Vera Katz, Oregon’s first woman House Speaker, and Portland’s three-term mayor, has died at age 84 in her bed at home, around 4 AM, Monday.
Her son, Jesse Katz, a Los Angeles-based journalist, told reporters, “It was as tranquil a setting as you could imagine.”
Vera Katz, who came to America as a child with her parents after WW 2, from Spain, where they had fled from Nazi Germany, became involved in politics in the late 1960s and worked on the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy. In 1972, she was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives as a Democrat, and continued to win re-elections to that seat through 1990.
In 1985, Katz became the first woman to serve as Speaker of the Oregon House. She sponsored a landmark school reform – the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century. She also helped pass measures on gun control, as well as laws against gender-based discrimination.
In 1992, Katz ran for mayor of Portland, using public transportation to commute to her office. She won the election and served three terms, from January 1993 until January 2005, pursuing a policy of revitalizing Portland’s neighborhoods.
Vera Katz died on December 11, 2017, in Portland, one week after being diagnosed with leukemia.