Katherine Brown (born June 21, 1960) is an American politician and attorney who served as the
38th governor of Oregon from 2015 to 2023. A member of the
Democratic Party, she served three terms as the state representative from the
13th district of the
Oregon House of Representatives
The Oregon House of Representatives is the lower house of the Oregon Legislative Assembly, the upper house being the Oregon State Senate. There are 60 members of the House, representing 60 districts across the state, each with a population of ...
from 1991 to 1997, three terms as the state senator from the
21st district of the
Oregon Senate from 1997 to 2009, three terms as
majority leader of the Oregon Senate from 2003 to 2009, and two terms as
Oregon Secretary of State from 2009 to 2015. She assumed the governorship upon the resignation of
John Kitzhaber in 2015.
She was elected to serve out the remainder of his gubernatorial term in the
special election in 2016 and was
reelected 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 the
first openly LGBT person elected
secretary of state within a
U.S. state, and the first openly LGBT person elected to
statewide office in any U.S. state. In 2016, she became the first openly LGBT person elected
governor
A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...
of a U.S. state and the second woman elected
governor of Oregon (after
Barbara Roberts).
By the end of her term, Brown had the lowest approval ratings of any incumbent U.S. governor at that time.
Early life and education
Brown was born in
Torrejón de Ardoz in
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
, where her father, Dr. James Paterson Brown, an eye doctor, was serving in the
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...
, at
Torrejón Air Base. She grew up in
Minnesota
Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...
and graduated from
Mounds View High School in
Arden Hills, Minnesota in 1978. She earned a
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...
in
Environmental Conservation Environmental conservation may refer to:
* Environmental protection
* Nature conservation
{{disambiguation ...
with a
certificate in
women's studies
Women's studies is an academic field that draws on Feminism, feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining Social constructionism, social and cultural constructs of gender; ...
from the
University of Colorado Boulder in 1981 and a
J.D. degree and certificate in
environmental law
Environmental laws are laws that protect the environment. The term "environmental law" encompasses treaties, statutes, regulations, conventions, and policies designed to protect the natural environment and manage the impact of human activitie ...
from the
Lewis & Clark College Law School in 1985.
Career
Oregon Legislative Assembly

Brown was appointed to the
Oregon House of Representatives
The Oregon House of Representatives is the lower house of the Oregon Legislative Assembly, the upper house being the Oregon State Senate. There are 60 members of the House, representing 60 districts across the state, each with a population of ...
in 1991, filling a vacancy in a
Portland seat left by predecessor Judy Bauman, who took an executive appointment.
She was elected to a second term before being elected to the
Oregon State Senate
The Oregon State Senate is the upper house of the State legislature (United States), statewide legislature for the US state of Oregon. Along with the lower chamber Oregon House of Representatives it makes up the Oregon Legislative Assembly. Ther ...
in 1996. Two years later, she was elected Senate Democratic Leader. In 2003, she was elected
Majority Leader of the
Oregon 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 the
Oregon Public Employees Retirement System
The Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) is the retirement and disability fund for public employees in the U.S. state of Oregon established in 1946. Employees of the state, school districts, and local governments are eligible for coverage. ...
, although she ultimately voted against it to preserve her relationship with
labor unions
A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...
.
In July 2007, Brown announced that she would give up her seat in the Oregon Senate to be a candidate for
Oregon Secretary of State the next year.
On May 20, 2008, Brown won the
election for the Democratic nomination for Secretary of State, and on November 5 she won the
general election
A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...
by a 51–46% margin against Republican candidate
Rick Dancer.
Oregon Secretary of State
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.
In 2009 Brown introduced and passed House Bill 2005 to crack down on fraud and abuse in the
initiative 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.

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.
In 2009 the
Aspen 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.
In October 2012 ''StateTech'' magazine highlighted Brown's use of
iPad
The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...
and
tablet 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.
In January 2015 Brown submitted a letter to the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...
(FCC) in support of the
purchase of Time Warner Cable by Comcast that had been almost entirely ghostwritten by
Comcast
Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings,Before the AT&T Broadband, AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, not th ...
, a company that has made a total of over $10,000 in donations to her past election campaigns.
Governor of Oregon
On February 18, 2015, Governor
John Kitzhaber resigned amid a public corruption scandal just three months after his reelection; Brown succeeded him since the
Constitution of Oregon identifies the secretary of state as the successor when the governor leaves office prematurely.
Brown named Brian Shipley, a lobbyist for
Oregon Health & Science University and former deputy chief of staff to Governor
Ted Kulongoski, as her chief of staff. She appointed
Jeanne Atkins secretary of state.
Upon taking office, Brown extended the
moratorium on
executions Kitzhaber had enacted. 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. At
Politico
''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American political digital newspaper company founded by American banker and media executive Robert Allbritton in 2007. It covers politics and policy in the Unit ...
'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."
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.
Oregon law required a
special 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.
She won the general election against
Republican Party nominee
Bud Pierce,
Independent Party nominee Cliff Thomason,
Libertarian Party nominee James Foster, and
Constitution Party nominee Aaron Donald Auer, receiving 51% of the vote.
In January 2017, Brown named Nik Blosser her third chief of staff after the resignation of former chief of staff Kristen Leonard. In June 2017, Brown signed into law the Oregon Equal Pay Act, which banned employers from using job seekers' prior salaries in hiring decisions, and a
transgender
A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth.
The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...
equity bill.
