Christine Lewis
Candidate for:
Metro Council - District 2
What drives me to seek an elected position
I ran for Metro in 2018 when the Metro housing bond was on the ballot. I have deep passion for housing and have been proud of our work delivering affordable housing for our lowest income neighbors in every corner of the region. I am running for a final term on Council in order to keep our focus achieve system-level results with our housing services dollars.
The first three priorities or issues I want to tackle
Housing—Strong regional system reforms so that we can continue to increase trust in the public investment in housing services. Housing is a human right, and many in crisis need to be met with the right services to find stability. I am hyper-focused on how the new governance model for these taxes can build a stable regional system that stops duplicating work across counties. In particular, a single system of funding and coordination around health care and housing is critical.
Willamette Falls—We live so close to one of the most powerful and beautiful falls, yet access and viewing opportunities are limited. We have incredible opportunities to restore access and peel back brownfield industrial sites to reveal habitat and ecological development opportunities. I am honored to be working alongside tribal leaders in several of these efforts.
Good jobs—I am in the weeds of our policy and procurement, making sure our public investments spur good jobs with family wages and real benefits and worker protections. Our construction career pathways work has been groundbreaking (literally) and we have to continue to build the pipeline of public projects that are funded so that these workforce programs can continue to build.
The experiences and insights I will bring to the office
I have served on Metro for two terms and know a lot about the agency’s history as well as where we are going alongside our community and local government partners. I work hard every day and don’t shy away from the tough items.
What being a Democrat in Multnomah County means to me
Democrats in Multnomah County are lucky enough to have thought more about governance and representative democracy over the past few years than almost any group outside of political science PHD’s. MultCo Democrats have always been the deepest blue waters in a purple state, with the real fights in primary races, but our local work is more important than ever proving that governance reform can work.
As Portland continues to attract attention from this administration, it is up to us to counter the false narratives about who we are. It is up to us to stand up for vote by mail. It is up to us to stand up for our neighbors. It is up to us to vote. It is up to us to do more than vote– show up for our communities.