- Oregon State Deputy Legislative Counsel, 1960-1967.
- Oregon State Chief Deputy Legislative Counsel, 1967-1994.
About Kathleen Beaufait
Kathleen Beaufait loved the law growing up and that expanded to include an interest in state and local government under the tutelage of a beloved college professor. After graduating from the University of Chicago Law School, Kathleen soon made her way back to Oregon and a job in the Office of Legislative Counsel.
The first women to work in that office, Beaufait found her niche as a bill drafter and “thoroughly enjoyed” her thirty-four year career. The pace of work during a session was non-stop and stressful, but Beaufait called it “fun.” She worked hard to develop legislators’ trust in her as their lawyer on legislative matters, and to take their ideas and craft them into bills that would benefit their constituents and all Oregonians.
As Kathleen noted: “I’m thinking of non-partisanship also in the sense of this is a good bill or a bad bill; this is a bill. It’s not up to me to say whether it’s good or bad.”
For many years she also took her “dog and pony show” on the road around Oregon to explain to citizens how a bill becomes a law, or how school finance worked and what it meant for their town and their kids.
Having spent many years in the Capitol Building she is qualified to call it “more than just a building” that means something to visitors to the Capitol as well as its members.
– Interview recorded June 1, 2017