Kate Brown | |
|---|---|
_(1).jpg) Brown in 2022 | |
| 38thGovernor of Oregon | |
| In office February 18, 2015 – January 9, 2023 | |
| Preceded by | John Kitzhaber |
| Succeeded by | Tina Kotek |
| 24thSecretary of State of Oregon | |
| In office January 5, 2009 – February 18, 2015 | |
| Governor | Ted Kulongoski John Kitzhaber |
| Preceded by | Bill Bradbury |
| Succeeded by | Jeanne Atkins |
| Member of theOregon Senate from the 21st district | |
| In office January 13, 1997 – January 2, 2009 | |
| Preceded by | Shirley Gold |
| Succeeded by | Diane Rosenbaum |
| Member of theOregon House of Representatives from the 13th district | |
| In office November 26, 1991 – January 12, 1997 | |
| Preceded by | Judy Bauman |
| Succeeded by | Dan Gardner |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Katherine Brown (1960-06-21)June 21, 1960 (age 65) Torrejón de Ardoz, Spain |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 stepchildren |
| Education | University of Colorado, Boulder (BA) Lewis and Clark College (JD) |
| Signature |  |
Katherine Brown (born June 21, 1960) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 38thgovernor of Oregon from 2015 to 2023. A member of theDemocratic Party, she served three terms as the state representative from the13th district of theOregon House of Representatives from 1991 to 1997, three terms as the state senator from the21st district of theOregon Senate from 1997 to 2009, three terms asmajority leader of the Oregon Senate from 2003 to 2009, and two terms asOregon Secretary of State from 2009 to 2015. She assumed the governorship upon the resignation ofJohn Kitzhaber in 2015.[1] She was elected to serve out the remainder of his gubernatorial term in thespecial election in 2016 and wasreelected to a full term in 2018.
As an openly bisexual woman, Brown has made history several times through her electoral success. In 2008, she became thefirst openly LGBT person electedsecretary of state within aU.S. state, and the first openly LGBT person elected tostatewide office in any U.S. state. In 2016, she became the first openly LGBT person electedgovernor of a U.S. state and the second woman electedgovernor of Oregon (afterBarbara Roberts).[2][3] By the end of her term, Brown had the lowest approval ratings of any incumbent U.S. governor at that time.[4]
Brown was born inTorrejón de Ardoz inSpain, where her father, Dr. James Paterson Brown, an eye doctor, was serving in theUnited States Air Force, atTorrejón Air Base.[5][6] She grew up inMinnesota and graduated fromMounds View High School inArden Hills, Minnesota in 1978.[7] She earned aBachelor of Arts inEnvironmental Conservation with acertificate inwomen's studies from theUniversity of Colorado Boulder in 1981 and aJ.D. degree and certificate inenvironmental law from theLewis & Clark College Law School in 1985.[8]
Brown was appointed to theOregon House of Representatives in 1991, filling a vacancy in aPortland seat left by predecessor Judy Bauman, who took an executive appointment.[9] She was elected to a second term before being elected to theOregon State Senate in 1996. Two years later, she was elected Senate Democratic Leader. In 2003, she was electedMajority Leader of theOregon Senate.
