Did Portland Police Chief Bob Day break the law when he criticized a city councilor last week? That’s a question several Portlanders are asking state officials to answer.

At least two people have filed complaints against Day with the Secretary of State’s office in the past week. Both alleged that Day used his position as a public employee to “promote or oppose” a person’s election campaign, in violation of a state law.

“Election meddling is what it looks like to me,” said Nate Haberman, a Portland attorney who filed one of the complaints against Day last Friday.

The Police Bureau declined to comment.

The complaints center on a press release Day issued from his office last week, condemning comments that Councilor Mitch Green had posted — and deleted — prior to running for elected office in 2024.

Green’s statements, posted to X, the website then known as Twitter in 2020 and 2021, were critical of police amid the racial justice protests spurred by a Minneapolis police officer killing George Floyd.

Day wrote that, because of these since-deleted statements, “I have a responsibility to say that I no longer have confidence that this Councilor is evaluating the Police Bureau reasonably and objectively.”

Green is running for reelection in November.

This is why Haberman and Portlander Jonathan Tasini, a labor advocate who ran for city council in 2024, each sent complaints to the secretary of state’s office. They believe Day violated the state statute.

“Because the harm of Chief Day’s apparent violation of ORS 260.432 is immediate—it has entered into the discourse of the upcoming election—I request the State conduct the investigation with the utmost urgency,” wrote Tasini.

A spokesperson with the secretary of state’s office told OPB that the department’s elections division has not yet determined whether they’ll investigate the concerns.

Haberman, who lives in Green’s District 4, said Day’s comments felt like a threat.

“So, am I going to get punished if I don’t vote for what Day wants?” he asked. “Is my neighborhood going to get mistreated by police if we re-elect Green?”

Concerns about city employees’ politicking aren’t unusual. In fact, Green himself was the subject of a complaint last month, when several Portlanders claimed he had wrongly used his city Instagram account to promote his reelection campaign. The city auditor’s office formally dismissed this complaint.

Both Tasini and Haberman also filed complaints with the city’s Bureau of Human Resources, alleging Day violated a rule that prohibits city employees from participating in any kind of political activity. The city’s human resources office did not immediately respond to OPB’s request for comment.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/09/22/portland-police-chief-accused-violating-state-law-councilor-tweets/