Emerson Levy, left, and Keri Lopez ran for Oregon House District 53. Levy won.

The race to win Oregon’s House District 53 pits incumbent Emerson Levy against challenger Keri Lopez. The district includes most of Redmond, northern areas of Bend, Sisters, Tumalo, Eagle Crest and Black Butte Ranch.

Lopez was the lone Republican in the May primary to run for the seat. Levy likewise had no challenger for a seat she won two years ago. In 2022, Levy narrowly defeated Republican Michael Sipe with 50.6% of the vote. The seat was previously held by Republican Jack Zika.

Emerson Levy

Levy’s pathway to politics was hardly a direct route. As a youth, she split time growing up in Huntsville, Alabama, and the suburbs of Atlanta. When it came time to choose a university, she moved to Hawaii to study business at Brigham Young University-Hawaii.

In Hawaii, Levy formulated a plan to join the foreign service and hoped one day to be deployed to work in an embassy in Asia. She was particularly interested in Mongolia, the homeland of her college roommate.

This plan included a stint in law school, but then the Great Recession hit and opportunities to work overseas thinned as the government slowed its hiring process.

But her law degree from Whittier College opened up other doors and she found employment practicing insurance business law.

It was in Southern California where Levy, 39, met her husband and the pair eventually came to Oregon for work and a more settled life.

Then came 2016 and the election of Donald Trump.

“The election changed me. I am an introvert, but I felt like public service was important and I just went for it. I felt like we should do our part, and for me, this felt like doing my part,” she said.

To learn more about public service, she joined Emerge Oregon, a nonprofit organization that trains women to run for office. In 2020 she ran and lost against Zika in the District 53 race.

“I lost and I knew I was going to lose, but it was a good opportunity to learn how it worked,” she said. Levy ran again in 2022 and won.

Since joining the Legislature, Levy said she is proud of the work she has done to secure funds for panic alarms in Bend-La Pine Schools. She believes there is more work to be done in terms of improving mental health services for youth.

Levy passed two bills during the short session this year, including a co-pay fairness act, which helps Oregonians facing already high health care costs afford life-saving medicines. Since its passage, she has spoken with representatives from other states seeking similar legislation.

Levy also spearheaded the effort to pass Trenton’s Law, which promotes e-bike safety.

In addition to health care and youth issues, Levy said she is focused on widening access to affordable housing by raising average median household income limits.

“That is going to be a huge boon to workforce housing,” she said. “It creates long-term affordability for the workforce.”

Levy says affordability can be improved in Oregon by not increasing the Oregon gas tax. She also wants to lower costs related to child care.

“For me as a mom, the child care costs were zeroed-out every month, so making sure we have more affordable child care (is important).”

Levy is also pushing to establish youth mental health beds in Central Oregon as these currently only exist in Portland. The current system, bringing kids to the emergency department during a mental health crisis, isn’t working, said Levy.

She also thinks Oregon needs to take a hard look at cellphone policy in schools and has looked to Norway as a model. The Scandinavian country banned cellphones, requiring them to be kept in lockers, and has since seen a drop in bullying and mental health calls. Grade point averages have also increased.

A portion of her time in the Legislature was also spent on a trip to Scandinavia, which she visited with other lawmakers from Oregon and Washington to learn about gas grid decarbonization technology.

The group visited power plants that are building facilities to capture and store the carbon they produce to learn how the technology could be used in the Pacific Northwest.

She says her experience is in contrast to her opponent in the race, Keri Lopez, a Redmond School Board member.

The job “is not culture war based. Her issues on the school board are related to allowing guns in schools, banning books, or questioning the need for social studies. That is not the job of the Legislature. Our job is balancing the budget and meeting energy needs. I feel like I bring value to the Legislature.”

When not working, Levy spends time with her daughter and 18-week-old puppy Violet.

She bakes with her husband and they enjoy growing berries and vegetables in their backyard garden.

Keri Lopez

Lopez was born and raised in Oregon and graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in general agriculture.

She has professional experience in financial services and residential construction.

Lopez has served on the Redmond School Board since 2021.

Her campaign literature states that Central Oregon must improve efforts to head off the threat of wildfire and chart its own course in addressing homelessness, drug addiction and mental health services.

Lopez says if elected, her focus will be on improving resources for nonprofits, parent groups, school boards, City Council and other local jurisdictions. Her experience in homebuilding has taught her that there is too much red tape holding up homebuilding in Central Oregon, and she says she will reduce bureaucracy.

Lopez canceled an interview with The Bulletin and did not respond to a follow-up call and email to reschedule the interview.