Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek nixes plans to expand first lady’s role after pushback

Gov. Tina Kotek talks to the Oregon Capital Chronicle in the ceremonial office of the state library in Salem on May 17, 2023. (Michael Romanos/Oregon Capital Chronicle)

After weeks of criticism from within and outside her office and the departure of key staff, Gov. Tina Kotek is abandoning plans to expand first lady Aimee Kotek Wilson’s role in the office.

Kotek announced her change of heart in a statement Wednesday and answered questions from reporters during an afternoon news conference, repeatedly apologizing for the way she handled giving Kotek Wilson a larger role in policy decisions than what first spouses in Oregon have historically had.

“I regret that this hasn’t been very clear, and it’s been a little messy,” Kotek said. “I apologize to Oregonians that I haven’t been as good as I could be at making this a smooth conversation.”

She promised that Kotek Wilson will not have any staff report to her, though she said her wife will continue to accompany her and attend ceremonial events representing the governor’s office. She’ll also maintain access to an office in the governor’s suite of offices in the State Library, as Kotek said it would be “inappropriate” for the first lady to sit in a waiting area when she visits the state office.

But she won’t have an official Office of the First Spouse, a designation Kotek acknowledged a month ago that she was considering creating.

“As long as I am governor, there will not be an Office of the First Spouse,” Kotek said.

Oregonians first learned about Kotek Wilson’s involvement in the governor’s office in late March, after Kotek announced that her chief of staff, Andrea Cooper, was leaving the office and later confirmed that two other top aides, Abby Tibbs and Lindsey O’Brien, were departing or taking leave.  Communications director An Do and deputy general counsel Lindsey Burrows also have since left the office.

Kotek acknowledged that the staff turnover and disagreements over Kotek Wilson’s role were a political misstep.

“We’ve hit some bumps,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve communicated well. For those of you who know me, that’s not particularly on brand.”

She did not discuss the staff changes, which has led to Kotek promoting several current staff members to fill the empty jobs.

Kotek has declined to comment on the circumstances that led to the departures of most of her executive team, saying during a testy April 3 press conference that reports that clashes with Kotek Wilson caused them to leave were “assumptions.”

But that was not the picture painted by a trove of more than 6,000 emails and text messages the governor’s office released Friday in response to records requests from the Capital Chronicle and other outlets. Those documents showed that Cooper, Tibbs and O’Brien had been raising concerns internally since at least January over Kotek Wilson’s role in the office.

Tibbs, an attorney, was particularly blunt in a March email to O’Brien; Cooper; Chris Warner, who replaced Cooper as chief of staff; and Shelby Campos, the office’s operations director.

“(T)he office should take meaningful steps to address the appearance/perception related to a governor and spouse and staff re conflicts of interest, favoritism, bias, nepotism issues, complicated power dynamics, conflict resolution, retaliation – the things that can really impact (governor’s office) staff morale and sense of stability and the confidence in a (governor’s office) overall,” she wrote.

A February email from Tibbs to Juliana Wallace, Kotek’s director of behavioral health initiatives, described concerns that Kotek put Wallace in the “awkward” position of calling Cascadia Behavioral Health, Kotek Wilson’s former workplace, on behalf of an employee and friend of Kotek Wilson’s who was having issues with her supervisor.

Tibbs said she didn’t want a new employee in the governor’s office to be put in a similarly awkward position.

“Requests and actions by the FL and/or governor like the ones above are indeed highly inappropriate at best, and you flagging this and anything else that doesn’t feel right for me and (Cooper) is totally the right thing to do,” she wrote. “The governor has been reminded several times now of the power she and the FL hold in this office and the appropriate use of their power.”

Unanswered questions

Kotek on Wednesday declined to comment on the circumstances that led to top staff leaving, saying she would not discuss personnel matters. She also declined to share or summarize a legal memo or memos crafted by her general counsel about the first lady’s role, saying she wouldn’t waive attorney-client privilege.

