State Representative Tina Kotek

Tina is in her second term as the State Representative for House District 44 in the Oregon Legislature.  She serves in a leadership role as the House Majority Whip and as Co-Chair of the Human Services Subcommittee of the Joint Ways and Means Committee.  Tina is also a member of the full Joint Ways and Means Committee, the Emergency Board, and the House Committee on Health Care.  She is the appointed House member to the Oregon Commission for Child Care and the Public Employees Benefits Board.

During the 2009 legislative session, Tina focused on the state’s fiscal crisis and protecting critical services for children, low-income families, people with disabilities and seniors.  She played a key role in crafting bills to increase access to health care and implement cost-containment strategies to reform health care in Oregon.  In addition, Tina continued her longstanding interest in strong public health policy by passing a statewide menu labeling bill to provide consumers with calorie information in fast food restaurants.

During her first session in 2007, Tina was the only freshman legislator to chair a committee, the House Subcommittee on Health Policy.  She championed a redesign of the state’s welfare program, led the fight to establish statewide nutrition standards for food sold in schools, and helped to pass landmark legislation that ended discrimination based on sexual orientation and created domestic partnerships for same-sex couples.

Before her election to the Legislature in 2006, Tina was the policy director for the non-profit advocacy organization Children First for Oregon.  Prior to joining Children First, she was a public policy advocate for the Oregon Food Bank.  Recognized for her expertise on children’s health insurance issues, Tina was appointed by Governor Ted Kulongoski to serve as the co-chair of the Governor’s Medicaid Advisory Committee from late 2005 through 2006.  

Tina is a native of Pennsylvania, but has lived in the Northwest for more than 20 years, calling Portland home for the past ten years.  She holds a B.S. in religious studies from the University of Oregon and an M.A. in international studies from the University of Washington.  She lives in the Kenton neighborhood of North Portland with her partner Aimee Wilson and their dogs Maya and Rudy.