Before her election to the Oregon House of Representatives in 2006, Representative Kotek worked as the policy director for the non-profit advocacy organization Children First for Oregon.  Prior to joining Children First, Representative Kotek was a public policy advocate for the Oregon Food Bank.  She served as the co-chair of the Governor’s Medicaid Advisory Committee from late 2005 through 2006. 

During her first session in 2007, Representative Kotek was the only freshman legislator to chair a committee, the House Subcommittee on Health Policy.  She championed a redesign of the state’s welfare program, led the fight to establish statewide nutrition standards for food sold in schools, worked to pass legislation to provide health care to all children, and helped to pass landmark legislation that ended discrimination based on sexual orientation and created domestic partnerships for same-sex couples.

Tina was born and raised in York, Pennsylvania, a sleepy town in the south-central part of the Keystone State near the border with Maryland. Her father, Jerry, and her two siblings, Susan and her twin brother Steve, still live there. Tina moved out to Oregon in 1987, finishing her undergraduate degree in religious studies at the University of Oregon in 1990.

While a graduate student at the University of Washington, she served as the president of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate, an elected position representing the 9,500 graduate and professional students at the university. She received her master’s degree in international studies from UW in 1998.

Tina lives in the Kenton neighborhood with her partner Aimee and their dogs Maya and Rudy.