She described the Cascadia Behavioral Health call as a routine response to an Oregonian’s concern about workplace safety, comparing it to a call she made to the state’s resilience officer to follow up after someone from a small town in eastern Oregon called to ask if she was aware of a flood.

“When I’m approached and when people express concern about safety, particularly in this instance, workplace safety, I think it’s my job to respond but respond accordingly and appropriately,” Kotek said.

She declined to comment on Tibbs’ statement about staff warning Kotek and her wife.

In emails, staff also expressed concern about the toll that Kotek Wilson’s growing number of public appearances would have on state employees who were hired to support the governor, not her wife. Among them: Cooper repeatedly questioned why Oregon State Police were providing security and rides for Kotek Wilson to attend events without the governor, and whether communications staff were being asked to help Kotek Wilson with comments and messaging.

Kotek in March said she had ordered Oregon State Police to provide security on a consistent basis when her wife was representing the governor’s office. On Wednesday, she shared a statement from Oregon State Police Capt. Kyle Kennedy, which said the agency’s dignitary protection unit’s primary function has always been to protect the governor and the first family.

“This has been the operating principle since the unit’s creation and these expectations have not changed,” Kennedy said.

Staff emails showed that Kotek Wilson, a trained social worker and former case manager for Cascadia Behavioral Health, which mainly serves Medicaid patients, was deeply involved in policy discussions around mental health care, which along with housing and homelessness and education and early learning makes up the triumvirate of Kotek’s policy priorities.

Office for first lady

On March 25, three days after confirming that Cooper, Tibbs and O’Brien had left the office, Kotek announced that she was considering creating a new “Office of the First Spouse” and had hired Meliah Masiba, the then-legislative director for the Department of Administrative Services, for a six-month rotation to explore creating the new office. .

The following day, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission confirmed it had received an ethics complaint against Kotek, though details of that complaint and several duplicate complaints won’t be public until commission staff complete a 60-day preliminary review and the commission, a nine-member board appointed by the governor and legislative leaders from both parties, decides whether to continue investigating or dismiss the complaints.

Kotek sent the ethics commission questions about expanding her wife’s role in early April, several days after the complaints were filed. The commission can’t answer those questions until after resolving complaints, according to commission Executive Director Susan Myers.

An updated job description Kotek shared Wednesday describes Masiba’s role as “explor(ing) formalized guidelines and protocols for the fFirst sSpouse of Oregon as a public official” and “assist(ing) and advis(ing) the current first spouse in her official capacity in support of the administration.”

Kotek said in her statement Wednesday that she remains committed to defining the role of the first spouse in Oregon, and that she has sought guidance from the National Governors Association as well as the state ethics commission.

With the exception of Cylvia Hayes, former Gov. John Kitzhaber’s fianceé, governors’ partners in Oregon have largely stayed out of the limelight. Kitzhaber resigned shortly into his fourth term because of an influence-peddling scandal involving Hayes, and Gov. Kate Brown’s husband, Dan Little, led an initiative to increase access to outdoor recreation but otherwise kept away from official work.

Spouses have taken on broader responsibilities in other states. In California, for instance, First Partner Jennifer Seibel Newsom leads campaigns focused on children’s mental and physical health and women’s equality. Casey DeSantis, wife of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is known as his closest policy adviser and has no qualms lobbying lawmakers directly on administration goals.

At the federal level, Hillary Clinton tried to take the lead when her husband was president on reforming health care, a doomed attempt that Republicans used as ammunition to retake the House in 1994. Clinton took on a less active policy role in the remaining years of her husband’s presidency, and subsequent first ladies have championed platforms based around issues important to parents and children, including reading (Laura Bush) and school nutrition (Michelle Obama), while keeping their distance from the policy and politics of the West Wing.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated that Mary Oberst, wife of former Gov. Ted Kulongoski, continued her work with the Oregon State Bar while he was in office.

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