Brown was a top fundraiser for her caucus, helping the Democrats tie the Republicans in the Oregon Senate in 2003. That same year she also won the position of caucus leader. Brown helped round up votes to pass a bill that year reforming theOregon Public Employees Retirement System, although she ultimately voted against it to preserve her relationship withlabor unions.[10]
In July 2007, Brown announced that she would give up her seat in the Oregon Senate to be a candidate forOregon Secretary of State the next year.[11] On May 20, 2008, Brown won theelection for the Democratic nomination for Secretary of State, and on November 5 she won thegeneral election by a 51–46% margin against Republican candidateRick Dancer.[12]
Coming into office, one of Brown's priorities was to perform rigorous performance audits to help balance the budget. In 2008, for every dollar the State spent, performance audits returned $8 in cost savings. In 2010 Brown reported she delivered $64 in cost savings and efficiencies for every dollar invested in the Division.[13]
In 2009 Brown introduced and passed House Bill 2005 to crack down on fraud and abuse in theinitiative and referendum system. It gave the Secretary of State more power to prosecute fraud and enforce the constitutional ban on paying per signature on initiatives.[14]
Brown also implemented online voter registration. As of March 2010, a year after its introduction,Oregon Public Broadcasting noted nearly 87,000 Oregonians had already registered online to vote.[15]
In 2009 theAspen Institute named Brown as one of 24 "Rising Stars" in American politics and awarded her a Rodel Fellowship. The program is a two-year fellowship designed to break down partisan barriers and explore the responsibilities of public leadership and good governance.[16]
In October 2012StateTech magazine highlighted Brown's use ofiPad andtablet technology to increase accessibility for voters with disabilities. In 2011 Oregon became the first jurisdiction in the country to use this technology to help voters with disabilities mark their ballots.[17]
In January 2015 Brown submitted a letter to theFederal Communications Commission (FCC) in support of thepurchase of Time Warner Cable by Comcast that had been almost entirely ghostwritten byComcast, a company that has made a total of over $10,000 in donations to her past election campaigns.[18]
On February 18, 2015, GovernorJohn Kitzhaber resigned amid a public corruption scandal just three months after his reelection; Brown succeeded him since theConstitution of Oregon identifies the secretary of state as the successor when the governor leaves office prematurely.[1]
Brown named Brian Shipley, a lobbyist forOregon Health & Science University and former deputy chief of staff to GovernorTed Kulongoski, as her chief of staff.[19][20] She appointedJeanne Atkins secretary of state.[21]
Upon taking office, Brown extended themoratorium onexecutions Kitzhaber had enacted.[22] In 2015, she also signed a "motor voter" bill she had championed while secretary of state, to automatically register voters using their driver's license data.[23][24] AtPolitico's "State Solutions" voter engagement conference, Brown said, "Registration is a barrier to people participating in this process" and "Voting is a fundamental right of being a citizen, and people across the country should have the ability to access this fundamental right without barriers like registration". Addressing critics of policies aimed at increasing voter turnout, such as Oregon's "motor voter" law, she said, "I think the good news is, in Oregon, we actually want people to vote in our state."[25]
In July 2016 Brown signed HB3402, which raised the maximum speed limit to 70 mph on I-82 and sections of I-84 and US-95. Previously the maximum speed limit on Oregon highways was 65 mph. This bill also raised speed limits on non-interstate highways in eastern Oregon from 55 mph to 65 mph.[26]
Oregon law required aspecial election in November 2016 for the two years remaining in Kitzhaber's unfinished term as governor. By April 2016 Brown had raised over $800,000 for her campaign in 2016 alone, while her closest Democratic primary competitor, Julian Bell, had raised $33,000. She defeated Bell, Chet Chance, Kevin M. Forsythe, Steve Johnson, and Dave Stauffer for the Democratic nomination.[27][28] She won the general election againstRepublican Party nomineeBud Pierce,Independent Party nominee Cliff Thomason,Libertarian Party nominee James Foster, andConstitution Party nominee Aaron Donald Auer, receiving 51% of the vote.
In January 2017, Brown named Nik Blosser[29] her third chief of staff after the resignation of former chief of staff Kristen Leonard.[30][31] In June 2017, Brown signed into law the Oregon Equal Pay Act, which banned employers from using job seekers' prior salaries in hiring decisions,[32] and atransgender equity bill.[33]
Brown wasreelected in November 2018, defeating RepublicanKnute Buehler 50.0% to 43.9%, with Independent Party nominee Patrick Starnes, Libertarian Party nominee Nick Chen, Constitution Party nominee Aaron Auer, andProgressive Party nominee Chris Henry taking the remaining votes. She had received 82% in the Democratic primary.
