The junior senator from Oregon is first-term Democrat Jeff Merkley, a progressive who was elected to the Senate in 2008. Merkley was born in Myrtle Creek, Ore., to parents who worked at a local sawmill. A declining local economy forced them into career adjustments during Merkley’s formative years. The sawmill closed when he was 2 years old, obliging his father to work as a logger and homebuilder in the neighboring town of Roseburg. When those jobs disappeared, the family moved to Portland, where his father took a job as a mechanic. “My parents lived with an ethic of making sure they saved and spent very little money on frills,” he says. In high school, Merkley broadened his perspective on economic struggles by spending a summer in Ghana as part of the American Field Service Exchange Program. The first in his family to attend college, Merkley pursued international affairs and travel as an undergraduate at Stanford University. He spent a trimester in Florence, Italy, and a summer hitchhiking around Israel. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in international relations, he took an internship with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In the summer of 1980, Merkley and a fellow intern traveled through war-torn Central America by bus. He earned a master’s degree in public policy from Princeton University, landed a presidential fellowship at the Pentagon in 1982, and then worked as an analyst in the Congressional Budget Office. Read More
The junior senator from Oregon is first-term Democrat Jeff Merkley, a progressive who was elected to the Senate in 2008. Merkley was born in Myrtle Creek, Ore., to parents who worked at a local sawmill. A declining local economy forced them into career adjustments during Merkley’s formative years. The sawmill closed when he was 2 years old, obliging his father to work as a logger and homebuilder in the neighboring town of Roseburg. When those jobs disappeared, the family moved to Portland, where his father took a job as a mechanic. “My parents lived with an ethic of making sure they saved and spent very little money on frills,” he says. In high school, Merkley broadened his perspective on economic struggles by spending a summer in Ghana as part of the American Field Service Exchange Program. The first in his family to attend college, Merkley pursued international affairs and travel as an undergraduate at Stanford University. He spent a trimester in Florence, Italy, and a summer hitchhiking around Israel. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in international relations, he took an internship with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In the summer of 1980, Merkley and a fellow intern traveled through war-torn Central America by bus. He earned a master’s degree in public policy from Princeton University, landed a presidential fellowship at the Pentagon in 1982, and then worked as an analyst in the Congressional Budget Office.
Merkley moved back to Portland in the early 1990s and took a job as director of the city’s Habitat for Humanity chapter, where he concentrated on affordable housing and skills training for at-risk youth and low-income families. In 1998, he was elected to the state House, campaigning on his desire to improve Oregon’s school system. As a state legislator, Merkley supported fee increases on deeds and other home purchase filings to increase funding for low-income housing. In 2003, he was chosen by his peers as the Democratic House minority leader, and fellow House members cited his consensus-building ability. But the state House was plagued by bitter partisanship between the two parties, making it difficult to get anything done. Merkley demonstrated a competitive edge by aggressively campaigning on behalf of Democratic House candidates in 2006, including a controversial television ad that accused Republican House Speaker Karen Minnis of covering up suspected sexual misconduct by her brother-in-law. State Republicans condemned the ad as too personal. Yet Democrats won control of the Oregon House for the first time in 16 years, and Merkley was unanimously elected speaker.
During his tenure as speaker, the legislature passed several reforms, including an expanded indoor smoking ban and greater rights for same-sex couples. He also pushed through an ethics bill aimed at curbing gifts and other perks from lobbyists to lawmakers. In 2007, Merkley fought Oregon’s payday loan industry with a bill that imposed an interest rate cap of 36% annually on consumer loans of less than $50,000. He also negotiated the establishment of a state rainy-day fund to protect schools and other state services from recessions; an increase in the state’s corporate minimum tax paid for the fund. The Oregonian newspaper called the session “one of the most successful legislative sessions of recent years.”
Merkley got the attention of Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Chuck Schumer of New York, who recruited him to challenge incumbent GOP Sen. Gordon Smith in the 2008 election. National Democrats thought Merkley would appeal to the same voters who had elected the moderate and pragmatic Smith to two Senate terms. Despite the endorsements and financial backing of his national party, Merkley faced stiff primary competition from liberal activist and political consultant Steve Novick, who had opposed Merkley’s elevation to House minority leader in 2003. Merkley initially ignored Novick and focused his campaign on Smith. But Novick, who stands just 4 feet, 9 inches tall, built support among liberal voters and ran ads saying he would “stand up for the little guy.” He labeled Merkley as pro-war for a vote he cast in favor of a 2003 resolution that praised both President George W. Bush and American troops for courage in the war against Iraq. Merkley narrowly defeated Novick, 45%-42%. Novick won liberal Multnomah County around Portland by 12 percentage points, but Merkley’s large victories in rural areas gave him the nomination.
