Portland Commissioner Carmen Rubio announces mayoral campaign

Portland City Commissioner Carmen Rubio is running for mayor.

Rubio, who joined City Council in 2021, said she believes she has the experience to address Portland’s biggest challenges.

“Portland’s at a really critical point in time right now. We’ve had a pretty gnarly few years. Not only the pandemic, but our housing crisis, drug crisis… all these things happening at once,” she told OPB. “I’m running because I believe that I am the only person who has a track record of pulling people together to roll up our sleeves and get the hard work done.”

Several of Rubio’s colleagues on Council will be her competition in the mayor’s race. Commissioners Mingus Mapps and Rene Gonzalez have both announced their mayoral campaigns. Mayor Ted Wheeler is not seeking re-election, and Commissioner Dan Ryan does not plan on running for mayor. The race may add a new dynamic to City Council debates, where commissioners can transform their political stances into campaign platforms.

Rubio, 50, is the first Latina to sit on Portland City Council. If elected in November, Rubio would be the fourth woman to serve as Portland’s mayor. She would also be the first mayor elected to oversee a new chapter in Portland government.

Starting in January 2025, Portland will be split into four voting districts, each represented by three city commissioners – effectively tripling the size of city council in the process. Under this voter-approved change, the mayor will no longer be a member of the city council and will work with a new city administrator to oversee city operations.

Rubio said she sees this major change as an opportunity for a fresh start.

“We’re turning the page on government, so I think it’s also a time to turn the page on divisive politics and on broken systems and finger pointing,” Rubio said. “I feel like it requires someone who’s a pragmatic thinker, who’s a collaborative leader and basically a no-drama mayor who really just wants to keep focus on the work we need to do and be relentless about moving us forward.”

If elected, this wouldn’t be Rubio’s first time working in the mayor’s office. Rubio worked as the director of community affairs under former Mayor Tom Potter for three years, leaving to join former Commissioner Nick Fish’s office after Potter’s final term. Rubio left City Hall in 2009 to lead Latino Network, the Portland nonprofit that advocates for the local Latino community.

Rubio said her experience managing a major nonprofit will help in overseeing a 12-person City Council and new city administrative team.

“What matters is who can really bring the community together during this very consequential next set of years when we’re going to be developing and setting the culture for the city for the next generation,” she said.

Since returning to City Hall in 2021, Rubio has prioritized programs to spur new housing, combat climate change and support local businesses.

As the commissioner in charge of the city’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, Rubio has overseen the city’s key climate change policies, like the Portland Clean Energy Fund, a tax-funded program created to address the impacts of climate change on communities of color. She also points to the creation of the Clean Industry Initiative, a program that helps local businesses meet the city’s climate goals, as a success under her leadership.

Yet she’s attracted criticism from climate activists for not standing up to Zenith Energy, a company that transports and stores crude oil and renewable fuels in Portland. Activists have pushed Rubio to rescind a land-use agreement that allows Zenith to operate in Portland, arguing that allowing crude oil to pass through the city clashes with the city’s climate goals. Rubio says that the city isn’t able to retract that agreement, and said she believes Zenith’s pledge to phase out its work with fossil fuels.

Rubio, who has overseen the Housing Bureau for one year, says she’s proud of her ability to work with county and state leaders to address housing issues. In that past year, she’s watched the bureau open several new affordable housing apartments and focused on ways to make residential construction more affordable amid a housing shortage. This week, Rubio will bring a set of recommendations to City Council that tweak zoning rules and modify new housing requirements that will ideally incentivize development.

If elected mayor, Rubio said she’d like to focus more on improving Portland’s response to crime, both by hiring more officers and finding ways to cut down on emergency response times — work that is currently overseen by commissioners in charge of public safety bureaus.

Rubio’s tenure in City Hall has been relatively conflict-free. Upon joining City Council, she found a partner in former Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty. Both frequently voted in tandem to support liberal policies or reject more conservative proposals, though not always successfully.

She hasn’t always seen eye-to-eye with her colleagues, however. Rubio and Commissioner Mingus Mapps have disagreed on how to resolve the city’s fragmented permitting process, which is often criticized for delaying and de-incentivizing new housing construction. And Rubio cast the sole vote against a citywide ban on daytime camping in July, raising concerns that the new policy would criminalize homelessness.

Rubio knows the next 10 months of campaigning alongside her colleagues will present a “unique” challenge that’s hard to prepare for.

“I don’t think it’ll be a problem to work together because we do care about the same things,” she said. “I know that we all love the city and we want the best for the city. We just have different ideas about those priorities and how to get there.”