We’re less than one year out from what will be the wildest race for Portland City Council this city has ever seen. And in the past week or so, two new candidates with serious transportation bona fides have declared their candidacy: Rex Burkholder and Steve Novick.
Keep reading to find out who they are, why they’ll shake up the race, and what you can expect if they win…
Rex Burkholder
Burkholder founded the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (now known as The Street Trust) in his kitchen in 1990. At least that’s how the story goes. The story took a big turn five years later when the BTA filed a lawsuit against the City of Portland alleging they weren’t building bike lanes on main streets as required by the Oregon Bike Bill. The BTA won that lawsuit, and it helped set Portland on a trajectory to become the best bicycling city in America for the next two decades.
Now Burkholder thinks Portland is, “Once again at a crossroads, struggling to fulfill our vision of being the most livable city in America” and he wants back into local politics.
Burkholder served 12 years on Metro Council before being term-limited out. He ran for Metro Council President in 2010 and lost in the primary to Tom Hughes and Bob Stacey. Burkholder finished a mere 600 votes behind Hughes, who would go on to win in the general election.
Some BikePortland readers might recall that Burkholder’s political fate likely rested on his controversial transportation views that belied his reputation as a progressive activist. In 2008 he came out in support of the controversial Columbia River Crossing (CRC) project (now known as the equally misleading Interstate Bridge Replacement). In an interview with BikePortland in 2008, he said he supported the project because it would come with light rail and cycling infrastructure. He had faith in project modeling that showed additional freeway lanes wouldn’t lead to induced demand and said, “I consider the CRC a tree in the forest,” and that, “We have to do something and this is the smartest thing to do… Doing nothing is not an option.”
Interestingly, toward the end of this Metro tenure, Burkholder criticized the BTA for “acquiescence” and expressed concern at the organization’s shift to the center.
Burkholder was also an early believer in open streets and was well-versed in Mexico’s “ciclovia” events that helped inspired Portland Sunday Parkways.
Burkholder left politics in 2012 and has spent the last decade as a nonprofit consultant, strategist and climate change activist. In 2014 he founded the Oregon Outdoor Education Coalition and spearheaded a successful effort to win $22 million in annual state funding for Outdoor School.
Is 2024 a good time for Burkholder to re-try his moderate stances among an electorate that’s weary of extreme views and desperate for progress and a functional government? Or will he look to be even more progressive this time around, realizing that it might have cost him dearly in his last campaign? A lot has changed in Portland since 2010, and adapting to the new environment won’t be easy. Connect to Burkholder’s campaign at RexforPDX.com.
Steve Novick
Novick is another known quantity to many Portland voters. He ran for U.S. Senate in 2008 (narrowly losing to Jeff Merkley) and then won a seat on City Council in 2012 with a whopping 76% of the votes. He served one term and lost to Chloe Eudaly in 2016.
Trained as an attorney and a former Department of Justice litigator, Novick is known for his quick, candid, and sometimes controversial wit. During a bruising effort to pass a local transportation street fee in 2014, Novick said, “If the voters are really mad at us… They can throw us out.” And they did.
Novick was a capable steward of the Portland Bureau of Transportation, an assignment he was given in June 2013. Three weeks into his tenure he showed up to a Breakfast on the Bridges event to mingle and mix with bike riders on the Hawthorne Bridge. He battled hard for two years to make biking safer on SW Barbur, but was never able to make a major breakthrough.
And he finally closed the loop on his journey to get more PBOT funding when the Fixing Our Streets local gas tax was approved by voters in May 2016.
Better Naito was the largest feather in Novick’s cap as PBOT Commissioner. He was around when the idea for a wider cycling path on Naito Parkway first came up in 2015 and casted a vote to fund a seasonal version of it before he left council in late 2016.
Novick is known as a policy wonk who loves digging into details (like the time he made a speech about how economics could beat the bike backlash), so it’s no surprise his campaign website offers detailed positions on his priorities.
In a press release announcing his campaign, Novick jumped onto the centrist train and called out how “both the left and the right” need to “get more realistic about the homelessness crisis.” The lack of housing, “Doesn’t mean we need to allow unlimited, unregulated camping,” he said. “We need to get people off the streets and into places that are safe.”
The entry of both Burkholder and Novick into the District 3 race is likely to shake up an already competitive field. The other eight candidates already vying for one of the three seats includes young progressive TikTok star and top fundraiser Angelita Morillo, former council candidate and City Hall staffer Jesse Cornett, and former policy director for Oregon State Rep Khanh Pham, Robin Ye.