Saltzman Gets Another Re-Election Foe—Who's Campaigning on a $15 Minimum Wage

A day before the city's filing deadline, Nick Caleb—an attorney, professor, and increasingly visible activist helping lead a push for a public water trust in Portland—has decided to throw in as a Portland City Council candidate. But despite his deep interest in the city's water politics, he's not running against Nick Fish, the city's sewer and water commissioner.

Instead, Caleb's running against Dan Saltzman—and he's pushing a platform that's aggressively progressive.

His announcement includes a call for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, and goes on to criticize the city's "scandalous" handling of homelessness, demand increased police accountability, and agitate for a more serious run at the city's Superfund cleanup of the Willamette River.

"To improve the health of our communities, I propose that Portland raise the City's minimum wage to $15/hr, so that people who work in Portland can afford to live here," he says in his announcement. "I will work to eliminate homelessness in Portland, beginning with adequate funding of services for veterans, the disabled, seniors, and families in crisis. The city should belong to everyone who lives here, not just Portland’s wealthiest residents."

Caleb, 30, says he decided on Friday to launch what's obviously an uphill fight. He joins KBOO reporter Joe Meyer in taking on Saltzman, the dean of the council up for his fifth term, and both must defy a difficult trend in Portland politics: It's been incredibly hard to defeat incumbents on the council, even when challengers (like in the case of Mary Nolan vs. Amanda Fritz) claim institutional backing.

With the May 20 primary a little more than two months way, Saltzman, despite being unopposed until last week, has been steadily collecting a dominant-if-not-huge pile of campaign cash—largely thanks to developers and property owners and business interests.

"More or less I was kind of hoping that candidates would jump in who would be pushing strong social justice issues," Caleb, whose father was a Klamath Falls prosecutor, told the Mercury's Dirk VanderHart. "No one really seemed to be jumping in against Saltzman."

Caleb's message, especially on the $15 minimum wage, echoes the one Kshama Sawant—a socialist—used to unseat an old-guard incumbent on the Seattle City Council. Sawant, in calling for the minimum wage, allied herself with fast-food protesters and labor interests who've been far more prominent with their effort in Seattle than in Portland.

"Kshama and her people have been successful in basically getting the whole city council to buy in. It is one of those issues that's in the public mind right now," Caleb says. "The idea is to kind of organize around these things and to push and see what happens. If it's something that really lights a fire under people and we're able to sneak in a victory, that's great. I'm going try to win. "

Caleb is planning a press event Friday. His full statement is after the jump.