With 47% of the vote last May, employment attorney Christina Stephenson fell just short of the threshold for winning outright the race for Oregon labor commissioner, a nonpartisan position. Voters should finish the job this November and send Stephenson to helm the Bureau of Labor and Industries.

As an attorney who represents workers in employment disputes, Stephenson, 39, is already deeply familiar with the agency and its work of enforcing wage-and-hour laws, anti-discrimination policies and other employment-related statutes. While BOLI also handles housing discrimination complaints and apprenticeships, Stephenson’s expertise in its primary focus will allow for her to step in on Day One.

And that is key for an agency struggling with a backlog of complaints to investigate. Stephenson said she would seek to be strategic about which complaints to prioritize, focusing on repeat offenders and those knowingly violating the law. But education, she notes will also be key in helping reduce the number of complaints that come into the agency in the first place.

For instance, BOLI should use the data it has to see what laws are tripping up businesses and improve outreach to help them comply. Stephenson also hopes to expand the number of people who provide technical assistance to businesses that contact the agency. And BOLI can improve its communication tools to simplify and narrow the universe of information that businesses have to wade through.

Stephenson also hopes to greatly...

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