Oregon
Federal judge dismisses former legislative employee's suit over Capitol harassment investigations • Oregon Capital Chronicle
A federal judge dismissed a $1.2 million lawsuit from the Oregon Legislature’s ousted equity officer, saying lawmakers didn’t retaliate when they released a memo about him in response to a records request.
Nate Monson worked as the Legislature’s acting legislative equity officer for just 64 days in spring 2021, filling a position created in 2019 in the wake of multiple sexual harassment scandals involving lawmakers. Since leaving, he has alleged he was forced to resign for trying to draw attention to rampant mismanagement of employee complaints and for alerting legislators and legislative staff to violations of federal, state and local discrimination laws.
Monson first sued in Marion County Circuit Court in April 2022, and his case was soon moved to federal district court in Eugene. Last month, District Court Judge Ann Aiken dismissed his case. The Oregonian/OregonLive first reported Aiken’s decision Friday.
Monson sued the state and current and former lawmakers Floyd Prozanski, Chuck Thomsen, Julie Fahey and Ron Noble, as well as legislative human resources director Jessica Knieling. An earlier version of his complaint also named Gov. Tina Kotek and former Senate President Peter Courtney, who led the House and Senate during his tenure, and legislative counsel Dexter Johnson.
He initially accused the lawmakers and legislative employees of retaliating against him by ignoring him, opening an investigation into his background and defaming him and violating his First Amendment free speech rights by trying to silence him. Nearly two years later, Monson narrowed his lawsuit to focus on just one claim: Knieling and the lawmakers discriminated against him after he left the Legislature by releasing a memo Knieling wrote about his employment history in response to public records requests.
“The court concludes that because the release of the Knieling memo was required by Oregon public records law following a public records request, and because plaintiff was not entitled to notice of the release, there was no adverse action and it is unnecessary for the court to reach the question of causation,” Aiken wrote.
Gossip-filled workplace
Monson joined the Legislature in April 2021, two years after top lawmakers and Capitol staff had entered a binding legal agreement with the Bureau of Labor and Industries following a lengthy investigation into sexual misconduct and discrimination that spanned years.
One component of that agreement was creating the legislative equity office, which for more than two years was run by an interim officer. Monson, who had previously worked in Iowa, was the first full-time legislative equity officer hired by the Legislature.
His lawsuit said the Capitol was a dysfunctional and gossip-filled workplace and that Monson began raising concerns about the office’s prior mismanagement shortly after he arrived, including that law firms investigating reports of inappropriate behavior weren’t paid on time, which dragged out investigations, and that his predecessor didn’t maintain records of past and ongoing cases and instead handed him a Post-it note with some details.
In response, his suit claimed, Knieling began scrutinizing his background. She found that Monson misrepresented himself as a former employee of the Iowa Coalition for Collective Change, despite never having worked for the organization and that he was fired in 2020 from Iowa Safe Schools, a nonprofit organization for LGBTQ students. Knieling submitted a memo to the Legislature’s Joint Conduct Committee, which summoned him to a meeting on June 9, 2021, to ask questions about his background.
Less than a week later, on June 15, Monson resigned. That resignation prompted freelance journalist Dick Hughes to file a records request on June 29 asking for all materials related to Monson’s resignation, according to court documents. The following day, Monson reached out to Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Dirk VanderHart to detail his complaints, resulting in an article about a week later that spelled out Monson’s concerns about the office.
Shortly after publishing that article, OPB contacted Knieling asking for materials related to Monson’s résumé. Lawmakers on the legislative counsel committee released the memo Knieling drafted a week before Monson’s resignation.
It took nearly two years after Monson’s ouster for the Legislature to hire a permanent employee to handle conduct complaints at the Capitol. Bor Yang, who previously led the Vermont Human Rights Commission, has been on the job for a little less than a year.
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ROSEBURG, Ore. — A pedestrian was killed when a driver drifted from her lane of travel, striking a Junction City man, according to Oregon State Police.
At 4:48 p.m. on May 5, Oregon State Police responded to a vehicle versus pedestrian fatal crash on Highway 99W near milepost 110.5 in Lane County.
Police say a blue Hyundai Elantra driven by a 16-year-old female, was southbound on Highway 99W near Junction City when she became distracted, left the travel lane, and struck a pedestrian.
The pedestrian, Joel Robert Benjamin Coriell, 35, of Junction City, had been walking along the southbound shoulder of the highway.
Coriell was transported to an area hospital with serious injuries and later died at the hospital.
The driver of the Hyundai had reported minor injuries. She remained on scene and cooperated with the investigation, police said.
The highway was not impacted during the on-scene investigation, OSP stated.
OSP was assisted by the Junction City Police Department, Lane County Sheriff’s Office, and the Oregon Department of Transportation.