The general election was one of the most expensive and closely watched contests of 2008. In Smith, Merkley faced a moderate Republican who had demonstrated an independent policy streak and a willingness to work across the aisle. Smith had broken with his party by voting for higher automobile mileage standards and against oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. To combat Smith’s centrist appeal, Merkley allied himself with Barack Obama and his presidential campaign theme of change. The message resonated in a state where Bush’s approval ratings were below the national average. In late October, Merkley aired a television ad that featured Obama urging voters to bring about “real change” by casting their ballots for Merkley. Smith touted his reputation for bipartisanship, particularly his good relationship with fellow Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat. He attempted to distance himself from Bush, running ads that featured Wyden, Democratic icon Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, and even Obama.
On issues, Merkley criticized Smith for supporting the $700 billion government bailout of financial institutions. The two-term senator also faced renewed questions about the legal status of seasonal immigrant workers at his family business, Smith Frozen Foods. Ironically, as House speaker, Merkley had helped kill the bill that would have required Oregon employers to verify the legal status of foreign workers; Smith voted for such legislation in Congress. Smith ran an ad that claimed Merkley had voted to increase state taxes 44 times. An independent review showed that Merkley had voted eight times to directly raise taxes. In one of the campaign season’s oddest attack ads, the National Republican Senatorial Committee aired an unflattering clip of Merkley gobbling a hot dog and fielding questions about Russia’s invasion of Georgia with his mouth full. In addition to capturing an inelegant moment for Merkley, the ad also caught him uninformed on the issue. Smith later condemned the ad.
Another hurdle for Smith was Constitution Party candidate Dave Brownlow, a libertarian with almost no campaign budget but who threatened to attract conservative voters. On Nov. 4, Merkley defeated Smith 49%-46% with Brownlow getting 5%. Smith out-raised Merkley $13 million to $7 million, but the DSCC and other outside groups poured $11 million into the race. The election gave Oregon two Democrats in the Senate for the first time in 40 years. Smith went on to be named president of the National Association of Broadcasters.
In the Senate, Merkley has been a dependable liberal vote, particularly on economic and social issues. He was granted his request for a seat on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Merkley was one of just 11 Democrats to oppose Ben Bernanke’s confirmation as Federal Reserve chairman in January 2010, contending Bernanke was partly at fault for the recession and was the wrong person to trust with an economic recovery. One month later, Merkley was among a group of Democrats who unsuccessfully pushed for a Senate vote on a government-run “public option” to compete with private insurers as part of the healthcare overhaul. During the debate on the Dodd-Frank financial industry overhaul, he joined forces with Michigan Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan to craft a stringent version of the “Volcker Rule” banning banks from engaging in risky investment practices that may have contributed to the crisis. Their provision remained in the final bill, though in watered-down form to attract Republican support. In April 2011, he was among the cosponsors of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act banning job discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
On the Environment and Public Works Committee, Merkley supported a permanent ban on offshore drilling on the West Coast and unveiled an energy plan in 2010 that relied on electric cars and increased mass transit to make the United States independent of foreign oil in two decades. He also joined Maine Republican Olympia Snowe on a bill in 2011 to give the president additional emergency authority to reduce gasoline prices. And he worked with Wyden on a measure to extend federal payments to timber-dependent counties.
Like other members of his Democratic freshman class, Merkley has chafed at the Senate’s procedures. He told The New Yorker in 2010 that he winces when he hears the chamber described as the world’s greatest deliberative body, “because the amount of real deliberation, in terms of exchange of ideas, is so limited.” He joined Democrats Tom Udall of New Mexico and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota on a proposal to bar filibustering of motions to proceed to legislation. Their measure also required senators opposing a bill to stay on the Senate floor, limited debate on nominations to two hours, and targeted “secret holds” that permit senators to anonymously block legislation. When Senate leaders announced a bipartisan agreement in January 2011 that retained the filibuster, he expressed skepticism that it would amount to much in terms of change. His proposal to make senators come to the floor to carry out filibusters fell 18 votes short of the amount needed for passage.
