Oregon's Kate Brown was always bound for governor's job

Hannah Hoffman | Statesman-Journal, Salem, Ore.

SALEM, Ore. — Even before Oregon's new governor, Kate Brown, took office, the national media and gay rights groups were touting her as the nation's first openly bisexual governor.

"Kate Brown, Oregon's new governor, boosts the 'B' in LGBT," read one headline. "This woman will soon become the first openly bisexual governor," ran another.

Brown's attraction to both men and women was presented as the most interesting thing about her. But to her friends, co-workers, constituents and Brown herself, it is beside the point.

In Oregon, Brown is known for being warm, gracious and also ambitious. A political liberal, she relishes tackling problems. She is physically tiny but expansive in character.

This persona — understated, can-do — might be the salve Oregon needs after its once-popular Democratic governor, John Kitzhaber, resigned after months of increasingly jaw-dropping allegations about his fiancee, Cylvia Hayes, and her business dealings. Both are the subject of criminal investigations.

"Oregon has been in the national news for all the wrong reasons," Brown said at her inauguration Wednesday. "Now, we must restore the public's trust."

MINNESOTA START

Back in Minnesota, where she grew up, she is still just Katie Brown.

Two days before she took her oath of office, a friend of Brown's from back home posted a photo of her on the Mounds View High School Class of 1978 Facebook page.

"Thought you all would enjoy this picture of Kati (sic) at the beginning her political career which started at Ralph R Reeder elementary school," Mark Simons wrote.

There is Brown, maybe 11 years old, speaking at a podium and wearing a political button. She is poised and calm, commanding the attention of the adults sitting in the background of the photo.

That was the kind of girl Brown was, classmate Jack Ohman told the Statesman Journal. She made friends easily, was an athlete in high school, made good grades and ran for student council, he said.

They met in seventh-grade math class, back when she sported a "Nixon Now" button. Like her friend Ohman, now an editorial cartoonist for The Sacramento Bee and formerly of The Oregonian, Brown was a smart, middle-class kid from a small town outside Minnesota's Twin Cities.

Ohman tells of the year he tried to remove Brown from the high school student council. He thought the student council didn't push back hard enough against school principal Karl Brungardt and tried to change the student constitution to allow himself to run for Brown's seat as president.

It didn't work, but Brown appointed him to the school board, he said. She was friendly and nice about it, he said, even when some of her friends weren't.

Brown went on to the University of Colorado and then to the Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College in Portland. She practiced family law for several years and lobbied for women's issues in Salem, the Oregon capital.

STANDOUT

Gov. Kate Brown speaks at press conference Gov. Kate Brown speaks during a press conference on Friday, Feb. 20, 2015, at the Oregon State Capitol.

In Oregon, Brown climbed the political ranks — from the House of Representatives to the Senate to Senate majority leader to secretary of State.

Former Oregon Democratic governor Barbara Roberts met Brown back then and remembers her standing out.

She was so articulate, Roberts said. She could explain any policy or any topic clearly, in a way anyone could understand.

"Three sentences and you got it," Roberts said.

As Brown went on to be appointed and then elected to the Legislature, Roberts became her mentor. Brown would ask for feedback on her public speaking, Roberts said.

It was a different time for women in politics, and Brown didn't always understand the realities of that.

She was once shocked and indignant after being peppered with questions about whether she would grow out her hair, during a time when she was considering a run at a higher office, and she went to Roberts with her surprise.

The former governor laughed and laughed, reminding Brown of then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose hairstyles were an obsession for the national media. If you're a woman in politics, she told Brown, you're going to get questions about your hair.

'FOOT IN BOTH WORLDS'

Brown made Oregon history as the first woman to serve as Senate majority leader in 2004, just a few years before she became secretary of State in 2008. Being a woman in leadership was rarely a problem, she said, but it had its challenges.

She once worked with a male colleague, a large man, she said, and he liked to use his size to intimidate her. It worked, for a while, Brown said, until one day he was in her office, looming over her desk, and she started to laugh at him.

He was totally taken aback, she said. But after that, his attempts at bullying her stopped.

Brown came out as bisexual during her time in the Oregon Legislature. She told Out History that it was probably "inevitable," but it wasn't easy.

"Some days I feel like I have a foot in both worlds, yet never really belonging to either," she wrote.

Her sexuality has rarely been an issue in Oregon, and while Brown rarely brings it up, she doesn't shy away from it either.

In 2009, she attended Basic Rights Oregon's annual auction and dinner, where Portland rock singer Storm Large was auctioning off kisses. Brown asked for a kiss, and Large bent her over backwards in an intense embrace.

Brown supports LGBT groups and has a good relationship with them, but she rarely talks publicly about her sexuality.

It doesn't make headlines in Oregon, where the speaker of the House is a lesbian and Portland's former mayor, Sam Adams, was a gay man with a very public sex scandal.

In fact, ex-governor Kitzhaber's live-in girlfriend, Hayes, has drawn much more ire from the public, largely for her unmarried relationship with Kitzhaber and her perceived opportunistic approach to their relationship.

Gary Blackmer, whom Brown hired to run her secretary of State's audits division in 2009, describes her as someone who loves to find problems and solve them.

She meets with state agency heads a year after they are audited, Blackmer said, to make sure they're following up on the audit's findings. Blackmer, her chief auditor, didn't even have to suggest it. Brown just wanted to be thorough.

"That, to me, was extraordinary," Blackmer said.

None of her colleagues are surprised she has become governor, although they are, of course, surprised by the circumstances.

AMBITION FOR TOP OFFICE

Republican state Sen. Jackie Winters of Salem said Brown has wanted the top office for a long time. Her ambition was no secret, Winters said, and although they are far apart politically, Winters said Brown's experience will set her up well for the job.

"We always thought she would run at some point," Winters said. "She's truly got her work cut out for her."

Even as she took over for Kitzhaber, who had just started on an unprecedented fourth term, it seemed clear the politician Kate Brown had not become someone too different from Katie Brown of years ago.

On her second day in office, she snapped a selfie with Republican Senate staffer Tayleranne Gillespie, simply because Gillespie asked her to. The photo went up on Instagram with two happy, genuine smiles.

Brown often offers to carpool to events with Roberts, her mentor, who is widowed. It means a lot, Roberts said, to not have to attend every event alone and to have someone there to think of it.

She had seemingly every member of her family with her on inauguration day — husband, mother, stepson and stepdaughter, two sisters and a brother. Roberts sat beside her also.

After the ceremony, Brown was escorted with her family and the former governors (Kitzhaber was not present) to the ceremonial office.

She pulled Roberts aside and said, "You made a difference in my being here."

"The truth is," Roberts said, "she did this all herself."