• Chair of investment council to step down: As political and business leaders prepare to duke it out over the state’s Public Employee Retirement System — and $22 billion in unfunded liability — the chair of the Oregon Investment Council is stepping down after nearly a dozen years at the helm.

Katherine, or Katy, Durant, a managing partner at Portland’s Atlas Investments, is leaving the council voluntarily, according to the treasury.

The six-member council directs investment policy for the state’s public trust fund portfolio, including the Public Employees Retirement Fund and the State Accident Insurance Fund.

Durant was appointed to the OIC in 2005 by then-Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

A news release from the Treasurer’s office this week lauded Durant’s work, praising what Treasurer Ted Wheeler described as her “background in real estate and complex investments,” and what the agency called her consistent advocacy for performance-based compensation of fund managers.

Members of the council are typically limited to two four-year terms, but according to the treasury, Durant was asked to stay on longer.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has appointed Rick Miller, cofounder of a private equity firm, Rogue Venture Partners, to take Durant’s place.

Wheeler’s also leaving the council — he’ll take the reins as mayor of Portland in January, and will be replaced by Treasurer-elect Tobias Read.

• Senate Republicans hire flak from Colorado: The Oregon Senate Republican caucus’ new spokesman, Jonathan Lockwood, has made a name for himself in Colorado as what some may regard as a living oxymoron — millennial libertarian.

In his former post as executive director of Advancing Colorado, a “free-market advocacy group,” Lockwood spearheaded an ad campaign critical of the Iran deal and was among the loudest voices in opposition to a single-payer healthcare proposal that sought to remedy gaps in insurance coverage.

That proposal, Amendment 69, was defeated handily at the polls last month.

Lockwood previously worked as a communications director for the Colorado House Republicans and for a number of conservative advocacy groups in that state, according to a statement from the office of Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day.

He’s also gained some celebrity in Colorado politics and media, according to the Colorado Independent, an alt weekly that profiled Lockwood in October 2015.

The title of that profile: “How a gay hipster became a right-wing smearmeister.”

So what brings the under-30 Lockwood and Koch fellowship recipient to Oregon after a storied beginning in the Rockies?

“I’m excited to put my experience in spokesperson and leadership roles in nonprofits to work for the Senate Republicans who have the right policy prescriptions to improve education and health care in Oregon,” Lockwood said in a statement. “Leader Ferrioli is a champion for Oregonians and it is a huge privilege to be extended by him this great professional and public service opportunity.”

Health care and education are significant drivers of the state’s costs, and are sure to be prime battleground in the upcoming session as lawmakers try to address a $1.7 billion budget shortfall and the $22 billion in unfunded liability in the state’s public employee retirement system.