Former Democratic Rep. Hernandez Won’t Vote for Kotek Cites a Leadership Culture of Fear, Coercion and Retaliation

Oregon — Former Oregon Democratic Rep. Diego Hernandez says he will not vote for Gov. Tina Kotek, renewing allegations that she bullied and threatened him while serving as House speaker and arguing that her approach to leadership has undermined trust.

“I’m not voting for Tina Kotek,” Hernandez wrote in a lengthy Facebook statement. “I personally know Tina Kotek’s Leadership. I Experienced It.”

Hernandez represented House District 47 in east Portland from 2017 to 2021, serving under Kotek’s speakership. His statement combines criticism of her governorship with an account of their legislative disputes, including allegations previously examined through the Legislature’s workplace complaint process.

“I was bullied, harassed, threatened, and politically targeted by Tina Kotek,” Hernandez wrote. “I don’t say that lightly.”

Kotek has previously disputed his allegations. An investigator concluded that her conduct did not violate legislative workplace rules, while a House committee subsequently divided over a central allegation in his complaint.

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Hernandez’s statement focuses heavily on a 2019 dispute over legislation changing Oregon’s Public Employees Retirement System. He said Kotek pressured him to support the measure and threatened his political future when he refused.

“I will make sure to end your career,” Hernandez recalled Kotek telling him.

He also alleged that Kotek threatened to kill legislation restoring access to driver’s licenses for immigrants without legal immigration status unless he changed his pension vote.

According to Hernandez, he immediately contacted then-Rep. Teresa Alonso Leon, who was working with him on the driver’s license legislation. He said Alonso Leon responded by warning Kotek that she would withdraw her own support for the pension bill if the license measure were killed.

Hernandez portrayed the confrontation as an example of community priorities being used to pressure individual lawmakers.

“What disturbed me most was how easily the needs of an entire community could become bargaining chips in an effort to control another elected official,” he wrote.

His allegations about the 2019 confrontation are not new. OPB reported in June 2022 that Hernandez had sent contemporaneous text messages to colleagues describing alleged bullying by Kotek. At the time, Kotek denied threatening him and characterized his complaint as an effort to deflect attention from misconduct findings against him.

The complaint produced a disputed outcome. Investigator Melissa Healy, an outside attorney hired by the Legislature, found Hernandez’s account credible but concluded the conduct did not violate Capitol workplace rules. On Oct. 31, 2022, the House Conduct Committee split 2–2 along party lines over whether Kotek had created a hostile workplace, with Republicans voting that she had and Democrats disagreeing. The committee unanimously dismissed the separate allegation that Kotek’s call for his resignation was retaliation for his pension vote.

Hernandez’s own departure from office followed misconduct proceedings. He resigned effective March 15, 2021, after a legislative panel found he had violated harassment rules and as the House prepared to consider expelling him. He has disputed the allegations and portrayed the process as politically motivated.

In his new statement, Hernandez argued that the deadlocked vote on his complaint should not be treated as proof that the alleged conduct never occurred. He also accused Kotek of influencing legislative accountability procedures. Those assertions represent his characterization of the process.

Hernandez connected his experience to concerns about staff departures and controversies involving Kotek’s wife’s role in state government, saying he recognized elements of the leadership culture he experienced in the Legislature.

He acknowledged supporting some of Kotek’s policies and credited legislative accomplishments during her speakership. But he argued that shared political priorities should not prevent criticism of how leaders exercise power.

“Political alignment should never require us to excuse hostile leadership that uses bullying, harassment, manipulation, or abuses of power from people on our own side,” he wrote.

Hernandez did not endorse another candidate in the statement.

“I didn’t enter public service to be loyal to a political leader,” he wrote. “I entered it to represent people, advocate for communities, and advance policies that improve lives.”

Full statement:

Diego Hernandez

I’m not voting for Tina Kotek.

I personally know Tina Kotek’s Leadership. I Experienced It.

I’ve been watching Tina Kotek’s governorship and the growing frustration with her leadership, the staff turnover, the controversies, and the struggles to deliver on some of Oregon’s most pressing issues.

And I can’t help but reflect on my own experience.

