Powell's Books

Quick Take

This research found no corporate PAC, no federal lobbying registration, and no OpenSecrets organization profile for Powell's. Individual donations by the company's owners or employees ($200 and up, reported by employer) are the one federal channel that could exist, and this profile did not retrieve them. That is a federal finding only: Oregon's state campaign-finance portal (ORESTAR) was not examined for this profile, so any state-level giving is an open gap, not evidence of absence. Its politics are instead written in public statements and store decisions. In August 2020 owner Emily Powell publicly ended the company's sales through Amazon's marketplace, stating the company would not participate in undermining the vitality of local communities.[2] The company also has a court record on free expression: it was a named plaintiff against the federal Child Online Protection Act from 1998 through two Supreme Court rounds, and it won a 2010 Ninth Circuit ruling striking down two Oregon statutes on furnishing sexual material to minors.[14][15][16] In January 2021 the company refused to shelve or promote conservative journalist Andy Ngo's book Unmasked while keeping it for sale online through days of protests, stating that carrying books it finds abhorrent is the work of bookselling.[3][4] Its union-represented workforce (about 300 workers in 2023) has been organized with ILWU Local 5 for over two decades and staged a one-day strike that closed all three retail stores on Labor Day 2023.[5][11]

The Amazon Divorce

Powell's began selling online in 1994, before Amazon launched, and for two decades supplemented its own site by listing inventory on Amazon's marketplace. On August 26, 2020, three days ahead of Independent Bookstore Day (pushed that year to August 29), Emily Powell announced the company would stop selling through Amazon entirely, writing that the company had watched the detrimental impact of Amazon's business on communities and the independent bookselling world for too long, and that the vitality of neighbors and neighborhoods depends on local businesses being able to thrive.[2][6] The company framed the exit as a values decision taken at real financial cost during a pandemic that had already closed its stores for months.[6]

The Pandemic Loan and a Racial-Justice Reckoning

The pandemic closed every Powell's store in mid-March 2020 and the company laid off most of its staff before rehiring about 100 to fill online orders. Government records reported by Publishers Weekly show Powell's received a federal Paycheck Protection Program loan of between $2 million and $5 million on a pledge to retain 471 jobs, which Emily Powell said covered payroll, health care, rent at the smaller stores, and utilities.[12] In the same July 2020 update to customers, Powell wrote that the management team had spent months in what she called deep internal introspection about its previous work, or lack thereof, in the fight for racial justice, that the company should have done more and done better, and that it would focus on community partnerships, internal education, daily business practices, and hiring.[12] These are the company's own stated commitments; this research located no later public report from Powell's on what followed.

Two Decades in Court Over Censorship

Powell's Bookstore is listed by name among the respondents in Ashcroft v. ACLU, the Supreme Court litigation over the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), a 1998 federal law that penalized commercial websites for making material deemed harmful to minors available online. Powell's joined the ACLU, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, and other publishers and web businesses in challenging the law before it took effect; the Supreme Court heard the case in 2002 and again in 2004, when it upheld the preliminary injunction blocking enforcement.[14]

In 2008 the company put its own name on the caption. Powell's Books, Inc. v. Kroger challenged two Oregon statutes enacted in 2007 that criminalized furnishing sexually explicit material to minors, arguing they swept in sex-education materials and mainstream novels. The federal district court in Oregon rejected the challenge, but on September 20, 2010, the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding both statutes facially overbroad under the First Amendment and rejecting the state's argument that it could simply promise not to prosecute booksellers.[15][16] The case is now cited in the Oregon Legislature's own annotations to the statute.[16]

The Book It Would Not Shelve and Would Not Drop

The defining public test of the company's stated free-speech posture came in January 2021, ahead of the February release of Portland-based conservative journalist Andy Ngo's Unmasked: Inside Antifa's Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy. Demonstrators gathered at the Burnside flagship, plastered the windows with signs, and forced the store to close early on consecutive days as a safety precaution.[3] Powell's announced the book would not be placed on its shelves and would not be promoted, but would remain in the online catalog, stating: we carry a lot of books we find abhorrent, as well as those that we treasure, and that it is the work of bookselling to do so.[3][7] Owner Emily Powell followed with a longer statement recalling that the store had received credible bomb threats decades earlier for selling Salman Rushdie's work and carried on, and said the store could not behave differently when it feels differently about the book or writer in question.[4] PEN America publicly backed the decision to keep selling the book, stating that selling a book does not equal endorsement.[8] The episode drew criticism from both directions: from protesters demanding the book be dropped entirely, and from commentators who read the shelf decision as a concession to pressure.

A Union Shop, and Friction Inside It

Powell's workers organized with ILWU Local 5 in 2000, making it one of the country's largest unionized independent bookstores, with about 300 union-represented workers at the time of the 2023 strike.[5][11] On September 4, 2023, during stalled contract negotiations, the union staged a one-day strike and the company closed all three retail locations for the day, citing lack of staffing and stating that it supported the union's decision to strike;[11] the two sides were negotiating over wages and health care premiums.[5] The union has also publicly criticized management decisions it characterizes as censorship, including a dispute over the removal of a co-sponsoring organization's name from event publicity, an account published by the union itself and reported here as the union's characterization.[9] These workplace disputes are conduct between employer and employees, included for completeness rather than as a political signal.

Ownership and Voice

Powell's is a family company: founder Walter Powell, then his son Michael Powell from 1982 to 2010, then Michael's daughter Emily Powell, who has framed the company's mission around serving Oregon's readers and writers and deliberately staying a Portland business rather than expanding to other cities.[1][10] The company's public statements, from the Amazon exit letter to the Unmasked statements, are issued in the owner's own name or the company's, and they are the primary documentable record of its positions; this research located no corporate PAC, no lobbying registration, and no formal candidate endorsements.

