Grattan Kerans

Grattan Kerans (January 2, 1941 – January 16, 2019) was an American politician from Oregon, who served in the Oregon House of Representatives from 1974 through 1984, and in the Oregon State Senate from 1986 to 1993. He held the position of Speaker of the House during the 1983 legislative session.

Biography Early years Grattan Kerans was born January 2, 1941, in Washington, D.C., the son of Edwin Grattan Kerans and the former Anne Kelley. His father was a dentist for the Veterans Administration and his mother a lawyer. Grattan Kerans' unusual first name was in honor of a grandfather who had been a prominent official in the Democratic Party and who had worked in the presidential administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Following graduation he took his editorial capability to the world of politics, becoming editor of the Oregon Democrat Magazine, a publication of the Democratic Party of Oregon. Chosen as the Democratic nominee in the May primary election, Kerans went on to lose to Republican Bill Rutherford in the November 1984 general election, falling to defeat by a margin of 18 percentage points. At the Oregon Democratic State Convention in 1988 Kerans was one of ten Oregon Democrats elected as Dukakis delegates to the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia.

Kerans returned to the Oregon Legislative Assembly after election to the Oregon State Senate from Lane County in 1986. Kerans was concerned about Reiten's membership in the all-male Arlington Club, even though Reiten himself was open to the club allowing women to join. Kerans doubted the Arlington Club would change its policies stating, "This is, after all, a 124-year-old club and they haven't changed their minds yet."

Kerans won re-election to a second term in the Oregon Senate in November 1990, but resigned in 1993, prior to completion of his four-year term, to take a job lobbying for the State System of Higher Education.

Kerans and his wife retired to Tucson, Arizona in 2008. They moved to Seattle in 2017, where Kerans died in January 2019.

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