadlocked.
After the sixth vote, the tenor of the conversation turned to more personal and heated matters; the topic of race was front and center.
The discussion about race emerged after Zimmerman took aim at Kanal following the sixth tied vote. He said a recent “outburst” by Kanal after a council meeting “scared” him and worried him about Kanal’s temperament. And, he alleged Kanal had one of the worst relationships with the executive and administrative branches of any councilor.
“For much of today, this has been about small problems with Councilor Pirtle-Guiney,” Zimmerman said. “But I still believe to my core that she has the temperament to deliver and to represent this council in a way that places the council and the public first over her own ambitions.”
Morillo and Koyama Lane took issue with Zimmerman’s criticisms.
“It’s not lost on me that he’s the only man of color on our council,” Koyama Lane said, and in a remarkable moment, Koyama Lane alleged that Pirtle-Guiney had a “pattern of berating people of color, both inside this building and in public spaces.” (She brought up an incident last spring in which Pirtle-Guiney said “fuck you” to Kanal after Kanal bade her goodnight after a long, contentious budget meeting.)
The role of race persisted into the eighth and ninth rounds of discussion, this time in conjunction with policing. Peacock members said councilors of color were being maligned and stereotyped by more centrist councilors.
Peacock members, among them Morillo, alleged that police union leaders during meeting recesses were calling centrists on the councilor and “threatening their endorsements or whatever they’re doing to make sure that a man of color that has worked on policy accountability issues doesn’t ever, ever step into the presidency,” a move she called “absolutely disgusting.” (Portland Police Association President Aaron Schmautz says he himself made no calls to councilors during recess, and Smith said the call she received wasn’t from him.)
“Apparently public safety leaders will lose their mind over Sameer Kanal if he gets to hold a gavel,” Koyama Lane added. “Scared of the dark-skinned man on the council.”
The council adjourned the meeting at 4:40 p.m. It will resume deliberations on Thursday afternoon.
