Kate Brown

Kate Brown

Katherine Brown is an American politician and attorney serving as the 38th governor of Oregon since 2015. She assumed the governorship upon the resignation of John Kitzhaber in 2015. Brown was born in Torrejón de Ardoz, Spanish State, where her father, an eye doctor, was serving in the U.S. Air Force.

About Kate Brown in brief

Summary Kate BrownKatherine Brown is an American politician and attorney serving as the 38th governor of Oregon since 2015. She assumed the governorship upon the resignation of John Kitzhaber in 2015. 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 of a state in the United States. In 2009 the Aspen Institute named Brown as one of 24 \”Rising Stars\” in American politics and awarded her a Rodel Fellowship. Brown was born in Torrejón de Ardoz, Spanish State, where her father, Dr. James Paterson Brown, an eye doctor, was serving in the U.S. Air Force. She graduated from Mounds View High School in Arden Hills, Minnesota in 1978. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Conservation with a certificate in women’s studies from the University of Colorado Boulder in 1981 and a J. D. degree and certificate in environmental law from the Lewis & Clark College Law School in 1985. She served three terms as the state representative from the 13th district of the Oregon House of Representatives from 1991 to 1997. She was elected to a second term before being elected to the Oregon State Senate in 1996. In 2003, she was elected Senate Democratic Leader.

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. In 2010 Brown reported she delivered USD 64 in cost savings and efficiencies for every dollar invested in the Division. In October 2012 StateTech magazine highlighted Brown’s use of iPad and tablet technology to increase accessibility for voters with disabilities. Brown introduced and passed House Bill 2005 to crack down on fraud and abuse in the initiative and referendum system. In 2011 Oregon was the first jurisdiction in the country to use this technology to help Voters with disabilities mark their ballots. In 2015, she extended the moratorium on executions on Kitzitzer had enacted In 2015 she also signed a bill to automatically register voters using their driver’s license’s data. Upon taking office, she appointed Jeanne Atkins, former chief of staff to Governor Ted Kulongoski, as chief of her staff. In January 2015 Brown submitted a letter to the Federal Communications Commission in support of the purchase of Time Warner Cable by Comcast that had been entirely ghostwritten by Comcast. In February 2015, Brown named Brian Shipley, a lobbyist for Oregon Health & University, as her successor.