From refugee to Oregon Senate majority leader, Kayse Jama focuses on finding common ground

By Julia Shumway, Oregon Capital Chronicle

SALEM, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Kayse Jama arrived in Portland in 1998 as a refugee from war-torn Somalia, with no job, few prospects and the phone number of one other Somali immigrant who let him couch-surf while he found his way in a new country. 

Twenty-six years later, Jama is one of the most influential people in Oregon politics. He was appointed to the state Senate in 2021 and quickly became chair of the chamber’s housing committee, where he played a key role in crafting sweeping policy changes and allocating hundreds of millions of dollars to help Oregonians find and keep stable homes. And after November’s election, his colleagues in the Democratic caucus picked him as their majority leader for the 2025 legislative session. 

Jama, who will lead a Democratic supermajority of 18 senators when lawmakers return for a short special session next week and a six-month marathon in January, told the Capital Chronicle he works on building relationships and finding common ground with people in part because of his background. He was the first Muslim and the first refugee to serve in the Oregon Senate, and he has spent his career working to prove that people in the state have more in common than they have differences. 

“Relationship building is really the foundation of everything in the work that I do, and collaboration is the foundation of everything that I do in my life,” he said. 

Jama, the first Black man to serve as Senate majority leader, is part of a diverse group of lawmakers picked as Democratic caucus leaders for the upcoming session. The Senate Democratic leadership team includes two other Black men — Eugene Sen. James Manning as Senate president pro tempore and Portland Sen. Lew Frederick as majority whip — as well as Aloha Sen. Wlnsvey Campos, who is Latina, as deputy majority leader, and Portland Sen. Khanh Pham, Oregon’s first Vietnamese American legislator, as assistant majority leader.

Campos, co-chair of the Legislative BIPOC caucus, said in a statement that Jama will be a “steadfast leader and strong champion for our communities.” The other co-chair, Democratic Rep. Ricki Ruiz of Gresham, added that BIPOC caucus members will have a powerful role in determining Oregon’s future. 

“It is powerful to be a part of history and see leadership that truly represents our state,” Ruiz said. “Our communities are not only at the table, we have a powerful role in the conversation about Oregon’s future.” 

Path to the Legislature

A few months after arriving in Oregon, Jama found his first U.S. job with Lutheran Community Services Northwest, helping refugees and immigrants like himself navigate housing, education and health care. He soon realized that those issues affected more than just immigrants, and by 2003 he co-founded the Center for Intercultural Organizing, now called Unite Oregon. The statewide nonprofit advocates for climate justice, housing, community safety, education, economic justice and health equity across the state.

As part of that work, he traveled to rural Oregon, meeting with people who told him how they weren’t represented in decisions made in Salem or Portland and felt like they had no power. 

He knew exactly what they were talking about.

“As a former refugee, as well as an immigrant myself, that’s kind of how we feel,” Jama said. “So there’s a certain synergy immediately.” 

He spent time in Salem, advocating for bills before the Legislature and focusing on housing. Jama had met many people in urban and rural areas who struggled to pay rent and other bills, and he thought he could help more as an elected official.

One of the bills he pushed for, 2017’s House Bill 2004, would have allowed local governments to enact rent control ordinances and limited no-cause evictions. Tenant advocates blamed the bill’s demise on the state senator representing Jama’s east Portland district at the time, longtime Democratic lawmaker and landlord Rod Monroe. 

“I remember driving from Salem one day as I was advocating, and I said, ‘I think I should be able to address this issue in a way that helps the community to get where they need to be,’” Jama said. “That day, there was a bill that failed, and it really touched me. And I said, ‘I’m gonna go out and run for office,’ and that’s where I decided.”

He challenged Monroe in the 2018 Democratic primary, but another progressive Portlander with a compelling backstory had the same idea: Shemia Fagan, a civil rights lawyer with two prior terms in the state House, told voters about visiting her homeless mother as a child and won that three-way primary with more than 60% of the vote. 

Fagan was elected secretary of state two years later and considered a top contender for the governor’s office or the U.S. Senate — until her political career ended abruptly in 2023 with revelations that she had taken a $10,000-per-month consulting gig for a troubled cannabis company involved in an audit conducted by her office.

Her 2020 election as secretary of state, though, meant someone needed to finish the remaining two years of her Senate term, and county commissioners unanimously chose Jama. In 2022, he easily won reelection in the 24th District that stretches from east Portland to Damascus and Boring. 

Jama said he was impressed by the immediate impact he could have as a legislator. Before his appointment, he had spent more than a decade pushing for the state to create an office focused on helping immigrants integrate and advance. Once he joined the Senate, it took mere months to pass a law and create the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Advancement in the governor’s office and now in the Department of Human Services. 

“That really speaks about why representation matters, but also things that you’re able to impact all Oregonians’ lives, regardless of their background, just the scale of the impact that you can have here as a legislator and help Oregon to be a better place for all Oregonians,” he said. 

Focus on housing and collaboration 

Jama’s main focus on housing remained once he joined the Legislature, and he was named chair of the Senate Housing and Development Committee during his first term. Along with his counterpart on the House housing committee, Eugene Democrat Julie Fahey — now speaker of the House — Jama led legislative efforts to pass groundbreaking legislation, from COVID-era eviction protections to strengthened rent control laws to a compromise earlier this year between land use advocates and builders to allow more homes to be built on the outskirts of cities.

Along the way, he’s earned praise from Capitol observers for the working relationship he built with Sen. Dick Anderson, the Lincoln City Republican who serves as vice chair of his committee and was only one of three Senate Republicans allowed to run for reelection because he didn’t participate in a six-week walkout in 2023. They worked closely on housing legislation, balancing traditionally conservative policies like reducing regulations for builders with policies preferred by the left, like rent control. 

“Senator Anderson makes my work very easy, because he’s a really nice human being, amazing person to work with, an incredible leader himself,” Jama said. “The way I work with people, it’s just really having synergy of caring for all Oregonians, regardless of their background, and really working in a sense that we have to, at the end of the day, put Oregonians first, before we put our positions that we hold as leaders.” 

Jama said he’ll take that same approach as majority leader, working to find common ground with members of his caucus and with Republicans. All senators represent not just their district but all Oregnians, he said, and they can find common ground on shared priorities, including bringing down costs, reducing drug addiction and homelessness and improving the state’s transportation infrastructure so people can get around. 

“Those kinds of issues impact all Oregonians, regardless of their background,” he said. “Those are things that unite us as legislators, and hopefully we can focus on those issues and make sure Oregonians are served in ways that make their lives better.”