Photo: Governor Tina Kotek and Mayor Keith Wilson toasting champagne with Portland Metro Chamber president and CEO Andrew Hoan.
Like all American cities, Portland has a local ruling class. The exact contours of this class evolve over time, but one institution has served as a pillar of the ruling class’s political aims for decades: the Portland Metro Chamber (formerly known as the Portland Business Alliance). Although the PMC has been around for a long time, Portland’s new form of government and a true left flank of representatives on City Council has forced these corporate hacks out of the shadows and into full public view. Read on to learn about the makeup of the PMC and their 10 most egregious actions since January 2025, and how to take part in an upcoming action against corporate cronyism.
The Corporate Front
The PMC is the smoke-filled room where the ruling class formulates its plans. The PMC staff are the highly-paid mercenaries who, for decades, have shaped the direction of the City of Portland. The PMC also throws money into state and local political campaigns to try and shape the makeup of elected government.
The PMC is where the country’s biggest corporations come together to influence Portland’s politics and economy. A quick glance at its member directory reveals a Who’s-Who of banks, fossil fuel companies, union busters, insurance companies, corporate law firms, technology companies, communications firms, private hospitals, and more. Nearly every mainstream media outlet is also a member, and the President of The Oregonian even serves on the PMC board. The PMC, like all Chambers of Commerce, uses propaganda to try to represent itself as the champion of the small business. But, in practice, only members who spent $12-$17K per year get a seat on the Board and access to the CEO. This means the PMC is a pay-to-play organization, driven by the big corporations, in the interest of the big corporations.
The PMC still holds a lot of influence in so-called “moderate” and conservative political circles, but its ability to operate under the radar has been substantially restricted since we won reform to the City’s charter. The PMC’s political success was for decades a product of its relative obscurity, where it operated most effectively from back offices and annual luncheons. Forced now into the sunlight, the lobby seems ill-adjusted to scrutiny.
In the last months of the previous City Council, the PMC engineered a deal to expand a program called “Downtown Clean & Safe” that, astonishingly, forces property owners to subsidize a substantial portion of PMC staff salaries. This policy was strongly opposed by incoming Portland City Councilors and dozens of community organizations (who wrote a letter calling for a delay of the decision to give a substantial portion of a “$58 million, no-bid contract to the Portland Metro Chamber” until the new council took over). But former mayor Ted Wheeler, along with a then-majority of PMC-endorsed City Commissioners, decided to rush the new program through, effectively securing up nearly half of CEO and President Andrew Hoan’s ~$333,000 salary, and 30-80% of the high salaries of other PMC staffers.
The PMC also lobbies the Portland City Council far more than any other entity, with over 35% of all recorded lobbying instances since 2014. In 2025 alone, PMC reported making 686 contacts with city officials, which represents close to one-third (30%) of all lobbying visits to Portland City Officials that year according to lobbying reports submitted to the City Auditor. As an example of the disproportionate amount of time PMC spends with City Officials, look at one quarter of 2025. Of the 32 entities that lobbied City Officials in the first quarter of 2025, PMC reported 322 visits. The next closest entity as measured by visits is RealPage, the rent-fixing software company that was banned in Portland, and they had a total of 41 visits in that quarter, which is 1.8% of all visits in that quarter. So, in effect, the PMC has managed to secure for itself a massive, publicly-guaranteed subsidy to influence Portland government. On top of receiving public dollars to lobby the City on behalf of business interests, there is also a revolving-door relationship between the PMC and the City: many of the PMC’s current and former employees used to work at the City of Portland.
The Dirty Deeds
With the above overview, here are some of the most egregious PMC actions since January 2025, paid for, in part, with public funds:
10. The PMC declares war on municipal socialism
Doug Moore, who runs the one of Portland Metro Chamber’s political action committees, United for Portland, told the Willamette Week last year that “socialists are trying to take over the City Council and turn it into an ideological showcase for the rest of the country.” He also said the number one priority of the PMC is to “stop DSA from taking over the council.”
So, in the era of Donald Trump, the number one goal of the local ruling class is not protecting immigrants and other vulnerable communities or preventing a federal invasion, but stopping policymaking that benefits the working class.
9. PMC lobbies to protect ICE detention facility
In January 2026, Portland City Council adopted a Detention Facility Fee Ordinance that declares a public nuisance to use tear gas and assigned new costs to detention facility owners to offset the fiscal impact that these facilities cause for the government. The PMC, along with developers and home builders, opposed this policy because even though it only targets detention facilities like the Macadam ICE facility, they were worried about the precedent of adding new fees to building owners (“victims of protest”) and because the policy did not hold individual protestors accountable. Per their letter, the policy “places the entirety of the financial burden on the business being targeted — regardless of the actions of demonstrators.”
