An experienced Oregon education specialist whose sister serves in the Oregon House is seeking to unseat one of the most influential moderate Democrats in the Senate.
Education consultant Myrna Muñoz, related to Rep. Lesly Muñoz, D-Woodburn, announced on social media last week that she’ll run in the Democratic primary Oregon’s 15th Senate District, challenging Sen. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro. The Washington County district encompasses much of the city of Hillsboro, as well as Forest Grove, Cornelius and the Rock Creek area.
Muñoz pointed to her ties to local immigrant farm working communities while noting that she was running to improve civil rights for everyone, fully fund public schools and ensure health care as a right for all.
“SD 15 deserves a senator who fights for working families and believes in our shared future,” she wrote in a caption for her announcement video. “We have 96 days. Together, we can win this.”
“wasn’t feeling very represented by the things that she was moving forward with.”
Muñoz enters the race with fewer resources than Sollman, who also serves as the Senate assistant majority leader. State campaign finance records show that Sollman’s campaign has more than $210,000 in the bank, while no figures or campaign account statements were available for Muñoz as of Monday. Candidates have 30 days after a transaction to report contributions or spending, and that window narrows to seven days close to an election.
Muñoz began serving as education specialist supporting English learners with the Oregon Department of Education in January. Meanwhile, she has also been a self-employed executive director of a multilingual education education consultant group since February 2022, as well as working with the Oregon Department of Education from 2023 to 2024 to advise on multilingual and migrant education, according to her Linkedin. She also worked as an adjunct instructor at Portland State University from 2016 to 2023.
In an interview, Muñoz described herself as a life-long educator, strong supporter of unions and someone who never planned to pursue elected office, aside from assisting her sister’s campaigns. She considers herself a progressive and said she had previously been in touch with Sollman’s campaign, adding that the senator had once helped her acquire a business license.
But she said there has been widespread dissatisfaction with Sollman’s leadership in the district and that she “wasn’t feeling very represented by the things that she was moving forward with.” She pointed to Sollman’s work on data centers as well as her response to concerns about aggressive immigration enforcement at a Jan. 30 town hall alongside Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield.
“I honestly got quite passionate about the data centers Senator Sollman was bringing in, and also she joined Attorney General Rayfield’s town hall,” Munoz said. “When people from my community I grew up in…were explaining how fearful they are about what’s happening with ICE, her response was, I would say, lacking compassion.”
While Sollman is a lead sponsor on Senate Bill 1586, which would double the length of property tax breaks for a program data centers often take advantage of in Oregon, she told The Oregonian/OregonLive.com that she will be stripping the legislation of that provision in a forthcoming amendment. The bill had a public hearing Monday and will receive another one on Wednesday in the Senate Finance and Revenue Committee.
Sollman declined an interview Monday, saying that she was proud to represent a community she grew up in and suggesting that she would be more focused on the election after the end of lawmakers’ short 35-day legislative session.
In a written statement later Monday, she said the economic development bill would prohibit stand-alone data centers and retail warehouses. She noted that she was a chief co-sponsor of a law passed last year that requires major energy users, such as data centers or cryptocurrency operations, to pay for their impact on Oregon’s electric grid. She also pointed to her remarks alongside Gov. Tina Kotek on Jan. 24 where she and other leaders denounced the federal government’s immigration enforcement policies.
“Based on feedback from previous events, lawmakers committed to doing more listening and less talking, particularly on local issues. To make space for as many voices as possible, I focused on hearing from attendees rather than responding individually during the session,” she said of her participation in the town hall. “It was heartbreaking to hear the fear that has rippled through the community. We are experiencing a humanitarian crisis.”
Sollman has held her position in the Senate since 2022, after previously serving in the Oregon House since 2017. She has developed a reputation as a more industry-friendly Democrat, at times voting with Republicans against a majority of Democrats. For instance in 2025, she voted against a bill that would have made large tech corporations pay for aggregating local journalism outlets’ content, as well as a new law that made Oregon the first state in the nation to offer unemployment benefits to striking public and private sector employees.
Most recently, Sollman was a target of a union-backed campaign to pressure moderate Democrats in the lead-up to the session, hoping to get them to completely disconnect state tax code from the federal tax code and subsequently reconnect. Democrats have instead moved forward with legislation to instead only partially split from the federal tax code, passing the legislation in the Oregon Senate on Monday. Sen. Mark Meek, D-Gladstone, was the only Democrat to vote against the bill.
Muñoz could seek to draw upon support from some of the state’s largest unions, who are major donors to Democratic leadership in Salem, to boost her campaign. Asked about that possibility, she said she is currently holding interviews and meeting with stakeholders to earn endorsements.
Muñoz has a campaign kick-off event set for March 1, for which she said details will be forthcoming. The primary election is May 19.
This story originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle and is republished here under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Read more stories at oregoncapitalchronicle.com.
