State Representative Chris Garrett
Chris is a native of Oregon and of House District 38, which encompasses the City of Lake Oswego and a portion of Southwest Portland. He grew up in the Marshall Park neighborhood of Southwest Portland, attending his neighborhood public schools, including Capitol Hill Elementary, Jackson Middle School, and Wilson High School.
After graduating from Reed College with a degree in political science, Chris worked for then-Representative Richard Devlin in the Oregon House, helping champion legislation to allow local communities to provide adequate school funding, require insurance coverage for breast cancer screening, and preserve farmland from sprawl and overdevelopment.
Chris went on to earn his law degree at the University of Chicago Law School and clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York City. As a law clerk, Chris worked on organized crime, campaign finance reform, and international trade cases. He later worked at a Manhattan law firm, where he received a Scales of Justice Award for helping low-income families keep their homes.
Since 2002, Chris has practiced law with the Portland law firm of Perkins Coie. In his practice, Chris has represented some of Oregon's largest employers and continued to donate free legal services. He won an appeal for a Somali woman who requested political asylum in America after being brutalized by militants in her home country during a civil war. Chris has also helped raise money from the legal community for the Oregon Food Bank and worked as a volunteer judge with the Classroom Law Project, helping high school students learn about the legal system and the U.S. Constitution.
In 2005, Chris served as Senior Policy Advisor to Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, helping develop legislation to clean up the Willamette River, improve health coverage for mental illness, and help soldiers returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan get college degrees.
Chris was elected to represent House District 38 in November 2008, and took office on January 12, 2009. During the 2009 legislative session, Chris served on the House Judiciary and Health Care Committees, as well as Vice Chair of the House Land Use Committee.
Working hard in his first session, Chris led passage of a major bill that gives local governments more flexibility to solve land-use problems and protects valuable farmland and forestland from sprawl. Chris helped to craft a landmark health care reform package which will reduce health costs and ensure that 95% of all children in Oregon will have health coverage by 2011. Chris also co-sponsored a bill protecting central Oregon's Metolius River Basin from development and successfully championed legislation to reform Oregon's initiative process.
In June 2009, Chris was honored to be elected Assistant Majority Leader by his House Democratic colleagues. In this role, he helps develop legislative priorities for the 2011 session.