New CEO, Layoffs, and a Family Loan

In September 2025 Powell's hired David Maquera as chief executive, replacing Patrick Bassett, who had run the company for five years after being hired from a consulting role in September 2020; owner Emily Powell remains president.[19] Bassett was brought in as a veteran business consultant who had been advising Powell's during the pandemic.[18] Willamette Week reported that the company ran four rounds of layoffs beginning in July 2025, cutting 13 jobs in October to reach 31 for the year, and that a Powell family real estate company had borrowed $4.5 million in 2024, which Emily Powell said was for deferred maintenance and day-to-day needs, with Bassett saying at the time that sales had not returned to pre-pandemic levels.[19] Miriam Sontz, a 34-year employee, served as CEO from April 2013 until her retirement in January 2019.[17]

What They Sell and Where

Powell's sells new, used, and rare books side by side on the same shelves, a merchandising model the company treats as central to its economics, along with games, gifts, and cards.[10] The City of Books flagship at 1005 W Burnside Street stocks roughly a million volumes across rooms organized by color; the company operates additional Portland-area locations and ships nationally from powells.com.[1] It remains one of Portland's signature businesses and a destination retailer for visitors to the city.

Footnotes

[1] Wikipedia, "Powell's Books," accessed August 22, 2026 (corporate facts cross-checked against cited news reporting). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell%27s_Books

[2] Kurt Schlosser, GeekWire, "Portland's Powell's Books says it 'must take a stand' and will stop selling books through Amazon," August 27, 2020. https://www.geekwire.com/2020/portlands-powells-books-says-must-take-stand-will-stop-selling-books-amazon/

[3] KOIN, "Powell's announces it won't sell Andy Ngo's book in store," January 2021. https://www.koin.com/news/portland/powells-announces-it-wont-sell-andy-ngos-book-in-store/

[4] Publishers Weekly, "Powell's Responds to Anti-Ngo Protestors," January 2021. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/85303-powell-s-responds-to-anti-ngo-protestors.html

[5] Portland Monthly, "Booksellers vs. Bookstore: Powell's City of Books Staff Strikes," September 2023. https://www.pdxmonthly.com/news-and-city-life/2023/09/powells-bookstore-strike-labor-union

[6] CNBC, "Portland bookstore Powell's won't sell on Amazon: 'We must take a stand,'" August 27, 2020. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/27/portland-bookstore-powells-wont-sell-on-amazon-we-must-take-a-stand.html

[7] Aaron Mesh, Willamette Week, "Powell's Will Only Carry Andy Ngo's Book Online, Not on Shelves, but Protest Continues," January 11, 2021. https://www.wweek.com/news/2021/01/11/powells-will-only-carry-andy-ngos-book-online-not-on-shelves-but-protest-continues/

[8] Publishers Weekly, "Union, PEN Issue Statements on Powell's Sale of Ngo Book," January 2021. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/85343-union-pen-america-issue-statements-on-powell-s-sale-of-ngo-book.html

[9] ILWU Local 5, "Censorship at Powell's Books," accessed August 22, 2026 (union's own account of an internal dispute). https://www.ilwulocal5.com/censorship-at-powells-books

[10] Carol Ghiglieri, Berkeley Haas Magazine, "Question the Status Quo" (profile of Emily Powell), Spring 2021. https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/magazine/spring-2021/emily-powell/

[11] KOIN, "Powell's Books to close all locations as union strikes for 'No'-Labor Day on Monday," September 1, 2023. https://www.koin.com/news/portland/powells-books-to-close-all-locations-as-union-strikes-for-no-labor-day-on-monday/

[12] Publishers Weekly, "Powell's Bookstores Remain Closed, Owner Concerned," July 17, 2020. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/83884-powell-s-bookstores-remain-closed-owner-concerned.html

[13] Powell's Books, "Powell's City of Books" (store page stating the flagship spans an entire city block), accessed August 24, 2026. https://www.powells.com/bookstore/powells-city-of-books

[14] Supreme Court of the United States, Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 535 U.S. 564 (2002), footnote 4 listing respondents, and Ashcroft v. ACLU, 542 U.S. 656 (2004), via Cornell Legal Information Institute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/00-1293 and https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/542/656

[15] ACLU of Oregon, "Powell's Books Inc., et al, v. John Kroger, et al" (case page, ruling of September 20, 2010). https://www.aclu-or.org/cases/powells-books-inc-et-al-v-john-kroger-et-al/

[16] United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Powell's Books, Inc. v. Kroger, No. 09-35153, 622 F.3d 1202 (9th Cir. 2010), opinion. https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/09-35153/70/0.pdf ; cited in Oregon Legislature, ORS Chapter 167 annotations. https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ano167.html

[17] Publishers Weekly, "Powell's Books CEO to Retire," July 10, 2018. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/77474-powell-s-books-ceo-to-retire.html

[18] Shelf Awareness, "Powell's Books Names New CEO," October 1, 2020. https://shelf-awareness.com/theshelf/2020-10-01/powell_s_books_names_new_ceo.html

[19] Christen McCurdy, Willamette Week, "Powell's Books Names New CEO," November 24, 2025. https://www.wweek.com/culture/shop/2025/11/24/powells-books-names-new-ceo/

[20] Travel Portland, "Powell's City of Books" (official Portland visitor guide; company origin in Chicago in 1970 and Portland in 1971), accessed August 24, 2026. https://www.travelportland.com/attractions/powells/