Copyright The Oregonian
State Rep. Ken Helm, a Democrat representing Beaverton and Cedar Hills, will retire from the Legislature at the end of 2026 after more than a decade in office. Helm announced his retirement Wednesday and endorsed a successor: Beaverton City Councilor Ashley Hartmeier-Prigg, one of two candidates running to be the Democratic nominee for the House District 27. The other is former anesthesiologist and current Beaverton School Board member Tammy Carpenter, who unsuccessfully challenged Helm in the Democratic primary in 2022. No Republican contender has entered the race so far in the solidly Democratic district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly three to one. Non-affiliated voters outnumber registered Republicans by about two to one. “Serving the people of Beaverton has been one of the great honors of my life,” Helm said in a statement, in which he also endorsed Hartmeier-Prigg. “Ashley is a proven public servant who understands the unique needs of our community, and she has the experience and vision to be an exceptional state representative.” Helm, a Beaverton lawyer with specialties in land use and water laws, was first elected to the state Legislature in 2014 after the Oregon League of Conservation Voters encouraged him to run. He quickly established himself as an advocate for climate and conservation policies, including sponsoring cap-and-trade legislation to require polluters reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as laws to modernize the state’s rules around protecting and managing water quality and quantity. “I would say my core values haven’t changed at all. I came to the Legislature with a strong environmental and conservation ethic, and I leave with an even stronger one,” Helm told the Capital Chronicle. Helm, who grew up in Bend, said he’s retiring in large part because he wants to get back to spending more time in Oregon’s wilderness with his partner while they’re still physically fit. “There’s a lot of trails I want to backpack, a lot of rivers I want to run, a lot of fishing I want to do,” he said. Helm served on the House Energy and Environment Committee, Agriculture, Land Use and Water Committee and the Judiciary Committee. In his work on water policies, he and Rep. Mark Owens, a Republican from Crane in southeast Oregon, have become frequent and effective collaborators, a rare bipartisan duo from opposite sides of the state who agree more needs to be done to preserve water and to help water users. Helm first met Owens when he visited Harney County to learn more about water issues when current U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, now representing Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District, held Owens’ seat. “It was easy to get off on the right foot with Mark, because I came to visit his part of the world on water,” Helm said. “We had already met, and he knew that my interest in water and his part of the world was genuine, and I think that paved the way to some of the next steps where we were able to carefully work with each other, see if it was going to work out and whether we could trust each other.” This drives home, literally, Helm’s advice for all of his colleagues in the Legislature who want to foster bipartisan working relationships across the state. “Drive to where they live. And don’t complain about how many hours it took you to get there, because they drive it every week. Just go. Go see, go be with them,” he said. Helm described himself as a “project-oriented” rather than “position-oriented” lawmaker, and he said he hopes to keep serving the state Legislature after retirement as an at-large member of the Environmental Restoration Council. That council is charged with managing how to spend the state’s $700 million settlement with chemical giant Monsanto over PCB contamination. “There’s a lot of work to be done, and I’ve got a lot of energy for what’s left,” he said. -- Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital Chronicle
