Oregon state Rep. Annessa Hartman announced on Tuesday she has Stage 3 cervical cancer.
The 37-year-old Democrat said she received the news the same week her friend and fellow lawmaker Rep. Hòa Nguyễn died at 41 from cancer.
“I still have these moments where I wake up and think it’s not real,” Hartman said, both of her friend’s death and her own health news.
Nguyễn, a Portland-area lawmaker, died in early October. On Monday, state lawmakers held a memorial for Nguyễn.
Hartman will start treatment in December at Oregon Health & Science University and is optimistic. She said she struggled over the decision to share the news with the public, but ultimately decided to do so.
“We just told our kids over the weekend and that was not easy,” Hartman said.
State Rep. Annessa Hartman high-fives her guests after she took an oath of office at the 82nd legislative assembly for the State of Oregon at the Capitol in Salem, Ore., Jan. 9, 2023.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
She said she hoped putting her diagnosis in the public arena could help others.
“To all the Oregonians dealing with a health crisis while juggling the challenge of a broken health care system, your work, your mental health and your family, my heart is with you,” she said in a written statement.
Earlier this year, Hartman was the lone Democrat who voted against her party’s massive transportation package and shortly after announced she wasn’t seeking reelection to the state Legislature.
But Hartman, who has represented Gladstone, Oregon City and unincorporated Clackamas County in the Legislature since 2023, plans to stay in politics and run for the Clackamas County Commission. That is still her plan, she said, despite her diagnosis.
“Public service is not something I do only in moments of ease; it’s something I believe in wholeheartedly, especially now,” she said.
Hartman has been a vocal voice for a bill that will ensure victims of child sexual abuse would have unlimited time to sue their abusers.
Hartman is a mom and also the third Indigenous person elected to the statehouse in Oregon. She is a member of the Haudenosaunee, Cayuga Nation and Snipe Clan.
“If you take anything from this news,” Hartman wrote in a statement, “let it be this: Prioritize your health. Get screened. And please, slow down enough to feel your life while you’re living it.”
It has been a difficult year health-wise for state lawmakers in Oregon. Nguyễn was the second state Democratic lawmaker to die this year while serving in the state Legislature.
State Sen. Aaron Woods, a former tech executive serving his first term in the Oregon Legislature, died from cancer in April. He was 75.
