Keeping family farms, nurseries and timber viable for the next generation.
Needs an assetHer documented position
“We need to protect our natural resources while also making sure family farms, timber workers, and agricultural businesses can continue to thrive for the next generation.”
Published by Rep. Elmer
Farms, nurseries and timber operations are the economic base of rural Oregon and the stewards of most of its working land. They operate on margins that a single regulatory change or a single invasive pest can erase.
Nursery stock is among Oregon's largest agricultural products, and the Legislature has funded continued Japanese beetle eradication, an effort concentrated in the nursery-growing region that includes House District 24.
Rep. Elmer grew up on a family farm in Yamhill County and did the payroll for her father's timber business at fifteen. The position is not a policy preference she adopted; it is the economy she was raised inside.
Protection of working land and protection of natural resources are not automatically the same goal, and in water allocation, forest practice and pesticide policy they can point in opposite directions. Naming both without saying which yields when they conflict leaves the hardest question open.
Every measure below is checked against the Oregon Legislative Information System. Chief sponsor means she led it. Regular sponsor means she signed on to it. The ones that died are listed beside the ones that passed.
Regular sponsor
Allows counties to approve farm stores as a nonfarm use on land zoned for farm use.
Signed into law. Chapter 123, Oregon Laws 2026
Chief sponsor
Amends the conditions under which a county must approve a farm stand.
Died in House committee
Chief sponsor
Adds wine bottles to the Bottle Bill.
Died in House committee
Chief sponsor
Appropriates General Fund money to the Department of Transportation for the Newberg-Dundee Bypass.
Died in House committee
Sources
Related record
County Fair Account
Removes the cap on the County Fair Account so that one percent of lottery net proceeds goes toward supporting county fairgrounds. Fairgrounds serve as rural economic anchors, community gathering places and emergency resources.
Secured by House Republicans. Representative Elmer reported the outcome to the district as caucus leader, and does not claim it as her own measure.
Japanese beetle eradication
$1.8 million
Continues efforts to eradicate the invasive Japanese beetle. Nursery stock and agriculture are central to the economy of House District 24 and the surrounding region.
Approved by the Legislature. She worked with Senator Starr and local partners on the district's funding package.