Sara Gelser Blouin is a Democratic member of the Oregon Senate, representing District 8. The district includes Corvallis, Albany, Tangent, Adair Village, part of south Salem and unincorporated areas of Linn, Benton and Marion counties. Gelser Blouin won the seat in November 2014 with nearly three-fifths of the vote, took office in January 2015 in succession to Betsy Close, and has since been re-elected to four-year terms. Before moving to the Senate, Gelser Blouin represented House District 16, covering Corvallis and Philomath, from late 2005 until 2015. After losing a 2004 House race, Gelser Blouin was appointed to the District 16 seat when Representative Kelley Wirth resigned, and went on to win four more House elections.1
Born in 1973 in Las Vegas, Nevada, Gelser Blouin earned a bachelor’s degree in history and education from Earlham College in 1994, moved to Corvallis that year, and completed a master’s in interdisciplinary studies at Oregon State University in 1999. Gelser Blouin sat on the Corvallis School Board from 2001 to 2006 and worked as a disability and family support coordinator for the Oregon Department of Human Services, a parent education instructor at Linn-Benton Community College, and a regional coordinator for a parent training center. In 2010 President Barack Obama appointed Gelser Blouin to the National Council on Disability, and the U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination.
In the House, Gelser Blouin chaired the Education Committee in 2009 and 2013, co-chaired it during the evenly divided 2011 session, and served as an assistant Democratic leader. In the Senate, Gelser Blouin chairs the Human Services Committee and serves on the Judiciary and Education committees and the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. Legislative work has centered on disability rights, children in foster and residential care, limits on restraint and seclusion in schools and youth programs, clearing the backlog of untested rape kits, and a domestic workers’ bill of rights. In 2017 Gelser Blouin accused Senator Jeff Kruse of inappropriate touching; Kruse resigned in 2018, and Gelser Blouin was among the “Silence Breakers” named Time’s Person of the Year for 2017.
