A Record of Accomplishment

Steve Novick’s always found a way to get things done.

On the City Council:

Before Steve Novick came to the City Council, the city had neglected street maintenance for decades. Steve championed the Fix Our Streets measure which Portland voters passed in 2016 and renewed in 2020. Fix Our Streets has paid for a long list of paving projects and pedestrian and bike safety improvements, including many “Safe Routes to School” projects.

For seventy years, the Vista Bridge had been known as “suicide bridge.” Steve put up a barrier that has prevented further tragedies. One of his most treasured possessions is a scroll signed by friends and loved ones of one of the Vista Bridge suicide victims. It says: “this will not bring back our beloved friend, but we hope it will spare others from such a tragedy.”

In a direct attack on outrageous economic inequality, Steve passed a first-of-its-kind measure that requires companies that pay their CEOs more than 100 times what they pay their typical employee to pay a higher Portland tax rate than companies with more equitable pay structures. Steve’s measure was heralded by progressive economists like Thomas Piketty of France. San Francisco voters have since copied Steve’s measure.

Steve was the leader on the City Council in jump-starting the move toward legalizing so-called “middle housing,” like duplexes and triplexes, in places they had been outlawed – a move experts say is essential to bringing down the cost of housing.

As an activist:

In the late ‘90’s and early 2000’s, Steve played a key role, as a lawyer, researcher and organizer, in defeating a series of right-wing ballot measures that would have slashed education and health care.

In the early 2000s, Steve waged a years-long effort to expose and challenge the Oregon Lottery’s longstanding practice of short-changing education by paying huge, unnecessary subsidies to video poker taverns. Steve got the Lottery to reduce the “tavern welfare program” and get more money to schools.

Steve was a researcher and spokesman for the Measures 66 and 67 campaigns in 2010, which saved education, health care and public safety from huge cuts by having big corporations and rich people pay a fairer share.

As an environmental lawyer:

As a trial attorney for the Environment Division of the Federal Justice Department in the 1990’s, Steve recovered $129 million for taxpayers in the notorious Love Canal case, successfully sued a defense contractor for Clean Air Act violations, and won a precedent-setting victory in another Superfund case.

Since 2018, Steve has been a Special Assistant Attorney General in the Oregon Justice Department, through a fellowship with the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center. Steve has been part of numerous efforts to stop President Trump’s efforts to roll back environmental laws and regulations – from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to the Clean Air Act - and support President Biden’s efforts to restore and strengthen them. He has written articles in Bloomberg News and The American Prospect on the “social cost of carbon,” pushing the government to give a full picture of the damage burning fossil fuels imposes on people and the environment. And he was proud that Attorney General Rosenblum was one of only two state attorneys general to join environmental groups’ successful fight to restore Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves!

About Steve.

A Kid From Cottage Grove:

Steve’s family moved from northern California to Cottage Grove, Oregon when he was ten. For years, they mostly lived off his mom’s earnings as a waitress at the Village Green – so Steve learned early the moral importance of being a good tipper.

When Steve was fourteen, the voters of Cottage Grove voted against paying property taxes to keep the schools open – so the schools simply closed for several months. Steve started taking classes at the U of O to pass the time, and after a while the U of O told him he could stay.

A couple of years after law school, Steve made it to the environmental enforcement section of the Federal Justice Department. He spent nine years suing polluters and working with a brilliant, brash, committed, hard-working, hard-playing group of lawyers and staff. Steve thought of them as Knights of the Round Table, and many of them are still among his dearest friends.

Despite growing up in Oregon, Steve had hardly spent any time in Portland until he sued the Port of Portland for Clean Water Act violations and fell in love with the city. Moving back to Oregon in 1996, he spent the next 20 years in politics and public policy – as chief of staff to the Democrats in the State Senate; as a lawyer, organizer and researcher in fights against dangerous right-wing ballot measures; in a non-profit dedicated to letting people know where tax dollars go; as a candidate for the United States Senate in 2008, losing by three points in the Democratic primary to the wonderful Jeff Merkley; and as a Portland City Commissioner.

One the things Steve most appreciated about being a Commissioner was working with the talented, committed staff in the city bureaus, and one role he would play in a Council of mostly new people would be to urge his colleagues to listen to and respect city staff.

As a sixty-year old guy, Steve has had a lot of lived experience, but he also values his thousands of hours of vicarious experience as a sports fan. He has great memories of the Blazers’ 1976-77 championship run, and lives with the pain of having been a passionate fan of the Montreal Expos, who came close, but never made it, and no longer exist. (Climate change makes him worry that someday, the same thing might be said of the human race.)

Steve lives in the Woodstock neighborhood with a very silly Corgi named Barley.