Khanh Pham

Khanh Pham is the State Representative for Oregon House District 46 (Outer SE Portland), serving in her second term. She was first elected in 2020 and was the first Vietnamese-American legislator in the State Legislature. She currently serves on the House Committee on Climate, Energy and Environment, and the Joint Committees on Transportation, and Full Ways & Means. She is also the Co-Chair of the Ways & Means Subcommittee on Natural Resources.

In the recent 2023 session, Khanh shepherded the natural resource state agencies to take advantage of the largest-ever federal investment. Building off the $100 million invested in the 2022 Climate Resilience budget, she helped champion a comprehensive $90 million investment in climate action and climate resiliency, including $7 million allocated to establish a grant program for local investments in green infrastructure and urban tree canopy improvements in every corner of the state. She also co-led the effort to refer statewide Ranked Choice Voting to the Oregon ballot for 2024, the first legislature in the country to refer the choice to voters.

In the historic 2021 session, Khanh championed the passage of the Oregon Clean Energy Opportunity bills, including the country’s most ambitious 100% clean energy standard. She was recognized as Oregon League of Conservation Voters’ 2021 MVP, as a 2021 Street Trust Alice Award winner, and by The Grist as one of their 2022 50 Fixers. She shares these awards with her community and inspires her to continue the fight for climate justice, healthy, inclusive democracy, and an economy centered on well-being, not profits.

During her time as State Representative, Khanh has led on bills covering Clean Energy and Low-income Utility Rates, Jurisdictional Transfer of Unsafe State Highways to Local Cities, Expanding School Transportation Options and Safe Routes to School, Transportation Safety Investments, Renters’ Rights to Cooling and Heat Resilience, Willamette River Oil Tank Storage, Earned Income Tax Credit eligibility, Affordable Housing Preservation, 82nd avenue Property Acquisition Fund, Bias Crimes Response and Victim Support, Voter Language Access, the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Advancement, Afghan Arrivals Support, and Pacific Islander Student Success.

Prior to the legislature, Khanh was a founding leader and spokesperson for the groundbreaking Portland Clean Energy Fund Initiative, which was successfully passed in November 2018. She served as the Interim Alliance Director at the Oregon Just Transition Alliance, leading efforts to develop a frontline-led vision and platform for an Oregon Green New Deal. Prior to that, she was an Environmental Justice Manager at the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO). Khanh brings years of experience in community organizing and a deep commitment to Environmental and Climate Justice. Khanh has a BA from Lewis & Clark College and a Master's in Urban Studies from Portland State University, where she specialized in urban planning, climate change adaptation, and equity planning.

Early Life

My parents immigrated to the US in 1975, after the end of the Vietnam War. They met in Oklahoma, where they married and had me in 1978. When I was 11 we moved to Irvine, CA. I worked hard in school, knowing that I would need financial help to be able to go to college, so when Lewis & Clark College gave me a full scholarship, I jumped at the opportunity to move to Portland, and that decision changed my life. 

Community Organizing

After I graduated in 2001, I wanted to become a community organizer and moved to Los Angeles to become an organizer-in-training with the Labor/Community Strategy Center. There, in South LA, I rode the buses every day, speaking with low-income Black and Latinx riders about their lives, and their search for jobs and housing, and we organized together to fight the systems of transit racism and environmental injustice impacting their lives. I then moved to Oakland, CA to work as a grassroots fundraiser and community organizer to learn from the powerful movements in the Bay Area. In my regular visits to my family in Vietnam, I witnessed firsthand how the growing impacts of the climate crisis--from stronger hurricanes and severe flooding to saltwater intrusion and extreme heat--were hitting the poorest and most vulnerable communities first and hardest. In my desire to develop more skills and expertise to address this crisis, I enrolled in a Ph.D. program at Portland State University to study urban planning and climate change adaptation. I started working at the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO) and over the next four years, built their environmental and climate justice program. As a Jade District resident, I helped advocate for parks and greenspace in my parks-deficient neighborhood, as well as advocate for affordable housing and safer streets along the major corridors of 82nd Avenue, SE Division, and SE Powell Blvd. 

An Oregon Leader 

From 2016-2018, I helped build one of the most diverse coalitions ever assembled to win the groundbreaking Portland Clean Energy and Community Benefits Fund. The Fund has exceeded expectations, culminating in a five-year $750 million Climate Investment Plan that will fundamentally bring the benefits of a greener transition to low-income communities and communities of color from energy efficiency and renewable energy, to transportation decarbonization, green infrastructure, regenerative agriculture, climate jobs and workforce development. It was from this historic victory that I really understood another politics, another Oregon is possible for our collective future. In January 2020, with the support of my community, I declared my candidacy to represent my neighbors in the Jade District and House District 46. I ran to champion an Oregon Green New Deal, to strengthen a Healthy Democracy in the face of MAGA, and to fight for an economy that puts people over profits. In May 2020 I was elected with 86% of the vote and became the first Vietnamese American ever elected to the Oregon legislature. 

State Representative for Oregon House District 46

In my first two terms, I am grateful to say that we delivered progress on all fronts I campaigned on. Through the 2021, 2022, and 2023 legislative sessions, and 2 special sessions in between, we accomplished many parts of what we set out to do when my district elected us. It has been a privilege to serve in the Oregon House, where I championed the Oregon Clean Energy Opportunity legislation, setting the nation’s most ambitious 100% clean energy standard, and working with local partners and fighting for investments to ensure everyone has the housing, health care, and economic opportunities they need to thrive. We’ve delivered millions to acquire property along 82nd Avenue for housing development, transferred the 82nd Avenue corridor into city hands for safety improvements, and passed the TREES Act that will invest in green infrastructure and expand our urban tree canopy to better protect us from extreme heat events and the harsh impacts of urban heat islands. For me, being an organizer has been about listening to community members and organizing together to take action on issues aligned with our collective core values. As a mother, I think about the world that my daughter will inherit when she graduates high school, and I will continue serving in the state legislature to ensure that she and all the children and people of our district and state have the rights, resources, and access to opportunity that they need to thrive.