Children are a top priority for the moms in the Legislature and a big reason why many of them are there.

Take Emerson Levy, a renewable energy attorney in Bend. When she ran for the Legislature for the first time in 2020, she was motivated by her 4-year-old daughter, June. A self-described policy nerd, she wanted to support good policies in Salem, particularly those to protect children. 

“I felt this huge obligation to my young daughter,” Levy told the Capital Chronicle.

Levy lost in 2020, but she won in 2022 and now she’s headed back to Salem after winning a second term representing the Bend-based 53th District. She is among several mothers in the Legislature, both Democrat and Republican, who juggle the demands of raising children while representing their communities in Salem. Some even have other jobs as well.

Serving in the Legislature is supposed to be a part time job, with 35-day sessions in even-numbered years and 160-day sessions the others, but the work spills into the rest of the year. 

“The Legislature may be part time, but our constituents are not part time,” said state Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, a mother of four who represents Corvallis in Salem. “Nobody has part-time constituents.” 

Being a legislator in Oregon has become a full-time job, with jam-packed “legislative days” in Salem outside sessions to discuss policies and hear from state officials, experts and Oregonians. Lawmakers also serve on task forces and spend time leading up to sessions working on policies. And they need to be available to constituents, to listen and respond to their needs.

Being a mom is also a full-time role. Balancing both is challenging and time-consuming and the legislative job is not well paid.

But Oregon’s legislator moms are passionate about their roles and fighting for issues that impact Oregon kids the most.

School safety

Levy said her daughter drives her policy work and one of her top priorities is school safety. 

Her first year in the Oregon House, she championed funding for silent panic alarms that directly call 911 if there is a school shooting. That provision was passed last year as part of House Bill 5014 on school funding. It included $2.5 million for these alarms, which helped avert even more bloodshed at a September shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga. The provision is a “funded non-mandate,” which means school districts decide whether to install them. 

“Then we can learn from them before we bring it fully statewide,” Levy said. 

Levy, who’s a Democrat, has also backed bills to improve health insurance, which can be costly for families and others. Levy and Gelser Blouin, also a Democrat, along with Republican Rep. Cyrus Javadi of Tillamook, sponsored the Co-pay Fairness Bill this year to ensure that insurance companies consider financial assistance from pharmaceutical manufacturers towards patient deductibles. The bill, House Bill 4113, unanimously passed the Oregon House and Senate last March. 

In states that haven’t passed such legislation, so-called “copay accumulators” do not count towards deductibles, leaving some patients with extremely high medical bills.

“Co-pay accumulators are one of the cruelest programs I’ve ever encountered,” Levy said. 

They especially impact people with rare diseases like hemophilia or lupus, who often don’t have a generic drug option. The bill, which was signed by Gov. Tina Kotek, banned the programs on Jan. 1. 

Navigating health care bureaucracy is something Levy has personal experience with because her adult brother has Down Syndrome. 

“Being June’s mom and being the sister of a disabled brother informs everything I do,” Levy said. 

A focus on education

Education is also a big focus for moms in the Legislature.

“Kids are the future,” said Rep. Emily McIntire, an Eagle Point Republican who represents the 56th House District in Jackson County. “And setting up a firm foundation for our children is going to help us exponentially in the long run.”

She is serving on the House education and higher education committees and is a member of the Joint Ways and Means Subcommittee on Education, putting her in a good position to support school spending. An example: She backed a $10.4 billion increase in 2023 to the State School Fund, which funds the state’s secondary schools.

McIntire, whose children are now 16 and 22, is also in legislative leadership, serving as the House Republican assistant leader. McIntire said she was on the Eagle Point school board when local Republicans asked members if they would run to represent the district in the Legislature. She said she felt a calling, ran and won and is now serving her second term on the board while being elected to a second legislative term. 

“Everything I look at is through a lens of what’s best for kids,” she said.

Gelser Blouin is also passionate about education. Her oldest son, who has a rare developmental disability called Koolen-de Vries syndrome, is a big influence on her work. She has worked on bills on special education and focused on behavioral health, especially for children with disabilities. 

Her Senate Bill 1557, which passed in last year’s session, makes it easier for children with severe emotional or behavioral disturbances to access Medicaid funds to provide extra support at school and at home. 

“These kids have really complex needs. They’re struggling to stay at home with their families. They might be struggling to stay in school. Maybe they have a mental illness or have had contact with the juvenile justice system. Right now, many of these families know that they need help before that big crisis happens,” Gelser Blouin said.  

Her bill passed both chambers in 2024 with no opposition, and she plans to introduce a related bill in this year’s session. 

She said she believes that understanding the issues from the perspective of being a mom is vital.  

