In 2023,Read announced his candidacy for Secretary of State after an ethics violation led to the resignation of Shemia Fagan.[3] He beat James Manning Jr.,a State Senator from Eugene,in the primary election,[4] and Dennis Linthicum,a State Senator from Klamath Falls,in the general election.[5]
Early life and education
Read was born in 1975 in Missoula,Montana. After growing up in Boise,Idaho,[6] he moved to Oregon where he graduated from Willamette University in 1997 with a bachelor's degree in politics and economics.[7] While at Willamette,Read was a member of the rowing team.[8] It was there that he also met lifelong friend Dmitri Palmateer,who now serves as his chief of staff.[9] In 2003,Read earned an MBA from the University of Washington in Seattle.[7]
Career
From 1999 to 2001,Read worked for the United States Department of the Treasury as an aide to then-Secretary Lawrence Summers. His immediate supervisor was Sheryl Sandberg.[10] Read then returned to Oregon after graduate school,working for startup SkyTaxi for several months before finding work at Nike as a footwear developer,where he worked from 2004 to 2012.[11] In 2012,he left his role at Nike to focus full-time on his political career.[12]
Read in 2012,while serving as a state legislator.
State Representative
Read served in the Oregon State Legislature from 2007 to 2016 as the representative from the 27th district. As a legislator,Read was a strong advocate for fully funding Oregon's full-day kindergarten;[13] supported state investments in green tech jobs and research through Oregon InC and other initiatives;[14][15] worked to stabilize state funding and enhance the state's Rainy Day funds;[16] and sponsored legislation to redirect unclaimed funds from class action lawsuits to legal assistance for low income Oregonians;[17][18] rather than back to the original corporate wrongdoers. Throughout his legislative career,he sought to expand savings in Oregon's college savings program,and sponsored legislation to create additional options for retirement savings for Oregonians.
During his time in the Oregon House,Read served as House Majority Whip,and in 2015 he was elected Speaker Pro Tempore. He served as chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Economic Development and the House Committee on Higher Education,Innovation,and Workforce Development. He also served on the House Revenue Committee and the Joint Committee on Ways and Means,the committee of the Legislature primarily responsible for writing the state budget.
In 2016,Read ran for Oregon State Treasurer,to succeed Ted Wheeler,who was barred by term limits from running again in 2016. He was unopposed in the primary and won the general election by a plurality in November 2016,defeating Republican Jeff Gudman,[1] and became the state treasurer in January 2017.
Following the 2019 death Secretary of StateDennis Richardson,Read was first in the line of succession for the office of Governor until the 2020 election of Shemia Fagan. As Oregon does not have a lieutenant governor position,the Secretary of State is normally the first to succeed the governor in the event of a vacancy. However,as Richardson's successor Bev Clarno was an appointee,she was ineligible to become governor,making Read first in the line of succession.[19]
Read ran for and won re-election as State Treasurer in 2020,facing Republican Jeff Gudman again in a rematch.[20] This time,Read secured a decisive win,beating Gudman 51 to 41%.[21] Later,Read again became first in the gubernatorial line of succession after Secretary of State Fagan resigned on May 8,2023.[22] He remained first in the line of succession when Governor Kotek appointed Secretary LaVonne Griffin-Valade.
