The LGBT in politics count just received a huge mark on the positive yesterday. Oregon decided to keep Kate Brown as governor, but this time she was officially elected to the position.
Democrats now have a 30-year winning streak when it comes to the Oregon governor’s office. Kate Brown held off Republican challenger Bud Pierce Tuesday night.
Brown became governor in February 2015 when fellow Democrat John Kitzhaber resigned during a criminal ethics investigation. Now, she’ll serve the remaining two years of the four-year term Kitzhaber won during the 2014 election. Brown was first in line of succession because she was secretary of state. So while she did enjoy some of the advantages of being the incumbent, she was technically not seeking re-election.
Brown celebrated her victory with other Democrats during an election night party at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland.
Brown’s victory makes her the nation’s first elected LGBT governor and Oregon’s second woman elected to the state’s highest office. She recalled in her victory speech how as a young attorney in the 1980s she discovered she was paying less than a male colleague with an identical job and faced the fear of losing her job because she was in a relationship with a woman at the time. She said those experiences put her on the path she would choose in public service.
“I vowed I would do everything in my power to make sure that no one — no one in this state — would have to face that level of fear or face that level of discrimination,” Brown said.
She also vowed to fight to make sure that “our schools open the doors of opportunity” for all students, and to ensure that Oregon’s economy “grows in every single corner of our state.”
“And I will fight to preserve the beauty and bounty of Oregon for generations to come,” Brown said. – opg.org
Here is a video discussing what happened to make Brown's election possible
The Kitzhaber Effect: His Resignation's Impact On Elections.
For more on Brown's road to the governorship, head over to opg.org . There you will learn about her platform that was successful in getting her elected.
h/t: opg.org