Representative Annessa Hartman, D-Gladstone, who has two daughters who are almost 11 and 13, agrees.

“I’m constantly thinking about how [each decision] will impact them in their future,” Hartman said.

Hartman works for the Native American Youth and Family Center, a Portland-based nonprofit that supports the Indigenous community, and belongs to the Snipe Clan of the Cayuga Nation, which is part of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy based in New York. Her background has a major influence on her work. In crafting policies, she considers the “Seventh Generation Principle” of considering the impact of a decision on future generations.

“That’s embedded in my personal beliefs and teachings,” she said.

Her focus in the Legislature has been on championing issues around domestic violence and sexual assault, two issues that have had a severe effect on indigenous women in particular. 

At home, Hartman often asks her girls what they think about what they’re seeing in school — whether it’s poor handwriting or behavioral issues. She said their insight helps shape better policy.

“When I’m sharing that perspective, whether it’s my own caucus or committee, I say, ‘This is what my kids are seeing.’ It’s a powerful tool,” she said.  

McIntire also consults with her children on policy matters. 

“When I’m home on the weekend and I have a house full of teenage boys, I’ll ask, ‘What do you guys think of this or of that?’” she said. 

Juggling act

Commuting to Salem adds hours to the workday of mom legislators — and other lawmakers. Gelser Blouin has a 45-minute drive from Corvallis to Salem, and she did that every day when her children were young. 

As for Levy, she spends 2.5 hours driving from Bend to Salem, while McIntire drives 3.5 hours one way from Eagle Point. Like most lawmakers, they rent apartments in Salem during the session.  

Levy said she wouldn’t be a representative if it weren’t for her husband, Sean Levy, who is the general council for St. Charles Health System and manages all the school pick-ups and drop-offs. 

“And dinner!” Levy said.  

A former stay-at-home-mom, McIntire also relies on her husband for support. When she first joined the House in 2022, she struggled to stay in contact with her kids, who were then 12 and 19. 

“The hours of session are so overwhelming,” she said. “I don’t know that I would have been able to do this if my kids were younger.” 

Gelser Blouin, who had three under the age of five when she entered the Oregon Senate in 2005, said she paid friends and relied on family for child care. This was especially necessary as her kids entered middle and high school, when they needed to be driven to after-school activities, she said. Gelser Blouin said she focused on quality time with her kids when she was home in the evenings and weekends.  

Gelser Blouin also brought her kids to the Capitol. Her son, Sam, has always loved movies and movie production, so she brought him to legislative days when lawmakers discussed a film and video tax credit. Levy and Hartman helped organize a “Kids Caucus” during spring break last year, an idea that came from Hartman’s daughter, Marley, then 12. The event, organized in part by Hartman and Levy, was for all the children of lawmakers so they could meet one another and be on the floor while their parents were working.  

Instilling a love for public service

Some children of lawmakers follow a similar path, and many are civically engaged. 

Gelser Blouin said all four of her kids are voters and are involved in community activities. Her 24-year-old daughter Nicole is even pursuing a career in politics: She currently works as U.S. Representative Val Hoyle’s legislative aide in Washington D.C. 

“That’s the job she’s wanted since middle school!” Gelser-Blouin proudly said.  

Though Levy’s daughter, June, is still young at age 9 now, she seems poised to be a politician — or maybe a political strategist. June wisely noted during her mother’s reelection campaign that “it’s gonna be harder this time.” That turned out to be true, with Levy facing a more aggressive campaign with her opponent running negative ads. 

June is also Levy’s toughest critic. 

“Anytime she sees trash on the street or people that need housing, it’s absolutely my fault,” Levy said. “I should be working harder.”  

Low pay

Moms in the Legislature and others say that one of the downfalls of being a legislator in Oregon is the low pay: $43,434 in 2025. That’s not enough to support a family.

“There’s no way you could raise four kids on one legislator’s salary,” Gelser Blouin said. 

Two years ago, three female legislators — two of them moms — quit because of the pay. At the time, their salaries were $33,000 a year. 

Lawmakers set their salaries and are reluctant to boost them too much out of concerns that voters might consider that self-serving. So legislators referred a measure to November’s ballot to create an independent committee to set the salaries of legislators and other statewide officials but voters opposed that.

McIntire believes the low salary limits the type of person who can serve. 

“If you want it to be a citizens’ Legislature, then you should be able to have all citizens able to do it,” McIntire said. 

Others, including Sen. Gelser Blouin, agreed. 

“Most of us that are in elected positions in state government make less than the staff that reports to us,” Gelser Blouin said. 

But the moms have made their jobs work, thanks to help from their husbands and others. And they said the difficulty in trying to make the world better for their children is worth it.