In 2015, in an effort led by Read and organizations such as SEIU and AARP, the Oregon Legislature enacted legislation which created the Oregon Retirement Savings Board and tasked it with establishing a state-run retirement savings program and managing its oversight. The retirement program created was called OregonSaves.[23] In 2018, Finance industry publication Pensions & Investments and the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association (DCIIA) honored Read and OregonSaves with the Excellence & Innovation Award. The award recognizes public and private-sector efforts to enhance retirement security.[24] In 2019 Read was invited to speak to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee on the states innovative approach to retirement savings.[25]
Sale of Elliott State Forest
In 2017, Read voted to sell 82,500 acres of the Elliott State Forest to a Roseburg-based timber company for $221 million. Revenues from the sale would have been added to the state's education fund.[26] Following pushback from environmentalist and other Oregon Democrats, Read withdrew his support for the proposal.[27][28] Later in his tenure as State Treasurer, Read unveiled a proposal for the Elliott State Research Forest, an innovative solution to keep the forest in public hands and combat climate change. [29]
Oregon College Savings Plan
As Treasurer, Read oversaw the Oregon College Savings Program (OCSP), which helps Oregonians save for education after high school.[30]
Read worked with the Oregon State Legislature to pass the Education Savings Credit which changes the tax advantage from a deduction to a refundable credit.[31] Begun in 2020, the Education Savings Credit makes it easier for low-to-moderate income families save for education after high school. Read worked with a diverse group of organizations including the Latina Network, Stand for Children, and the Oregon Student Association[32] and legislators[33] to pass the Education Savings Credit.
Net-Zero Plan
Early in 2024, Read announced his plan to move OPERF, Oregon's $100 billion pension plan, to carbon neutral by 2050.[34] The 97-page document built a roadmap for Oregon to move Oregon away from high-risk investments in fossil fuels, and built in an intermediate goal of achieving a 60% reduction of emissions by 2035.[35] The inaugural progress report was published on January 2nd, 2025.[36]
On September 27, 2021, Read officially announced that he was running for governor.[37] More than a dozen candidates contended for the Democratic nomination, including New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof and eventual winner, Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek.[38] In February 2022, Kristof was barred from running due to residency requirements, narrowing the field of leading candidates to Read and Kotek.[39] While Read and Kotek shared many views, Read stressed the need to return to school once students received COVID vaccines and took a harder line on ensuring improved educational outcomes and moving homeless people off the streets and into shelters.[40] Ultimately, Kotek topped Read 56 to 32%, with all other candidates receiving 2% or less.[41]
Secretary of State
Read meets with supporters in Portland on the campaign trail, fall 2024.
Read announced his intention to run for Secretary of State in July 2023 and officially launched his campaign on September 13.[42] He faced state senator James Manning in the Democratic primary[42] and won with nearly 70% of the vote.[43]
In the general election, Read faced Republican State Senator Dennis Linthicum of Klamath Falls. Read ran a campaign centered around rebuilding trust and integrity in the Secretary of State's office, which had faced years of turmoil and changing leadership.[44] During the campaign, the Oregon Department of Transportation, which oversees the state's automatic voter registration system, announced that they had incorrectly registered more than 1,500 noncitizens to vote.[45] Read and Linthicum both spoke out against the error, with Read declaring that “Oregonians deserve a thorough investigation of the automatic voter registration program’s implementation, as well as accountability at both the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Secretary of State’s Office."[46] That November, Read won the general election with 54% to Linthicum's 42%.[47]
Changes As Secretary of State
During his transition into the Secretary of State's office, Secretary-Elect Read recruited Dena Dawson, the Lane County clerk, to serve as Oregon's next Elections Director, following the abrupt departure of previous director Molly Woon.[48][49] The following spring, Secretary Read announced on social media that he had begun traveling to each county in the state to meet with their county clerks and elections officials.[50] He also removed a compromised state audit from the books which previous Secretary of State Shemia Fagan had issued while taking a lucrative consulting check from the audit's subject.[51]
Personal life
Read lives in Beaverton, Oregon with his wife Heidi Eggert and their two children, Annika and Ellis.[52] He has devoted much of his free time to giving back to his community, including volunteering with Start Making a Reader Today (SMART), coaching youth sports, and serving as a founding board member of Hoopla, Oregon's largest three-on-three charity basketball tournament.[53] Read is an avid basketball fan and has made several appearances on sports journalist John Canzano's podcast The Bald Faced Truth.[54]
Italics indicate next-in-line of succession for states and territories without a directly elected lieutenant governor or whose lieutenant governor office is vacant:
1 ▌New Progressive (1 territory) Italics indicate no secretary of state in this state, closest equivalent listed An asterisk (*) indicates that the officeholder is serving in an acting capacity.
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