Virginia Linder - Judicial Career

Judicial Career

In 1997, she was appointed to the Court of Appeals by Governor John Kitzhaber, and was re-elected in 1998 and 2004. Her campaign for a seat on the Oregon Supreme Court began in 2005 when Chief Justice Wallace Carson, Jr. announced that he would retire from the court in 2006. She faced Roberts and Pendleton attorney Gene Hallman in the May primary, winning 39% of the vote to Roberts' 42%. Because no candidate won a majority of the votes, Linder and Roberts advanced to the November runoff. In that runoff, Linder defeated Roberts by 52% to 48%. Linder's campaign committee raised just over $350,000 for her campaign but was outspent by more than two-to-one by the Roberts committee, which raised over $710,000. Since 1998 she has been a professor at Willamette's law school.

Linder is the first woman elected to the Oregon Supreme Court; all previous female justices had been appointed to fill vacancies. She is also the first ever openly lesbian member of a state supreme court anywhere in the nation and the first openly LGBT person elected as a non-incumbent to a state supreme court. Her partner is Colleen Sealock. She serves as one of six openly LGBT supreme court justices in the United States, alongside fellow Oregonian Rives Kistler, Colorado Supreme Court justice Monica Marquez, Hawaii Supreme Court justice Sabrina McKenna, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court justice Barbara Lenk, and Vermont Supreme Court justice Beth Robinson. Her 2006 election campaign was supported by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund. Linder announced she is running for reelection in 2012.