National
Journal Group
Learn more about our publications and sign up for a free trial.
E-Mail Alerts
Get notified the moment your favorite features are updated.
Need A Reprint?
Click here for details on reprints, permissions and back issues.
Advertise With Us
Details on advertising with National Journal Group -- both online and in print -- can be found in our online media kit.
Go Wireless
Get daily political updates on your handheld computer.
|
Oregon: Senior Senator Sen. Ron Wyden (D) Last Updated July 15, 2003
Ron Wyden grew up in California, graduated from Stanford, and came to Oregon to attend the University of Oregon Law School. After graduating in 1974 he founded the Gray Panthers, an advocacy group for the elderly; his first foray into electoral politics was sponsoring a successful referendum reducing the price of dentures. In 1980, at 31, he challenged an incumbent in the heavily Democratic 3d District, which covers most of Portland, and won the primary 60%-40%. Wyden has a genius for coming up with sensible-sounding ideas no one else has thought of and a knack for making the counter-intuitive political alliances that are so helpful in passing unfamiliar measures through the House. He also worked hard to get a waiver for John Kitzhaber's Oregon Health Plan and salmon recovery plan, and to bring the abortifacient RU-486 to the United States. When the Senate Ethics Committee recommended the expulsion of Bob Packwood in September 1995, Wyden, who had long been eyeing the seat, decided to run in the January 1996 special election to replace him--the first election Oregon conducted by mail-in ballot. With his home base in Portland, whose TV stations cover most of the state, he had greater name identification than any competitor. But he had spirited opposition in the primary from Eugene-based Congressman Peter DeFazio, who carried his own district overwhelmingly, holding Wyden to a 50%-44% win. The Republican nomination was won by state Senate President Gordon Smith, a frozen vegetable tycoon from eastern Oregon who ultimately spent $2 million of his own money. Most polls had the race in a dead heat and there were many negative ads; toward the end, Wyden said he would pull his negative spots. Wyden picked up strength the week before the January 30 deadline and won 48%-47%. In the Senate, Wyden continued some of his crusades from the House. In April 1997 he and Republican Charles Grassley called for disclosure of the names of senators who place ''holds'' on legislation--a cause Wyden started working on in 1992 when a bill he backed was killed by anonymous holds. Wyden and Grassley persevered, and in March 1999 Trent Lott and Tom Daschle unveiled a new procedure: A senator putting a hold on a bill must inform the sponsor, the committee chairman and the two party leaders. Another Wyden cause was the Internet. In summer 1996 he worked with California Congressman Christopher Cox to push their amendment prohibiting government censorship of the Internet and urging online providers to offer technologies to help parents control their children's access to Internet materials. He and Cox also sponsored the three-year ban on Internet taxation that passed in October 1998. In 2001 they sought to extend it permanently, but to set up a procedure to allow states to tax Internet sales if their adopt uniform sales tax rules, with one sales tax rate per state, and provide a means to file and remit sales taxes electronically. Wyden has also worked on Internet privacy issues and, with Conrad Burns, on anti-spam ("Can-Spam") legislation. In 2001 and 2002 he was chairman of the Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee. He sponsored a bill to encourage research in nanotechnology--the science of making changes at the molecular and atomic level--which may benefit everything from information technology to health care. He warned new NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe that there was going to be no massive infusion of new funds. He has sought to require federal agencies to systematically develop checklists to fight cyberterrorism and encouraged the development of a volunteer force of programmers and engineers to reconstruct networks damaged by emergencies like September 11. In November 2002 he became co-chairman with Bill Frist of the Congressional Forum on Technology and Innovation, which conducts frequent briefing sessions for members and staffers. On health care, Wyden and Olympia Snowe have introduced a bill to give seniors five Medigap options, with each providing coverage of prescription drugs over $3,000 a year. Wyden voted against Oregon's assisted suicide law, but has defended it, threatening to filibuster against Don Nickles's attempts in 1999 and 2000 to repeal it and attacking Attorney General John Ashcroft's decision in 2001 to prosecute doctors who prescribe lethal drugs for terminally ill patients. He has also sought to encourage a more fundamental look at the health care system by sponsoring, with Gordon Smith and, in October 2002, Orrin Hatch a "strange bedfellows" bill devised by Families USA, the Health Insurance Association of America and the American Hospital Association and supported by the AFL-CIO, AARP and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It would create a process to come up with fundamental change in health care financing, with nationwide public hearings and a working group to write recommendations; Congress would have six months to write legislation embodying the recommendations and if committees did not act any member could take the issue to the floor. Ten months after Wyden was elected, his opponent Gordon Smith won the state's other Senate