I served four years in the Oregon House of Representatives under Tina Kotek’s leadership as Speaker. I worked directly with her. I experienced how she treated people who challenged her authority, disagreed with her decisions, or refused to fall in line.

I was bullied, harassed, threatened, and politically targeted by Tina Kotek. I don’t say that lightly. I lived it, documented it, provided evidence and witnesses, and eventually testified publicly about it.

And what I experienced says a lot about the kind of leadership I believe Oregon has been subjected to.

—When Power Becomes a Tool for Control—

I still remember one of my first meetings with Tina when I was newly elected.

There wasn’t much interest in getting to know me, understanding the communities I represented, or discussing the policies I wanted to champion.

Instead, I was told how much money I was expected to raise for the Democratic caucus and how my ability to advance legislation, secure committee assignments, and receive political support would depend on meeting those expectations.

That was my introduction to legislative leadership.

Now, I understand politics. I understand fundraising, negotiating, coalition building, and the difficult compromises that come with governing. I’ve participated in all of it.

But there’s a difference between exercising political leadership and using institutional power to intimidate, punish, and control people.

Over time, I came to experience Tina’s leadership as rooted in fear, coercion, manipulation, and political retaliation.

The message was clear: Support what she wants, or risk losing what matters to you.

And when you represent communities that have historically been excluded from political power, that kind of leverage can be particularly harmful.

—The Day She Threatened My Career—

In 2019, Tina was trying to pass controversial legislation changing Oregon’s public employee retirement system, commonly known as PERS.

I disagreed with the legislation and refused to vote for it.

That decision led to repeated pressure and threats. And during one of her escalating confrontations towards me, Tina told me directly:

“I will make sure to end your career.”

She threatened my legislative priorities, my political future, and bills I had worked hard to advance.

In one of her final attempts to get me to change my vote, she said she was going to kill the legislation to restore access to driver’s licenses for undocumented Oregonians if I voted no.

Think about that for a moment.

A policy affecting thousands of immigrant families, people who needed to drive legally to work, take their children to school, and participate in everyday life, was being used as leverage to force my vote on an entirely unrelated issue.

I wasn’t going to let that happen.

Immediately after that threat, I called Rep. Teresa Alonso Leon, who was working with me on the driver’s license legislation, and told her what Tina was threatening to do.

Teresa was courages and she told Tina that if she killed our driver’s license bill, Teresa would change her vote on PERS from yes to a no.

With the vote already extremely close, losing another vote completely threatened Tina’s ability to pass the legislation.

That changed the political equation.

The PERS bill barely passed, but only after Democrat changed their vote from no to yes. That legislator had been called into Tina’s office and, from what I witnessed, emerged in tears, visibly distressed by the vote they felt compelled to make.

Our driver’s license legislation survived thanks to Teresa Alonso Leon and eventually became law.

But I never forgot what it took to protect it.

What disturbed me most was how easily the needs of an entire community could become bargaining chips in an effort to control another elected official.

And this was only one example of what I experienced.

—When the System Protects Power—

I eventually filed a formal workplace harassment complaint and provided evidence of Tina’s conduct, including contemporaneous messages, witnesses, and documentation of the threats. Tina worked hard to make sure the investigation never concluded or to come out and see the light of day, dragging far beyond the required time required by statute.

People witnessed parts of what happened. I told colleagues about the threats immediately after they occurred, long before there was any formal investigation.

The investigator even concluded that the evidence more closely supported my version of events.

Yet the investigator reasoned that conduct potentially inappropriate in another workplace was different in the Legislature because politics is inherently contentious. Mind you that investigator is under the office controlled by Tina herself. These investigators work like prosecutors for her office.

Essentially, the intimidation I experienced was treated as part of politics. The House Conduct Committee ultimately deadlocked 2–2 over whether her conduct violated workplace rules. That vote distinction matters to me.

A complaint being dismissed by deadlocked doesn’t mean she didn’t violate the rules, yet that’s what was reported.

In my experience, the legislative accountability system was deeply compromised by her political influence, institutional self-protection, and what I witnessed as the targeting of people she considered political enemies. My experience left me with profound concerns about whether those holding the greatest power could ever be meaningfully held accountable by a process operating within the same institutional power structure they could influence and manipulate.

