Tina Kotek

Many people who are not in the weeds of housing policy do not know about Governor Kotek’s housing record. As Speaker of the Oregon House in 2019, she was responsible for HB 2001, a first-in-the-nation bill that received significant bipartisan support. It’s the kind of policy that will pay dividends for decades, and we are seeing the results in Bend as middle housing slowly densifies our neighborhoods.

As Governor, Kotek has continued to focus on housing, passing more legislation, including HB 2138 in 2025, which YIMBYs went to Salem to advocate for. YIMBYs across the country talk, and we think Governor Kotek has been one of the best governors on housing: some have signed good bills, Kotek has been a consistent leader in shaping them and getting them over the finish line.

There’s still a lot of work to do. Oregon’s landmark 1973 land use rules did a good job of preventing sprawl but didn’t do enough to let us build up and in, and paired with a century of exclusionary zoning our shortage grew until it could no longer be ignored. Fixing it will take a steady hand and leaders who understand the details of housing policy and are willing to keep pushing bold reform. Which is why we are excited to endorse Tina Kotek for Governor.

Tina Kotek is the Governor of Oregon, a Democrat elected on November 8, 2022 and sworn in as the state's 39th governor on January 9, 2023. She is running for a second term in the November 3, 2026 general election, nominated by the Democratic Party and also by the Working Families Party. She moved to Oregon in 1987 and earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Oregon and a master's degree at the University of Washington. She worked as a policy advocate for Oregon Food Bank and as policy director of Children First for Oregon before serving in the Oregon House of Representatives from 2007 to 2022, representing North Portland, and as Speaker of the House from 2013 to 2022, the longest-serving Speaker in Oregon history.