Mitch Green Makes a Threat
Just a little bit of old school political intimidation. No biggie.
This is a letter I sent to Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney, Councilor Olivia Clark, and Councilor Eric Zimmerman. I didn’t bother addressing Councilor Mitch Green. He is aware of what he did and doesn’t need the advanced notice for damage control.
Mitch Green threatened Portland State University last week. He revealed himself to be exactly the sort of person I have claimed he is. The Left’s version of MAGA, a communist with a bully pulpit who knows where his loyalties lie - not with the people of Portland, but with his comrades. The ones who smash up libraries, stalk their opponents, shout down democratically elected politicians and joke about political violence against anyone they disagree with. The ones who have repeatedly warned you they will see their ideology realized “by any means necessary.”
Councilors,
My name is Max Steele. I’m a business owner and resident of District 4.
I am writing you in response to events on Portland State campus last week (April 17th) at the “Day of Action for Higher Ed.”
Instagram post - here.
Councilor Mitch Green and Council Vice President Tiffany Koyama Lane went before a crowd of keffiyeh wrapped “campus solidarity” activists last week. During his speech, Councilor Green made a threat to PSU that I believe should disqualify him from holding office.
Here is the video (originally shared by his political party The Portland Democratic Socialists of America):
I have also transcribed it:
“Portland State University depends on Portland City Council for a number of the things that they want to do, so if we wanna show up and use our lever on City Council, it’s through the power of the purse. So on this day of action, I’m just gonna say that I know that the administration is planning to build a Performing Arts Center. And they’re going to come to City Council for money for that. And if they want my vote, they’re going to have to drop the charges on those students. And they’re gonna need my vote to get that money, because I am in solidarity in coalition with other leftists on City Council. We know how to stand up and fight back, thank you very much.”
“Those students” refers to the PSU Library vandals/rioters and other student activists who have made life on PSU campus difficult over the last 16 or so months, especially for Jewish students - including the occupation and vandalism of the PSU Library.
Public and private businesses and institutions, as well as citizens have a right to seek justice through the courts and to press criminal charges. None of us deserve to have an elected official threaten us with financial penalties for doing so.
This was a threat to withhold public funding, from a public university, in an attempt to subvert the course of justice. It was made by a self-described “socialist” to a cheering crowd of political extremists.
It was absolutely Trumpian.
In his threat, Councilor Green nodded to the political party and voting bloc he is part of. This council was intended to be non-partisan, but you have a single political party organizing against the rest of you. One voice, with 4+ votes. You are meant to represent Portland in all her diversity, but increasingly one voice, representing less than a quarter of us, flexes outsized power.
“And they’re gonna need my vote to get that money, because I am in solidarity in coalition with other leftists on City Council.”
That would be the six councilors who meet regularly without the rest of you. They are overrepresented in invited testimony. They are overrepresented on social media. They are running wild in that chamber.
You have DSA councilors pointing mobs toward local business owners (Society Hotel - Jessie Burke). You have DSA councilors accusing the Portland Police Bureau of harassment. You have “pro-union” DSA councilors working to keep the Police Union off the labor council and making vague threats to cut public safety budgets.
And now you have Councilor Green threatening our public university if his comrades are not protected from the potential consequences of their actions. They allegedly helped destroy a library and spread politically violent, antisemitic graffiti - actions he seems fine with.
Would you like Trump’s federal investigators to turn more attention toward Portland and our universities? This is how you get that.
It’s clear that the Left has their very own version of MAGA, with four members sitting on our City Council. The majority of Portlanders did not vote for (or didn’t know they were voting for) populists to threaten us from a bully pulpit.
We need you to take action or instruct us on how to do so. I cannot find a specific rule that Green broke with this conduct, however inappropriate and unbecoming it is. I would not be surprised if it opened the city up to legal trouble from PSU if that hypothetical Performing Arts funding is held up. You already have at least one councilor promising to gather votes ahead of time in retaliation.
This is not what Portland needs right now. This is not the leadership we hoped for. I will be spending the next year organizing to oust anyone involved in this nonsense in 2026, but in the meantime Portland needs your help minimizing the damage this crowd can do.
As a proud Portland State alumna, I am horrified by this video.
Even if Councilor Green does not actually have the power of the purse he suggests that he does, it's still an attempt to hold a public university hostage BECAUSE that university is trying to hold willful and violent vandals accountable for the harm they did last year. That harm cost the university untold hundreds of thousands of dollars, and left students and faculty too scared to go to classes.
Did the City Council offer any assistance when the university had to go in and clean up the destruction? No? If not, then Councilor Green and his associates are the real thugs here.
At least in our jurisdiction, the district attorney makes the call on whether charges are pursued. Knowing what the current DA has said publicly about holding protestors accountable when their conduct becomes criminal, I can't imagine him dropping the charges for the PSU incident at the request of the university. It almost makes the tactic from Councilor Green even more Trumpian: Any pressure from council would ultimately need to be applied indirectly to an independently elected district attorney.