Endorsements
Rather than parade a long list of names for you - as if having a dozen establishment politicos back your candidacy proves you are “legit” - we’d like to tell you the story of the grassroots change-makers who back Chris Henry, and why.
First and foremost: The People.
When Chris Henry ran for State Treasurer on a public bank platform in 2020, he earned the vote of nearly 100,000 Oregonians. That’s a lot of people! And that was without any corporate funding for his campaign, which he ran while working full-time as a union truck driver. If we tried to list all of Chris’ supporters here for you, we’d run out of space.
Portland’s 2024 City Council election is different. For the first time ever, our city has matching funds to support grassroots campaigns like Chris’. With over 450 matching donations and counting, Chris has raced past the threshold to prove the seriousness of his support base (250+ donations) and qualified for funding.
Second: Honest Elections Coalition Members
Although many other candidates have received public funding, Chris Henry is the only candidate running for City Council who was also a leader of the grassroots movement that made these matching funds possible for everyone. Most recently as a board member of Honest Elections Action League (HEAL), Chris has been a part of the fight for campaign finance reform in Oregon for over two decades. Our coalition won the first ever limits restricting corporate donations for Multnomah County in 2016, Portland in 2018, and Oregon in 2024.
Chris Henry earned his donations to qualify for matching funds with the help of the canvassing team of the Portland Clean Air Fund, our city’s leading air pollution monitoring organization. Portland Clean Air was also a leading signature gatherer for Oregon’s 2024 campaign finance reform.
Multiple organizations that are a part of HEAL have endorsed Chris Henry for City Council, such as the Independent Party and the Oregon Progressive Party.
Chris is also honored to have the endorsement of David Delk, the President of the Alliance for Democracy, which is another HEAL coalition member. David is also the Co-Founder of the Oregon Public Banking Alliance (OPBA), whose policy expertise in the area of public banking we are advancing with our platform to establish a Green Public Bank for Portland.
Third: Bioregional Leadership
With Cascadia Ready as a top priority for the safety and survival of Portland, we know that preparing for the impending Magnitude 9 megaquake that would shatter our bioregion will take more than City Hall getting its act together (as crucial as that is!). That’s why we are working within a bioregional organizing paradigm to strengthen our working partnerships throughout Cascadia (a more geographically accurate term for our bioregion than “Pacific Northwest”).
Given the seriousness of this issue, we are honored to have the endorsement of Alexander Baretich, who is the original designer of the Cascadia Flag and one of the historic trailblazers of the Cascadia bioregional movement.
We are also honored to have the endorsement of Mike Brunt, a Director of the Cascadia Seed Guild. Mike is an environmental leader based in Eugene, whose community organizing has facilitated the gathering of an incredible 1 million+ seeds (of nearly 2000 varieties) in an emergency seed bank (for when the big one hits). In partnership with Mike, we visited Eugene and brought back many of these seeds to start Portland’s very own emergency seed bank as a part of our Cascadia Ready initiative. Check it out here!
In Conclusion
The story of Chris Henry’s campaign for City Council has deep roots, stretching back over a decade of grassroots organizing work, and building momentum to prepare for the impending Cascadia Megaquake.
For what it’s worth, the elusive cryptid known as Sasquatch (a.k.a Bigfoot) has also reportedly endorsed Chris Henry, citing the importance of getting Cascadia Ready. And if that’s not enough for you, what more can we say?
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