Yes, you heard that right. They want people protesting ICE abductions and detentions to pay for the costs of their protests.
It’s very good to know that there’s someone looking out for the interests of the poor, victimized owners of detention facilities where our neighbors are processed and held after they are abducted and before they are deported.
8. PMC threatens to sue the City of Portland for a proposal to raise taxes on CEOs
Last year during the budget cycle, Councilor Novick proposed a CEO tax to close some of the budget gap. In response, the PMC trotted out an absurd legal analysis to argue that the city can’t raise taxes without voter authority.
Councilor Novick called the analysis “a joke” in the Willamette Week and pointed out how stupid it was to suggest that the city had been illegally raising revenue for over a century. It’s clear that the PMC went shopping for lawyers to write a legal analysis that fit their ideological desire and purely to try to derail progressive revenue raising plans.
7. PMC threatens to sue the City of Portland for plans to exempt poor people from the arts tax
When Portland City Councilors came up with a reform plan to exempt people who make under $20,000 (or $40,000 for joint filers) and increase the tax to $35 for other filers, the PMC again threatened to sue (and recycled the ridiculous legal analysis it began circulating in 2025).
Undeterred by this weak threat, Portland City Council passed the arts tax reforms.
We’ll see if the PMC’s threats have any teeth! We think it’s pure bluster.
6. PMC lobbyist tries to kill bus lanes… twice
In spring 2025, residents of 82nd Avenue called for Bus And Turn (BAT) lanes on the rebuilt 82nd to speed up buses along the corridor. Over 1400 people responded to a survey where 70% of residents (54% of business owners!) wanted BAT lanes along most or all of 82nd Ave. The Portland Metro Chamber, out of touch as ever, activated against the BAT lanes, with PMC execs Jon Isaacs or Michael Liu testifying at every single public meeting (often both). Though Liu claimed to speak for the tenants at his shopping center, opposition to BAT lanes did not materialize in the monthly public meetings, and Trimet would go on to recommend BAT lanes to the fullest extent possible. In one particularly cringey episode, Isaacs attempted to testify twice as long as everyone else — once as a representative of his Neighborhood Association, and again for the Metro Chamber. Trimet cut him off in the middle of his second testimony.
5. Anti-DSA red scare push polls
In April 2026, Democratic Party voters in Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington County received invitations to answer questions in bizarre polls about left-wing candidates running for office. The polls were “push polls” — a negative campaigning technique used to influence voters by asking loaded or misleading questions to bias the poll-participant against a candidate. The polls attempted to tie candidates to DSA (even candidates not supported by DSA) and asked questions like this:
Many speculated on who was behind these push polls, until Alex Baumhardt at the Oregon Capitol Chronicle found out that it was Jon Isaacs from the Portland Metro Chamber who, through the PMC-run Portland Alliance PAC, spent $43,000 to Chicago-based Elevated Campaigns.
Ultimately, Isaacs wasted tens of thousands of dollars on dirty tricks only to get shellacked by DSA in two high-profile Washington County legislative races.
4. Wasting money trying to protect data centers and polluters in Washington County elections
Consistent with its fear of DSA candidates, the PMC spent big to try (and fail) to prevent Dr. Tammy Carpenter and Myrna Muñoz from winning elected office. One of the big issues for voters in the election was data centers.
As we wrote in our blog post about The Data Centrists of Washington County, the PMC “play[s] a critical role in whipping support for the data centers, and their relationships with the transnational technology corporations are substantial. […] In Portland, firms with substantial data center interests helm the Metro Chamber’s Board of Directors, including Amazon, Intel, Google, Microsoft, Northwest Natural Gas, and Portland General Electric.”
The PMC spent big in support of their data centrist candidates, and despite the Oregonian incorrectly calling the races before all the votes were counted, both Janeen Sollman and Ashley Hartmeier-Prigg were defeated by DSA, unions, and environmental groups.
3. Back room dealing to protect Zenith Energy
Community advocates (and DSA) have been fighting against the expansion of the Zenith Energy oil terminal for years. After repeated backroom deals, the election of DSA Councilors Mitch Green, Angelita Morillo, Tiffany Koyama Lane, and Sameer Kanal in November of 2024 finally signaled that we would have a city council ready to hold Zenith accountable. In fact, in December 2024, Zenith was hit with a historic penalty that gave the new Mayor and City Council the opportunity to act.
However, while Councilors Green and Morillo were readying the paperwork to pause any new permissions for Zenith and to hold the company accountable, there was another backroom deal; this time over sazeracs.
