As a pediatrician, Lisa understands that the earliest experiences in a baby’s life, those first days and months, will influence a child’s potential and trajectory. These are the crucial hours in which trusted adults form secure and protective relationships with their new baby.

The toxic stress of poverty can disrupt this early bonding, this “serve-and-return”* between parent and baby that grows the baby’s brain and provides security.

Lisa advocates for upstream investments to mitigate the stress of poverty (hunger, housing insecurity, childcare challenges). She is fond of referring to Heckman’s curve, which illustrates that the earlier the investment, the higher the reward.

Lisa advocates for upstream investments to mitigate the stress of poverty (hunger, housing insecurity, childcare challenges). She is fond of referencing Heckman’s curve, which illustrates that the earlier the investment, the higher the reward.

In 2023, Lisa helped pass the Child Tax Credit (HB 3235) which provides low-income families with a refundable tax credit of $1000/year for children under years old.

In 2025, Lisa’s priority legislation will be Momnibus 2025, maternal child health policies to provide families with all they need to support parents and babies from the prenatal period through the baby’s first year.

*'Serve and return' is a phrase coined by Harvard researchers to describe back-and-forth interactions between adults and children. One person “serves” by offering up a sound, smile, word, or gesture, and the other “returns” it: Your baby looks at you and you smile. Your baby waves their arms and you say, “Hi, Baby!”

Our Bodies, Our Decisions

Oregon has the strongest abortion protections in the US, thanks to 2023’s HB 2002, which also codified protections for Oregonians seeking gender-affirming care. Lisa’s voice as a front-line provider of reproductive health care and gender-affirming services provided moral clarity on the need for this law.

Lisa will never stop fighting to protect patients and providers from the intrusion of government in care decisions.

Full stop.

All Oregonians to be safe in their homes and their communities.

Lisa is a fierce advocate for gun violence prevention, having trained over 400 Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense volunteers on how to talk to Oregon legislators, and traveling the state to teach over 100 medical providers about how to talk with their patients about safe gun storage. She drew on her expertise on gun violence prevention to help pass landmark legislation in 2021, SB 554, which requires that guns are locked when not in use. She went on to lead the effort on 2023’s HB 2005, which outlaws dangerous ghost guns in Oregon. Lisa has also helped procure $25 million for grassroots organizations to implement measures to reduce community violence.

Next steps? Expand the use of Oregon’s lifesaving Extreme Risk Protection Orders, raise the age to 21 for the purchase of firearms, with a few exceptions for hunting rifles, expand upriver prevention programs that provide opportunities for young people so that they are less vulnerable to engaging in violence, and address Oregon’s heartbreaking suicide-by-gun rates.

Lisa’s north star is improved health and educational outcomes for children. As a pediatrician, she cares about the whole child, and knows our educators feel the same way. The teachers Lisa knows confirm what she finds in her exam room: we have a growing number of students and families struggling with behavioral health issues. In the legislature, Lisa sees how these realities are made worse by the impacts of COVID and the systemic inequities that impact BIPOC communities.

Lisa will:

-Work to increase and stabilize school funding.

-Support and sponsor legislation to close the gap between our promises and the real-life experiences of Oregon students.

-Fund programs that support, mentor, and train candidates from our communities of color to take on the role of teacher, school administrator, and beyond.

-Provide schools with more counselors, psychologists, and nurses.

Housing is a basic human right, and every person in Oregon must have a place to call home. Houselessness is a major barrier to finding and keeping a job, going to school, and getting care for chronic health issues, mental illness, and substance use. As a pediatrician, Lisa sees the impact housing instability has on kids and families. She voted for record funding for shelters and housing and supported rent relief and eviction moratoriums to keep families in their homes.

Our state and local governments have made record investments in housing and housing support in the last several years, and, yet, we have a long way to go before every neighbor has a warm, dry place to call home.

The public health crisis of addiction, exacerbated by our houseless crisis, plays itself out in Oregon communities. We must markedly increase treatment options for those with Substance Use Disorder, and we must interrupt the supply of life-threatening drugs like fentanyl from reaching our neighbors, especially Oregon’s youth.

Lisa is focused on youth - to educate against deadly drug experimentation in the first place, and to swiftly treat substance use disorder as soon as it takes hold of a young adult.

And, of course, Lisa endeavors to work further upstream - to reduce childhood trauma, to address mental health challenges, to teach about the role of family history and addiction, in an effort to prevent a young person from turning to substances in the first place.