In a November 2018 budget plan Brown proposed a 30-year plan to limit Oregon's greenhouse gas emissions via acap-and-trade system.[34] On June 20, 2019, Brown authorized state troopers to search for and return 11 Republican state senators after the Oregon Senate ordered the Sergeant-at-Arms to compel them to attend a Senate session. The senators had left to prevent aquorum in the Senate and thereby block the passage of a sweepingclimate change bill.[35][36]
In 2019, after a measles outbreak in Oregon, Brown urged parents to vaccinate their children.[37]
In response to the ongoing globalCOVID-19 pandemic, Brown publicly urged Oregonians to stay home to avoid spreading the virus, but was initially criticized for not issuing ashelter-in-place order.[38] The order was officially issued on March 23, 2020.[39]
In August 2021,The Oregonian wrote, "Gov. Kate Brown signed a law to allow Oregon students to graduate without proving they can write or do math."[40]
In December 2022, Brown commuted the sentences of all 17 people ondeath row in Oregon, calling the death penalty "dysfunctional and immoral" and something that "had never been administered fairly or equitably in Oregon."[41][42]
As secretary of state, Brown faced political backlash over the scheduling of the election for labor commissioner between DemocratBrad Avakian and RepublicanBruce Starr. The election for this position is typically held in May, but in 2009 the Oregon legislature passed bipartisan House Bill 2095,[43] which required the election to be held in November 2012. Despite this, Starr accused Brown of pushing the election to November to help Avakian win. Brown called his accusations "unfounded and outrageous", saying her office was simply enforcing a "very clear" law, and that "this is an issue of election law, not politics".[10][44] Starr filed a lawsuit attempting to force Brown to hold the election in May, but the lawsuit was denied because Starr could not show he was likely to prevail on the merits of his case.[45]
In March 2018, Brown was criticized for firing state librarian MaryKay Dahlgreen, a move that surprised members of the Oregon State Library Board of Directors.[46] She was accused of mismanaging Oregon DHS Child Welfare in audits published in January 2018.[47][48][49][50][51][52][53]
In July 2018, Brown brokered meetings between several large Oregon-based companies, includingNike, and union leaders over campaigns to include Initiative Petition 25, acorporate transparency initiative, and Measure 104, geared toward limiting reductions in corporate tax breaks, on the November ballot. Brown's office said her goal was to prevent both initiatives from coming to fruition. She later faced complaints over the alleged brokering of an agreement—supposedly in exchange for financial support through a Nike PAC—in order to keep Petition 25 off the ballot. That year, Nike founderPhil Knight contributed over $1 million to Brown's Republican opponent's campaign, although the company itself gave financial support to Brown.[54]
Only a week after the submission of an official complaint, Oregon's Department of Justice found no grounds for an investigation, with the Department's Criminal Justice Division chief council writing, "there is no information that the proponents of [Initiative Petition 25] sought to qualify the petition for the ballot for an improper purpose." Brown and supporters later characterized the complaint as a political ploy.[55] Initiative Petition 25's sponsors ultimately withheld it from the November ballot. Despite having obtained the requisite number of signatures before the submission deadline, union leaders cited an "internal decision", rather than Nike's or Brown's influence, in choosing not to proceed. With Measure 104 and several other anti-tax and anti-labor bills having already secured spaces on the ballot, AFSCME political director Joe Baessler called the issue a "question of resources".[56]
Brown's process in appointing Misha Isaak, formerly her general attorney, to the Oregon Court of Appeals in August 2019 caused concern among members of the State Bar Association.[57] After the Public Records Advocate resigned and released correspondence damaging to Isaak, more people called on Brown to revoke the appointment, including former Oregon Supreme Court Justice Edwin Peterson.[58][59]
In November 2021, Brown had a 43% job approval rating, the lowest of any U.S. governor.[60] The same poll found that her approval rating declined to 40% in October 2022, again the lowest in the country.[61]
In 2019, theOregon Republican Party and an independent group, "Flush Down Kate Brown", attempted to remove Brown by recall petition, but fell 40,790 signatures short of the required 280,050.[62]
In 2020,Bill Currier, chairman of theOregon Republican Party and mayor ofAdair Village, launched another recall petition. It cited many of the concerns in the 2019 petition in addition to others, mostly focused on her handling of theCOVID-19 pandemic in Oregon.[63]Wilsonville activist Kelsey Massey started another petition.[64] One must collect at least 280,050 signatures to trigger a verification process, the first step toward a recall election. On August 31, Currier announced that the recall would not be on the ballot because it had not received enough signatures. For the Massey petition, no signatures were submitted by the July 31 deadline.[65]