Brown was
reelected in November 2018, defeating Republican
Knute Buehler 50.0% to 43.9%, with Independent Party nominee Patrick Starnes, Libertarian Party nominee Nick Chen, Constitution Party nominee Aaron Auer, and
Progressive 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 a
cap-and-trade system. 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 a
quorum
A quorum is the minimum number of members of a group necessary to constitute the group at a meeting. In a deliberative assembly (a body that uses parliamentary procedure, such as a legislature), a quorum is necessary to conduct the business of ...
in the Senate and thereby block the passage of a sweeping
climate change
Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...
bill.
In 2019, after a measles outbreak in Oregon, Brown urged parents to vaccinate their children.
In response to the ongoing global
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...
pandemic, Brown publicly urged Oregonians to stay home to avoid spreading the virus, but was initially criticized for not issuing a
shelter-in-place order. The order was officially issued on March 23, 2020.
In August 2021, ''
The Oregonian
''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the West Coast of the United States, U.S. West Coast, founded as a weekly by Tho ...
'' wrote, "Gov. Kate Brown signed a law to allow Oregon students to graduate without proving they can write or do math."
In December 2022, Brown commuted the sentences of all 17 people on
death row in Oregon, calling the death penalty "dysfunctional and immoral" and something that "had never been administered fairly or equitably in Oregon."
Criticism
As secretary of state, Brown faced political backlash over the scheduling of the election for labor commissioner between Democrat
Brad Avakian and Republican
Bruce Starr
Bruce Starr (born January 12, 1969) is an American politician and businessman in Oregon. He currently serves in the Oregon State Senate, Oregon Senate representing District 12 since 2025. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republi ...
. The election for this position is typically held in May, but in 2009 the Oregon legislature passed bipartisan House Bill 2095, 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".
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.
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. She was accused of mismanaging Oregon DHS Child Welfare in audits published in January 2018.
In July 2018, Brown brokered meetings between several large Oregon-based companies, including
Nike, and union leaders over campaigns to include Initiative Petition 25, a
corporate 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 founder
Phil Knight
Philip Hampson Knight (born February 24, 1938) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist who is the co-founder and chairman ''emeritus'' of Nike, Inc., a global sports equipment and apparel company. He was previously its chai ...
contributed over $1 million to Brown's Republican opponent's campaign, although the company itself gave financial support to Brown.
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
nitiative Petition 25sought to qualify the petition for the ballot for an improper purpose." Brown and supporters later characterized the complaint as a political ploy. 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".
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. 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.
In November 2021, Brown had a 43% job approval rating, the lowest of any U.S. governor. The same poll found that her approval rating declined to 40% in October 2022, again the lowest in the country.
2019 recall attempt
In 2019, the
Oregon 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.
2020 recall attempt
In 2020,
Bill Currier, chairman of the
Oregon Republican Party and mayor of
Adair 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 the
COVID-19 pandemic in Oregon.
Wilsonville activist Kelsey Massey started another petition. 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.
Political views
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.
Brown supports
criminal justice reform by opposing
mass incarceration and made that a hallmark of her term as governor, commuting the sentences of around 1,100 people during her term.
Personal life
Following the conclusion of her governorship, Brown was a Spring 2023 Visiting Fellow at the
Kennedy School Institute of Politics of
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
, then a Fall 2023 Pritzker Fellow at the
University of Chicago Institute of Politics. She became President of the
Willamette Falls
The Willamette Falls is a natural waterfall in the Northwestern United States, northwestern United States, located on the Willamette River between Oregon City, Oregon, Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon. The largest waterfall in the Northwest ...
Trust on May 28, 2024. Brown lives with her husband, Dan Little, and has two
stepchildren, Dylan and Jessie. She is the country's first openly
bisexual
Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, or the attraction t ...
statewide office holder and first openly bisexual governor.
Electoral history
Oregon State Senate
2004
Oregon Secretary of State
2008
2012
Governor of Oregon
2016
2018
Awards and distinctions
* 1995 – Recipient,
Woman of Achievement Award from the
Oregon Commission for Women
* 2004 – Recipient, National Public and Community Service Award from the
American Mental Health Counselors Association
* 2007 – Recipient, President's Award of Merit from the
Oregon State Bar
* 2015 – Was listed as one of the nine runners-up for ''
The Advocates Person of the Year
* 2017 – Named to the inaugural
NBC Out #Pride30 list
* Profiles in Courage by
Basic Rights Oregon
See also
*
List of U.S. state governors born outside the United States
*
List of female governors in the United States
*
List of female secretaries of state in the United States
*
List of LGBT people from Portland, Oregon
*
List of openly LGBT heads of government
*
List of the first LGBT holders of political offices in the United States
References
Further reading
* Brad Schmidt
"Kate Brown: Next Oregon Governor Described as Tenacious, Personable,"''The Oregonian,'' February 13, 2015.
External links
Governor of Oregonofficial government website
Kate Brown for Governor campaign website
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Kate
1960 births
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American women politicians
21st-century American LGBTQ people
21st-century American women politicians
American women academics
Bisexual women politicians
Democratic Party governors of Oregon
Democratic Party members of the Oregon House of Representatives
21st-century members of the Oregon Legislative Assembly
Democratic Party Oregon state senators
Lawyers from Portland, Oregon
Lewis & Clark Law School alumni
LGBTQ people from Minnesota
LGBTQ state governors of the United States
LGBTQ state legislators in Oregon
Living people
People from Torrejón de Ardoz
Portland State University faculty
Secretaries of state of Oregon
University of Colorado Boulder alumni
Women state governors of the United States
Women state legislators in Oregon
American bisexual women
American bisexual politicians