Eileen Kiely (D) of Sunriver is running for Oregon Senate District 27, challenging incumbent republican Tim Knopp of Bend who has held the seat since 2013. (Knopp told the Source Weekly that he plans to run for this seat again during the 2020 election.)
District 27 covers Bend, Redmond and Sunriver. Kiely ran for State Legislature in 2018, to represent District 53 (which covers the same territory as Senate District 27, minus most of Bend) but lost to Jack Zika (R) of Redmond.
Kiely gained business and finance experience working as a controller and manager for Daimler Trucks North America (a Fortune 500 company) before “retiring” to Sunriver in 2015. She currently serves as Vice Chair of the Deschutes County Democrats and is the Secretary of the Democratic Party of Oregon. She earned an MBA at the University of Minnesota and was a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. She’s also been employed as a mountain guide and ski instructor.
During her last run for office, Kiely emphasized that she had the budgeting and negotiation experience to help manage Oregon’s budget, and she said that she was committed to fixing the Public Employees Retirement System deficit.
“Large corporations must contribute their fair share in taxes, too,” she wrote in the 2018 online Oregon voter’s guide. “With an honest financial analysis and backbone to do what’s right, we can solve this complex problem.”
Kiely also believes that health care is a fundamental right and that Oregonians should be able to buy into the Oregon Health Plan, while large corporations should pay extra taxes if they do not cover their own employees.
Read the Source Weekly’s endorsement of Kiely in 2018 and the video interview with Kiely and Jack Zika.
In 2018, she was endorsed by the Source Weekly, NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon PAC, the Oregon Education Association and the Oregon League of Conservation Voters among others.
This story may be updated as more information becomes available.
This article appears in Nov 27 – Dec 4, 2019.
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Have landed in Ketchum ID where Ken Lewis and I started an I Have A Dream program for students in 2005. We got stuck here with Covid 19 after having been in DC for a USCC.gov hearing. Planes headed back to Portland are not our best method of travel currently so we are just enjoying Sun Valley like we enjoy Sunriver when we are there. We do intend to go home when we are totally recovered and the situation looks better with this disease.