The Oregon Lottery offers several draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at May 6, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Powerball numbers from May 6 drawing
18-27-51-65-68, Powerball: 05, Power Play: 3
Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Pick 4 numbers from May 6 drawing
1PM: 8-9-4-6
4PM: 0-3-3-1
7PM: 3-7-1-9
10PM: 5-4-8-0
Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Win for Life numbers from May 6 drawing
07-45-52-54
Check Win for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Megabucks numbers from May 6 drawing
03-09-10-28-31-39
Check Megabucks payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
When are the Oregon Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 7:59 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 7:59 p.m. on Tuesday and Friday.
- Pick 4: 1 p.m., 4 p.m., 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. daily.
- Win for Life: 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Megabucks: 7:29 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by an Oregon editor. You can send feedback using this form.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek responds to heightened immigration enforcement
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and state legislators spoke Jan. 24 about recent immigration enforcement happening across Oregon. Here’s what Kotek said.
Rural Organizing Project, a statewide nonprofit based in Cottage Grove, filed a lawsuit May 5 against Oregon State Police in Multnomah County Circuit Court, alleging that the agency is violating the state’s landmark sanctuary laws and sharing Oregonians’ personal data with federal immigration agents.
The nonprofit is asking the court to direct OSP not to share information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other immigration agencies, including driver’s licenses, driver history, driver’s license photographs, vehicle registration data, Social Security numbers and law enforcement records.
ROP claims that federal immigration agencies have repeatedly accessed Oregonians’ information over the past year. They point to two systems OSP operates: the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System and the state’s Law Enforcement Data System.
The complaint said data provided to OSP by NLETS in February showed authorities involved in immigration enforcement accessed Oregonians’ data more than 1.4 million times in the preceding year. ICE alone queried Oregon for the data 176,576 times, the complaint said. Homeland Security Investigations within the Department of Homeland Security queried 21,363 times, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection and DHS accounted for the remainder, the complaint said.
Those numbers do not include all queries of Oregonians’ data, lawyers added, as ICE and HSI agents in Oregon will access the same information separately through the LEDS terminal.
The complaint says OSP has the technical capacity to block immigration enforcement agencies from both systems, but has declined to do so.
U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, and Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, along with U.S. Reps. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Oregon, and Andrea Salinas, D-Oregon, called on states across the country to stop sharing drivers’ data with federal immigration agencies in a November 2025 letter.
Other states, such as Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New York, have stopped allowing federal agents to access their residents’ data, according to NLETS testimony to Congress in 2025, the complaint added.
The suit says NLETS provided OSP a spreadsheet listing the specific identification codes ICE uses in late 2025, after an OSP official asked how other states had blocked the agency in the system.
But in February, the complaint said, the agency indicated it would not restrict federal immigration authorities’ access to data via LETS or require federal authorities to use “Reason Codes” that would allow OSP to screen whether the query is for immigration-related purposes.
In a response sent to the Oregon Law Center on Feb. 1, replying to its tort claim notice, OSP said it had taken “reasonable steps” to improve its LEDS agreements with immigration authorities to require compliance with Oregon’s Sanctuary Law. Their letter said terminating the LEDS user agreements, which OSP signed with ICE and DHS in December 2025 and February, would prevent the federal agencies from accessing criminal justice information related to criminal investigations and other governmental purposes.
“If OSP terminated the user agreements, they could be obstructing ongoing criminal investigations,” the letter from OSP said.
OSP also said it did not have the ability to modify the NLETS system.
“Federal agents are storming into our communities, targeting people based on how they look, and disappearing our neighbors,” Martha Ortega, director of Immigrant Centers at Rural Organizing Project, said in a prepared statement. “Oregon State Police are helping them do it. When the state gives our private information to ICE, it is breaking the law and breaking Oregonians’ trust. How many families have been torn apart by Oregon State Police giving their names and photos to federal agents?”
The lawsuit cites testimony in federal court, detailed in a story by The Oregonian, where ICE agents spoke of staking out a neighborhood and randomly running vehicle license plates to find vehicle owners’ names and birthdates for the purpose of immigration enforcement.
“Oregon’s law has clearly prohibited this kind of information sharing for almost 40 years,” said Heather Marek, attorney at Oregon Law Center, which is representing the nonprofit. “Oregonians need Oregon State Police to respect the law and protect their data, immediately and permanently.”
In an email, a spokesperson for Oregon State Police said it would not be making any public comments related to the lawsuit while litigation was pending.
“OSP is committed to following Oregon Sanctuary Laws and has not taken any actions that would violate those laws,” Cpt. Kyle Kennedy added.
But, ROP said in its lawsuit that although the LEDS user agreements prohibit ICE-ERO and HSI from sharing data for immigration enforcement purposes, OSP cannot ensure compliance with the sanctuary laws nor can it reasonably assume compliance given the broader context of the current administration and activity.
More than 6,000 HSI agents have been assigned to immigration enforcement duties, for example, the lawsuit said.
“In the current political and legal context, an agreement to provide resources and information to HSI is an agreement to provide resources and information to support immigration enforcement,” the complaint said.
Dianne Lugo covers the Oregon Legislature and equity issues. Reach her at dlugo@statesmanjournal.com on X @DianneLugo or Bluesky @diannelugo.bsky.social.
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