These systems were weaponized by Kotek against political opponents, including me and other legislators who challenged her leadership or refused to do what she wanted. Those concerns extend beyond my own experience. She had the power to initiate any investigation she wanted, when she wanted under the mandatory reporting rules, Tina herself initiated investigations through reports she submitted herself, while the process could obscure who had set the investigation in motion. I witnessed first hand the political exploitation of that authority.

When political power influences who gets investigated, who gets believed, how conduct is interpreted, and who faces consequences, accountability itself becomes vulnerable to manipulation. And as a man of color, I am especially aware of how racial stereotypes, historical inequities, and systemic racism can make it easier for someone to be targeted, labeled, and presumed culpable. And how much more the consequences that come with such targeting.

And that should concern everyone, regardless of political affiliation.

—The Long-Term Cost of Leading Through Fear—

Here’s what my experience taught me about leadership.

You can get a lot accomplished in the short term through intimidation, political threats, transactional relationships, control over fundraising, and and the enormous leverage that comes with controlling legislative assignments and influencing state budgets.

People will comply. They will tell you what you want to hear. They may even defend you publicly because their careers, priorities, relationships, or access to resources depend on maintaining your favor.

That can look like effective leadership from the outside.

But over time, that style of leadership begins to rot the very foundation of her leadership and the institutions, relationships, and trust upon which leadership depends on.

Trust deteriorates. People become afraid to disagree. Independent thinking gets punished. Genuine relationships become transactional. Loyalty becomes a measure of usefulness rather than shared values or mutual respect.

Eventually, the consequences become harder to contain.

Unlike leadership rooted in respect, consistent values and, like that of Morse, Hatfield, Dellenback, McCall, Katz, Paulus, McNary, Courtney, Roberts, Carter, and other Oregon’s great leaders.

When I see the turmoil surrounding Tina’s governorship, the departure of senior staff, the controversies over her decision-making and the questions surrounding her wife’s involvement in state government and the use of public resources to support that role,, and the growing frustration over the state’s direction, I recognize aspects of the leadership culture I experienced.

I do believe how someone exercises power has consequences, especially when they become responsible for leading an entire state.

A governor needs people who feel empowered to speak honestly, challenge decisions, identify mistakes, and offer different perspectives without fearing retaliation.

You cannot build that kind of environment through fear.

—Oregon Deserves Better Leadership—

Yes, Tina Kotek has worked hard on some policies that I support. We have shared political priorities, and there are legislative accomplishments during her time as Speaker that deserve recognition. I can acknowledge those accomplishments while also speaking honestly about how she leads and what I witnessed.

Political alignment should never require us to excuse hostile leadership that uses bullying, harassment, manipulation, or abuses of power from people on our own side.

I’ve spent 15 years of my life working in communities where leadership is rooted in relationships, collective responsibility, restoritve justice, and the understanding that people deserve dignity, including when we disagree.

I’ve also seen how political systems can reproduce the same harmful power dynamics that many of us entered public service hoping to change.

Leadership requires making difficult decisions. Sometimes people will disagree with you. Sometimes you’ll lose votes, face criticism, or have to make compromises that disappoint people.

That comes with the responsibility of public service.

But threatening someone’s livelihood, political future, or the communities they represent because they refuse to surrender their independent judgment should never be normalized as the cost of doing politics.

I know how damaging that kind of leadership can be. I live with its consequences long after leaving the Legislature. And while other people may have had different experiences with Tina, this was mine.

I believe Oregon deserves leadership that builds trust rather than fear, earns loyalty rather than demands obedience, welcomes disagreement rather than punishes it, and understands that political power is a public responsibility rather than a personal instrument of control.

I didn’t enter public service to be loyal to a political leader. I entered it to represent people, advocate for communities, and advance policies that improve lives.

And no elected official, regardless of their title, party, or political power, should ever have to choose between their conscience and their career.

That’s the kind of political culture I believe we should be challenging, including within our own political circles.

And that’s why, based on my own experience, I don’t believe Tina Kotek represents the kind of leadership Oregon deserves and won’t be voting for her because we do need change, we need great leaders like the names I mentioned earlier.

-Diego

(I wrote this myself and not a.i. so please excuse all my grammatical errors)