According to Brown, her political philosophy shifted from the time she was first elected to the state legislature to her later public service. "When I became the caucus leader, which was in 1999, I had caucus members from very diverse parts of the state and very diverse perspectives...As the Democratic leader, I realized I represented all of the Democrats in the state, not just from my district. So that was really a shift in thinking," she said.[66]
Brown supportscriminal justice reform by opposingmass incarceration and made that a hallmark of her term as governor, commuting the sentences of around 1,100 people during her term.[citation needed]
Following the conclusion of her governorship, Brown was a Spring 2023 Visiting Fellow at theKennedy SchoolInstitute of Politics ofHarvard University,[67] then a Fall 2023 Pritzker Fellow at theUniversity of Chicago Institute of Politics.[68] She became President of theWillamette Falls Trust on May 28, 2024.[69][70] Brown lives with her husband,Dan Little, and has twostepchildren. She is the country's first openlybisexual statewide office holder and first openly bisexual governor.[12][71][72][73]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Kate Brown (Incumbent) | 13,541 | 98.81% | |
| write-ins | 163 | 1.19% | ||
| Total votes | 13,704 | 100% | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Kate Brown (Incumbent) | 52,278 | 86.52% | |
| Libertarian | Theresa Reed | 4,563 | 7.55% | |
| Constitution | Paul deParrie | 3,126 | 5.17% | |
| write-ins | 455 | 0.75% | ||
| Total votes | 60,422 | 100% | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Kate Brown | 277,853 | 51.74% | |
| Democratic | Rick Metsger | 145,820 | 27.15% | |
| Democratic | Vicki Walker | 96,835 | 18.03% | |
| Democratic | Paul Damian Wells | 14,696 | 2.74% | |
| write-ins | 1,842 | 0.34% | ||
| Total votes | 537,046 | 100% | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Kate Brown | 873,968 | 51.00% | |
| Republican | Rick Dancer | 785,740 | 45.85% | |
| Pacific Green | Seth Alan Woolley | 51,271 | 2.99% | |
| write-ins | 2,740 | 0.16% | ||
| Total votes | 1,713,719 | 100% | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Kate Brown (Incumbent) | 284,470 | 91.13% | |
| Democratic | Paul Damian Wells | 26,177 | 8.39% | |
| write-ins | 1,510 | 0.48% | ||
| Total votes | 312,157 | 100% | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Kate Brown (Incumbent) | 863,656 | 51.28% | |
| Republican | Knute Buehler | 727,607 | 43.20% | |
| Pacific Green | Seth Woolley | 44,235 | 2.63% | |
| Libertarian | Bruce Alexander Knight | 24,273 | 1.44% | |
| Progressive | Robert Wolfe | 21,783 | 1.29% | |
| write-ins | 2,561 | 0.15% | ||
| Total votes | 1,684,115 | 100% | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Kate Brown (Incumbent) | 494,890 | 83.06% | |
| Democratic | Julian Bell | 49,113 | 8.24% | |
| Democratic | Dave Stauffer | 16,108 | 2.70% | |
| Democratic | Steve Johnson | 13,363 | 2.24% | |
| Democratic | Kevin Forsythe | 10,147 | 1.70% | |
| Democratic | Chet Chance | 5,636 | 0.95% | |
| write-ins | 6,595 | 1.11% | ||
| Total votes | 595,852 | 100% | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Kate Brown (Incumbent) | 985,027 | 50.62% | |
| Republican | Bud Pierce | 845,609 | 43.45% | |
| Independent Party | Cliff Thomason | 47,481 | 2.44% | |
| Libertarian | James Foster | 45,191 | 2.32% | |
| Constitution | Aaron Donald Auer | 19,400 | 1.00% | |
| write-ins | 3,338 | 0.17% | ||
| Total votes | 1,946,046 | 100% | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Kate Brown (Incumbent) | 324,541 | 81.9% | |
| Democratic | Ed Jones | 33,464 | 8.4% | |
| Democratic | Candace Neville | 29,110 | 7.4% | |
| write-ins | 8,912 | 2.3% | ||
| Total votes | 396,027 | 100% | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Kate Brown (Incumbent) | 885,232 | 50.0% | |
| Republican | Knute Buehler | 776,558 | 43.9% | |
| Independent Party | Patrick Starnes | 50,879 | 2.9% | |
| Libertarian | Nick Chen | 26,587 | 1.5% | |
| Constitution | Aaron Auer | 19,645 | 1.1% | |
| Progressive | Chris Henry | 10,252 | 0.6% | |
| Total votes | 1,769,153 | 100% | ||
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forOregon Secretary of State 2008,2012 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forGovernor of Oregon 2016,2018 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Secretary of State of Oregon 2009–2015 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Governor of Oregon 2015–2023 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. order of precedence (ceremonial) | ||
| Preceded byas Former Governor | Order of precedence of the United States Within Oregon | Succeeded byas Former Governor |
| Order of precedence of the United States Outside Oregon | Succeeded byas Former Governor | |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
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