PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — In a largely symbolic action, the four self-described socialists on the Portland City Council held a press conference pledging to investigate local weapon shipments to Israel and urged other cities to join.
In a virtual press conference on Friday, Council Vice President Tiffany Koyama Lane, Councilor Mitch Green, Councilor Sameer Kanal and Councilor Angelita Morillo pledged to “investigate the manufacturing and transport of weapons to Israel within their city, and to investigate any other complicity the city may have with Israel’s illegal occupation, apartheid, or genocidal violence against Palestinians.”
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A leader of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) organized this press conference, and these Portland City Councilors are members of that group. Two additional “progressive allies” also support this pledge, Councilor Candace Avalos and Councilor Jamie Dunphy, according to a DSA post on Instagram.
At this point: It’s unclear what the city councilors’ probe into Israel-linked investments would look like in practice.
KOIN 6 News asked the four councilors why they’re addressing international issues when there are legitimate local issues to deal with, namely addiction, homelessness, untreated mental illness, failing infrastructure and a growing budget deficit.
Portland City Councilor Mitch Green on Eye on Northwest Politics, Aug. 29, 2025. (KOIN)
Portland City Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane, March 17, 2025 (KOIN)
Portland City Councilor Angelita Morillo, May 19, 2025 (KOIN)
Portland District 2 City Councilor Sameer Kanal at the University of Portland, April 7, 2025 (KOIN)
The councilors’ general argument was that dollars spent on weapons of war could be better used to support people in Portland.
“By taking action at the local level, we can create a political mandate that then translates into our federal electeds doing their job, which is to check this administration and making sure that we’re not … sending billions of dollars overseas to kill brown people overseas and then instead invest in infrastructure back home,” Green said.
Kanal said that when “we bring those dollars home, we’re helping Portland businesses, we’re helping revive our economy.”
“Every dollar that is going towards bombing and maiming innocent people abroad is a dollar that is not being spent on our infrastructure here at home,” Morillo added.
Lane, the council vice president, said, “The same companies and technologies that are causing devastation in Gaza are also being used on Portlanders, specifically immigrants and refugees and people peacefully protesting. So this is something that is connected to what’s going on in our own neighborhoods.”
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But when KOIN 6 News pressed for concrete examples of where Portland is manufacturing weapons for Israel, no one addressed it. When KOIN 6 News later contacted a City Hall spokesperson, they couldn’t answer the question.
To be clear, KOIN 6 News called this press conference pledge “symbolic” because it would need to be introduced as a resolution or ordinance and approved by a vote of the 12-member City Council.
No official action can happen outside a public meeting without a quorum of 7 councilors. They currently don’t have that support though they are calling on the other councilors to join them.
City officials confirmed there’s nothing scheduled yet to bring a real resolution or ordinance forward.
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