EMILYs List Endorses Tina Kotek for Governor of Oregon

For Immediate Release
December 10, 2021

EMILYs List Endorses Tina Kotek for Governor of Oregon 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, endorsed Tina Kotek for governor of Oregon. Laphonza Butler, president of EMILYs List, released the following statement:

“Tina Kotek is a proven fighter for opportunity and justice, and EMILYs List is thrilled to stand with her as she runs for governor of Oregon. Throughout her career, Speaker Kotek has fought to expand affordable health care, raise the minimum wage, ensure equal pay protections, set Oregon on the path to 100% clean electricity, and led Oregon’s crisis responses. To continue making real, meaningful progress for families throughout the state, we must elect Tina Kotek as Oregon’s next governor. Under Kotek’s leadership, Oregon will reckon with the legacies of injustice, move past the politics of division, and become a better place for families to work and live. We are proud to support Speaker Kotek’s historic campaign to become the first openly lesbian governor in the country.”

Tina Kotek is the descendent of four grandparents who emigrated from eastern Europe. Kotek is a dedicated public servant and advocate, beginning with her work to win domestic partnership benefits for faculty and students at the University of Washington in the mid-1990s. When she returned to Oregon, Kotek worked as a policy advocate for the Oregon Food Bank, the policy director for Children First for Oregon, and then was elected to the Oregon state House in 2006.  In 2013, Kotek made history as the first openly lesbian speaker of any state legislature in the nation. She is now running to make history again as the first openly lesbian governor of any state.

EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, has raised over $700 million to elect Democratic pro-choice women candidates. With a grassroots community of over five million members, EMILY's List helps Democratic women win competitive campaigns – across the country and up and down the ballot – by recruiting and training candidates, supporting and helping build strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, running nearly $50 million in independent expenditures in the last cycle alone, and turning out women voters and voters of color to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect the country's first woman as vice president, 159 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 16 governors, and more than 1,300 women to state and local office. More than 40% of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. After the 2016 election, more than 60,000 women reached out to EMILY's List about running for office laying the groundwork for the next decade of candidates for local, state, and national offices. In our effort to elect more women in offices across the country, we have created our Run to Win program, expanded our training program, including a Training Center online, and trained thousands of women.