Oregon Labor Commissioner Christina Stephenson poised to keep her job against primary challenger

By ALEX BAUMHARDT/Oregon Capital Chronicle

Oregon’s labor commissioner appears poised to keep her job for a second four-year term.

Christina Stephenson, the head of Oregon’s Bureau of Labor & Industries, was fending off a primary challenge from Chris Lynch, a 15-year veteran of the agency who previously managed the bureau’s civil rights division in Portland. As of 8 p.m. Tuesday, Stephenson had 63% of the vote.

Because only two candidates are running for the nonpartisan role leading the state’s employment rights agency, whoever receives more than 50% of the vote automatically becomes the state labor commissioner in January.

Stephenson, 42, is a career employment and civil rights lawyer who was first elected in 2022. She inherited the agency from now-U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle, along with a backlog of wage theft and discrimination claims that had more than doubled since 2020, according to the agency’s most recent annual report.

Stephenson previously told the Capital Chronicle that if reelected she’d continue tackling the backlog of complaints, which she said is down nearly 40% for civil rights claims, and down 20% for wage and hour claims, since she took office. Under her leadership, the agency has eliminated a compliance backlog for apprenticeship programs, which BOLI also regulates, she said.

In 2025, Oregon lawmakers granted her request to increase the agency’s budget by 30% to $81.6 million for 2025 to 2027 so she could hire additional investigators and new technology to tackle overdue caseloads.

Lynch, who started at the labor bureau as an intern in 2005 and worked his way up to lead investigator and manager in the Civil Rights Division Unit in Portland, previously backed Stephenson in her 2022 run. He even returned to the agency from the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division, after leaving the labor bureau under Hoyle, to work under Stephenson, he said.

But he was dismayed by what he described as her inability to tackle low morale and a leadership style that was “non-existent.” He returned to a job at the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division, where he works today as a compliance specialist.

Oregon Capital Chronicle is a nonprofit Salem-based news service that focuses its reporting on Oregon state government, politics and policy.