Multnomah County voters rejected their incumbent district attorney last month, sending a clear message they want change — a pivot away from a progressive prosecutor toward a more traditional practitioner who pledged to work closely with police and crack down on drugs.
But in all likelihood, not that much will change in the short term.
By his own admission, much of Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt’s agenda was redefined and delayed by the pandemic and civil unrest. And as it currently stands, Nathan Vasquez, a senior deputy district attorney who challenged and beat his boss in the May primary, won’t take over until January 2025. And at least at this point, he’s approaching his future job well aware of his victory, but also that his platform didn’t resonate with all voters.
“I fully recognize that this community is in no way wanting to abandon the progressive ideas that Mike Schmidt ran on, a significant amount of the community voted for him,” Vasquez said. “I want to make sure that it’s clear that I don’t intend in any way to abandon — or I don’t see this as a referendum on that.”
FILE: Multnomah County prosecutor Nathan Vasquez speaks to supporters at the election night party at The Hoxton Hotel in Portland, Ore., May 21, 2024. Vasquez won the May primary, and will take over as Multnomah County District Attorney in January 2025.
Conrad Wilson / OPB
Schmidt was first elected in 2020 by a landslide, capturing nearly 77% of the vote. Days later, a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, sparking nightly protests mostly in downtown Portland. In last month’s race for district attorney, Schmidt received just 46% of the vote. Vasquez won by 7%, according to the county’s uncertified results, successfully tapping into voter frustrations over social challenges that have everything to do with the district attorney’s duties — public drug dealing and a spike in homicides — and some, such as public camping, that don’t fall under the prosecutor’s purview but still make some voters feel less safe.
“I don’t think it’s right to just criminalize someone for being houseless or homeless — that’s not the approach,” Vasquez told OPB’s Think Out Loud two days after the primary. “Are there situations where they have not just put up a tent, but completely blocked the sidewalk and prevented people that are suffering with various physical ailments or perhaps have certain disabilities, are they preventing them from using the sidewalk and, and really enjoying our community? And so for me, it’s more about the behaviors.”
Vasquez told voters he’d improve relationships with law enforcement and prosecute lower-level crimes. Anecdotally, Portland police officers have described working directly with Vasquez on cases or say they’ve known him for years.
“My members feel that change was needed because they needed predictable stability on prosecution decisions and a return to an understandable approach to public safety,” said Sgt. Aaron Schmautz, president of the Portland Police Association, the union that represents rank and file officers and that endorsed Vasquez. “A lot of the decisions or concepts we discussed in 2020 were pretty experimental.”
Schmautz said he was referencing things Schmidt championed, such as relying less on a person’s ability to pay bail as a key factor to determine whether or not they should be released from jail and Ballot Measure 110, which decriminalized small amounts of hard drugs and added money for treatment services.
He said the “community is already struggling, hurting and financially kind of distraught” and that his members were ultimately not supportive of “overlaying some of those — I think — pretty fringe ideas about changing an entire justice system.”
FILE: A person speaks to someone inside of a tent, camping on the sidewalk in downtown Portland, Ore., Nov. 15, 2023. Vasquez connected with voters over issues such as public camping. He says his aim isn't to criminalize homelessness, but to address behaviors that impact the community.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Vasquez also garnered support from Portland real estate developer and philanthropist Jordan Schnitzer, whose company donated $85,000 to Vasquez’s campaign for district attorney. A few years ago, Schnitzer founded Revitalize Portland, a nonprofit political group backed by some of the city’s largest real estate owners and developers.
Erik Cole, the group’s executive director, has criticized Schmidt’s approach to public safety. He said under Vasquez the group expects to see some progress and be a more active partner on issues they care about.
“Let’s talk about the graffiti situation,” Cole said. “I think most experts will say, ‘It’s not about rounding up a bunch of people that are doing graffiti. It’s about three or four targeted arrests that start to send a message that it’s just not a free for all and you’re going to get away with these things.’ To me, that’s accomplish-able.”
Vasquez will confront some of the same challenges that plagued Schmidt, including a shortage of public defenders required to prosecute.
Carl Macpherson, executive director of Metropolitan Public Defender, supported Schmidt’s reelection. Speaking in late April, he said that his office would be working with whoever won and was concerned that Vasquez would not meet with his group.
“[Metropolitan Public Defender] is the largest provider in the county and in the state, and our office has for months reached out to his campaign to meet, and he has been seemingly unwilling to meet with us,” Macpherson said. “It hasn’t happened. So that doesn’t show a willingness to collaborate with other policyholders in this area.”
Beyond public defense, drug overdoses remain devastatingly high, and there is a shortage of police officers necessary to investigate crimes.
“Nathan’s still going to have an uphill battle,” Clackamas County District Attorney John Wentworth said. “There are still challenges to dealing with crime in the way it needs to be dealt with.”
Wentworth said he doesn’t expect Multnomah County’s public safety challenges to suddenly evaporate. He said he’s spoken to Vasquez maybe once or twice during their decades as prosecutors, but doesn’t know him beyond that.
“I think you’re going to see greater collaboration among the three counties,” Wentworth said. “Mike had his own way of doing things and never reached out to me for advice. I expect that will change [with Vasquez].”
And in some ways those efforts appear to be well underway.
Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton said he met Vasquez about one year ago when the Multnomah County prosecutor was thinking about challenging his boss.
“I have supported him from the moment we sat down for a cup of coffee,” Barton said.
Asked where the two saw eye-to-eye, Barton responded: “Frankly, I think the question is where don’t we — I can’t think of something we disagree on.”
Barton said he believes in prosecuting all crimes.
“If you’re only prosecuting the big crimes and ignoring the little crimes, you’re forgetting about the crimes that affect most people,” Barton said. “The thing about criminals is they commit big and little crimes.”
That’s just the kind of thing some of the louder voices in Portland’s business community want from their newly elected district attorney.
“Are we prosecuting for smaller crimes because we know those add up to larger crimes?” Cole said, while describing concerns his nonprofit has identified. “And what does our law enforcement force look like?”
FILE: Clare Schmidt, left, looks on as her husband, Mike Schmidt, addresses supporters on election night at the Jupiter Next Hotel in Southeast Portland, Ore., May 21, 2024.
Alex Zielinski / OPB
Since Schmidt was elected, Portland has struggled with the pandemic, social unrest and the state’s clunky rollout of Ballot Measure 110. After his loss, Schmidt cautioned Vasquez faces similar obstacles.
“One of the biggest challenges he’s going to face is that he sold a vision that the district attorney can fix those things,” Schmidt said. “He will quickly learn that that is not accurate.”
Vasquez is not scheduled to take over until 2025. So he has plenty of time to plan for how his tenure might be a departure from Schmidt’s four years as the county’s public safety leader. He also has other work to do.
Between now and the end of the year, Vasquez said he has three homicides he’s set to prosecute.
“That’s going to be my day job,” Vasquez said. “It’ll be something that I’ll need to work out with D.A. Schmidt, of how much during this time I can do transition work or will that be my evening and weekend job?”