Tina Kotek didn’t inherit Oregon’s problems in 2023. She helped write them.
Elected to the House in 2006, Speaker from 2013 to 2022 (longest in state history). Under that leadership Oregon passed the nation’s first statewide rent control law (SB 608, 2019) and ended single-family zoning in much of the state (HB 2001). Point-in-time homelessness counts rose from about 13,200 in 2015 to roughly 18,000 by 2022 and hit about 27,100 in 2025. Her own later target of 36,000 new homes a year has never been met.
Fifteen-plus years of the same priorities, same results.