Street Roots (now Portland Mercury) reporter Jeremiah Hayden broke a story that PMC lobbyist Jon Isaacs met with Deputy City Administrator Donnie Oliveira off hours at a bar and discussed the pending Zenith Energy Land Use Compatibility Statement application over drinks. Zenith Energy is a member of the PMC and the PMC publicly opposed any City Council action to hold Zenith accountable.
After meeting with Isaacs, Oliveira rushed to approve Zenith’s new LUCS before the City Council could act, despite telling the Council in a work session that there was no legal reason to rush the decision, creating a clear appearance that Oliveira’s decision was influenced by his personal friend Jon Isaacs.
After these actions, advocates sued the City of Portland and alleged that the LUCS was granted illegally and without adequate public process. The advocates won important procedural victories and this case will soon go to trial. We expect that the PMC’s corruption will be uncovered and that this night out for sazeracs might cost their buddies at Zenith a lot of time and money.
2. Tax flight lies and anti-Preschool for All propaganda
For years, the PMC and their local ruling class allies have promoted a bullshit theory that the wealthy are fleeing Portland because of their supposedly high tax burden. After publicly declaring their intention, the PMC used this false claim to try to kill the Preschool for All program on numerous occasions. The false tax flight claim is also one of the core assumptions behind Governor Tina Kotek’s so-called Prosperity Council that has recommended a Reaganite approach to taxes and regulation in Oregon.
As the PMC and Governor Tina Kotek attempted, again, to attack Preschool for All, Councilor Mitch Green — a Ph.D. economist — and his staff produced a report that debunked the tax flight claims. The press release announcing the report described the findings as such:
“The data shows income gains, not flight: The reported increase in average income of those leaving the county during the pandemic is better explained by massive, nationwide windfall gains from capital gains, interest, and dividends—not an exodus driven by local taxes. This pattern could be seen in major cities across the country, regardless of their tax rates.
No mass exodus of high-income households: The number of households in Multnomah County with incomes over $200,000 has grown by 28.7% from 2021 to 2023. The total number of filers paying the PFA tax increased by 16.5% in the same period.
A flawed use of averages: Opponents’ arguments depend on a “statistical sleight of hand”using mean averages, which are easily skewed by a small number of very high-income individuals. This method is inappropriate for analyzing migration trends.”
Armed with this report, Preschool for All supporters went on to defeat efforts at killing the program and forced Governor Kotek to back away from her attacks on PFA (for the time being).
The PMC and their allies on the Prosperity Council continue to advance myths about tax flight to try and bolster their deregulatory and anti-tax austerity agenda.
1. The Moda Center Billionaire Ball-Room
Earlier this year, the Blazers organization and its new owner, billionaire Tom Dundon (a man who became rich in the subprime auto lending industry), launched a campaign with corporate Democrats in the Oregon State Legislature to scare everyone into appropriating hundreds of millions of dollars in public money for Moda Center stadium upgrades. The Oregon State Legislature approved $365 million in state bonds for these stadium upgrades, with a requirement that the City of Portland and Multnomah County to contribute over $200 million in additional funds. Along the way, we learned that there were series of backroom negotiations between public officials like Mayor Keith Wilson and Multnomah County Commissioner Julia Brim Edwards, which were hidden from the public under the code-name “Project Mt. Hood.”
After signing the bill into law, Governor Kotek attempted to pressure the Portland City Council to quickly appropriate public money for the Moda Center, saying this is “not a time to play politics.”
However, things are not going to be so easy for Dundon and his corporate Democrats. Led by Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane, DSA City Councilors have signaled that they will push back on any attempt to hand public money over to a billionaire without adequate public process and community benefits. They’ve also signaled that they want to have a public vote on the issue.
Just last week, RipCityNotRipoff published a 2024 City of Portland facilities inventory analysis for the Moda Center, which showed that only ~$112 million is required for necessary repairs, far below the over $600 million dollars pledged by the state legislature. The rest of the money is for improvements that would make the Blazers organization and Dundon more profits, like luxury suite renovations, a concourse bar, and a new team store.
At Portland DSA, we say that no public money should go toward making a billionaire even more profits, especially when our schools are being closed and our neighbors go unhoused.
As it happens, the PMC is hosting its annual meeting at the Moda Center on June 24, 2026. Members of the public can pay $350 to meet with billionaire Tom Dundon, Mayor Keith Wilson, State Senators Kate Lieber and Rob Wagner, and other corporate cronies and political hacks. Unsurprisingly this event is sponsored by corporate looters and polluters like US Bank, Comcast, Chevron, NW Natural, Pacific Power, Lyft, The Oregonian, and more.
Join DSA and partners for a community picket and picnic where we will confront Portland’s biggest looters and polluters while they flaunt their access to the Mayor and top Democratic Party leaders!
Wednesday, June 24, 1-6pm, at the Moda Center. We hope to see you there!
