We Have Our First Challenger! Nick Caleb Says He's Running Against Commissioner Steve Novick

As we noted earlier this morning, all three city council incumbents who stand to lose their jobs next year are planning to fight for them.

Now a challenger has emerged.

Nick Caleb, the Concordia University professor and attorney who briefly challenged Commissioner Dan Saltzman last year, says he'll be running against Commissioner Steve Novick in the May 2016 primary.

"As of now we’re in full campaign mode," Caleb, 31, tells the Mercury.

Even if you don't know who he is, you're probably aware of Caleb's handiwork. After deciding, just before filing deadline, to run against Saltzman last year, he helped focus the city's attention on wage inequality and—using the blueprint of Seattle City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant—railed for Portland to adopt a $15 minimum wage. Aided by groups like Jobs with Justice and 15 Now PDX, the resulting momentum forced Saltzman to hop on board with a wage increase.

Saltzman went on to easily win the primary, but kept up on the pay issue. That led to a history-making, if relatively modest, decision last month to pay all full-time city employees and contractors at least $15 starting in July. City officials are studying further raises, too.

Caleb, in a conversation earlier today, says it's not enough.

"The council has done something—not much," he says. "We’ve gotten a little stale in our progressive culture. We’re celebrating the small victories while we leave a pretty huge crisis intact."

Caleb tells the Mercury he's known for a while he'd be running, but was waiting on making a formal announcement. It wasn't until this morning that he learned Novick was definitely planning a re-election campaign. (We wrote about those intentions earlier today, after the commissioner sent an email to the Tribune, but the O snuck the tidbit into a story in January.)

In his race against Saltzman, Caleb ran a "right to the city" campaign, prioritizing police accountability, fair housing, and wage inequality. He says to expect much of the same this time, though he's still tweaking his platform.

"You can’t go anywhere in the city without hearing the stress people are enduring," he says. "People can’t even afford to live in the city anymore."

But there's a more intriguing undertone to Caleb's candidacy. As we noted earlier today, Novick's calling card in his first term has been the pursuit of new money for roads, via a new fee or tax. In that pursuit, he both heartened and alienated some transportation and environmental groups—first by voicing support for a tax-the-rich option that polled better than others, then by not fighting to put that option before voters. In November, eight organizations signed a letter pledging to go to bat for an income tax on Portlanders making more than $125,000, and were left disappointed.

If Caleb's able to snatch some of those groups' progressive support away from Novick—who's on the left side of a lefty city council—it could give him momentum. He's clearly thinking along the same lines.

"I think me and a lot of people were scratching our heads," Caleb says. "If I was running a street fee and my polling told me people supported taxing the rich, that’s like a license for a progressive."

Caleb has more time to make his case this go-round . In 2014, he entered the race with two months until election day. It was a hopeless prospect against an incumbent as entrenched as Saltzman, the longest-tenured politician in city government. This time, Caleb will have a year longer. He's already organized a campaign and begun soliciting support. He even sat down with Commissioner Amanda Fritz yesterday to solicit advice for a run. And, unlike 2014, he's not capping donations at $50.

"Until we get publicly financed elections, it’s impossible to compete on that level," he says. Still, he's vowed to refuse objectionable corporate contributions, should any come calling.

And like his last race, Caleb pledges to eschew the $100,000-plus salaries paid to city council members in favor of the salary of an average Portland worker, which was less than half that in 2012.