Meet Chip Shields
For over 14 years, Sen. Chip Shields has been fighting for the people of N/NE Portland. From leadership roles in raising the minimum wage and funding our schools, to finding living-wage jobs for hundreds of people through Better People, the Northeast Portland nonprofit job center he started, Chip Shields has delivered results.
He and his spouse Shelda Holmes - a certified family nurse practitioner - have been foster parents of two St. Johns children, one of which attended Sitton Elementary. When not in legislative session, Chip is the business manager of Shelda's North Portland primary care clinic Hands on Medicine. The couple also has a three year old daughter.
Chip has served in the Oregon House and Senate since 2005 where he focuses on living-wage jobs, health care, schools and equality. In the 2009 session, as Co-Chair of the Public Safety Subcommittee of Ways & Means, he protected services for domestic violence survivors, funding for drug and alcohol treatment, and negotiated and passed a bill that invests $1.5 million in preapprenticeship training for women and people of color. In the 2011 session, as Chair of the Consumer and Small Business Protection Committee, he succeeded in making health insurance companies justify their premium increases in the health insurance rate review process. Faced with this greater scrutiny, Oregon health insurance carriers are seeking smaller premium increases, which is good news for small business.
Because of his work in the legislature and the community, Chip was recognized with the AFL-CIO Hero of Labor award, the Skanner newspaper Drum Major for Justice award and the Citizens Crime Commission crime-fighter of the year award. Chip has a masters of social work from Portland State University. Chip and Shelda are home owners in the Piedmont Neighborhood
Chip Shields was the first Oregon elected official
to endorse Obama for President
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