Katherine “Kate” Brown

Katherine "Kate" Brown served as governor of Oregon from 2015-2023. She assumed office on Feb. 18, 2015, following the resignation of her predecessor due to a public corruption scandal. She won the election to serve the remaining two years of her predecessor's four-year term in November 2016 and was re-elected in November 2018. Because of term limits, she was not eligible to run in 2022. Brown was the state's second female governor and the first openly bisexual governor in the United States.

Brown was born on June 21, 1960, in Madrid, Spain, where her father was serving in the U.S. Air Force, but was raised in Minnesota. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in environmental conservation with a certificate in women's studies from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1981 and a J.D. degree and certificate in environmental law from the Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College in 1985.

Prior to holding public office, Brown taught at Portland State University and practiced family and juvenile law. She began her legislative career when she was appointed to fill a vacancy in the Oregon House of Representatives in 1991 and then was reelected to two more terms. She was elected to the Oregon state Senate in 1996, elected Senate Democratic leader in 1998 and became the first woman to serve as Oregon's Senate majority leader in 2004.

Brown served as Oregon's secretary of state from 2009-2015. Because Oregon does not have a lieutenant governor, Brown was first in line to succeed the governor.