seat: The first time two senators were elected who had run against each other in the same year. With the departure of Packwood and Mark Hatfield, Oregon had lost 56 years of Senate seniority and had gained two senators who everyone expected would be bitter enemies. But instead they became friends. They have held dozens of town meetings together across Oregon and meet for lunch every Thursday with their chiefs of staff. After losing a bet with Smith, Wyden answered phones for him: "Senator Smith's office; this is Ron Wyden." They began collaborating on Oregon issues, some with national application. After shooting deaths in a Springfield, Oregon, school, they sponsored a bill to require pupils who bring guns to school to be held for 72 hours and undergo psychological evaluation. Smith supported the law sponsored by Wyden and Idaho Republican Larry Craig to reimburse counties with national forests at a steady rate--fees based on logging had plummeted because of Clinton administration policies--and Wyden worked to make sure the state would send money to the counties. Wyden also worked with Oregon Republican Congressman Greg Walden to reach an agreement on protecting the environment around Steens Mountain in eastern Oregon while respecting the interests of local cattlemen; the result was the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area created in October 2000. In March 2001 Wyden and Smith sponsored an unsuccessful amendment to prevent California's debt-laden Southern California Edison and PG&E from declaring bankruptcy. In October 2001 they threatened a filibuster to get a limitation on a 1998 law requiring federal prosecutors to follow state ethics rules; an Oregon rule prohibits "deceit" and Wyden argued that it prevented sting operations that could be useful against terrorists. Wyden and Smith also brought the election procedures law to a halt in February 2002 with their amendment barring the requirement that first-time voters present photo identification, which passed 51-46; Smith was the one Republican in favor. Other Republicans felt strongly that photo ID was necessary to prevent fraud; Wyden and Smith argued that it would undermine Oregon's mail voting system. To save the bill, Democrats backed down, but Wyden and Smith got a provision covering Oregon and Washington (where many votes are cast by mail) to require the submission of a driver's license number or part of a Social Security number. Wyden has also set his own course on some local issues. He has opposed the sale of the Bonneville Power Administration, opposed a restart of the experimental reactor on the Hanford Reservation and cast the lone vote against a July 1999 energy bill because he feared it would permit the reopening of a nuclear reactor in Oregon. He lobbied the Chinese ambassador and got China to accept Pacific Northwest wheat for the first time in 20 years. He got national forest land transferred to the town of Sisters for a waste treatment plan and got permanent resident status for a Russian woman whose son was being treated for cerebral palsy in Portland. As chairman of the Forestry and Public Lands Subcommittee in 2001 and 2002, he was thrust into controversies national and local. With ranking minority member Larry Craig, he developed a bill to permanently protect timber stands older than 120 years, allowing the lumber industry more access to timber west of the Cascades and setting up a system to speed up tree thinning east of the Cascades. After the huge forest fires in the summer of 2002, he worked with Dianne Feinstein on a compromise national forest thinning plan which would prevent judges from blocking projects for more than 60 days and set up procedures to speed up thinning on 7 million acres of federal land. On both the Oregon and national proposals he was opposed both by timber industries and by environmental restriction organizations like the Sierra Club. He supported permanent repeal of the estate tax, pointing out the problems it caused for family businesses that own large stands of timber. This bipartisan tone helped Wyden win election to a full term in November 1998. He won 61%-34%, carrying all but one county. "I was bipartisan before it was P.C.," Wyden says, though not quite on everything. He voted against Bush cabinet appointees Ashcroft and Gale Norton and, after Gordon Smith started a PAC to aid Republican candidates for the Oregon legislature in the 1998 cycle, Wyden started a PAC to help Democrats in 2000. In 2002, when Gordon Smith was up for reelection, Wyden did some campaigning for Democrat Bill Bradbury, but let it be known early on that he would have nothing to do with attacks on Smith. Wyden's seat is up in 2004. In November 2002 he raised $750,000 at a fundraiser in Portland's Rose Garden and seemed well positioned for reelection. Kevin Mannix, the nearly successful Republican candidate for governor in 2002, said he would not run.
Recent News Coverage
DC Office State Offices Committees
National Journal Group offers both print and electronic reprint services, as well as permissions for academic use, photocopying and republication. Click here to order, or call us at 877-394-7350. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NEW FEATURE
[ Site Index | Staff | Privacy Policy | E-Mail Alerts ]
[ Reprints And Back Issues | Content Licensing ]
[ Make NationalJournal.com Your Homepage ]
[ About National Journal Group Inc. ]
[ Employment Opportunities ]
Copyright 2013 by National Journal Group Inc.
The Watergate · 600 New Hampshire Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20037
202-739-8400 · fax 202-833-8069
NationalJournal.com is an Atlantic Media publication.
