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Oregon: Junior Senator Sen. Gordon Smith (R) Last Updated July 15, 2003
Republican Gordon Smith was born in Pendleton and grew up, after his father sold his food processing business to serve as an aide to Eisenhower Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson, in the Washington suburbs. He is a cousin of former Congressmen Morris and Stewart Udall and therefore of their sons, Congressmen Mark Udall and Tom Udall. Smith served two years as a Mormon missionary in New Zealand, then graduated from Brigham Young and from law school in Los Angeles, was a law clerk in New Mexico and practiced law in Arizona. Then he bought the family frozen vegetable processing company in Pendleton, and guided it out of debt to profitability; Smith Frozen Foods is now one of largest private label packers of frozen vegetables in the country. In 1992 he was elected to the state Senate and in 1995 became Senate president, a fast rise. In 1995 and 1996 he ran for the Senate seat from which Bob Packwood resigned. He lost, after a battle of negative ads, to Ron Wyden 48%-47% in January 1996. The month before, Mark Hatfield had announced his retirement after 30 years in the Senate. At first Smith was reluctant to run again--indeed, he is the only American in history to run in two Senate races in the same year--but Republicans urged him to do so. Attacked during the Wyden race for being endorsed by the conservative Oregon Citizens' Alliance, Smith positioned himself closer to the center and turned down the OCA endorsement this time; when OCA head Lon Mabon ran against him in the primary, Smith beat him 78%-8%. Smith's opponent in the general was Tom Bruggere, another self-made millionaire, who started Mentor Graphics near Portland and, like Smith, owned a Ferrari. In an ad shot in soft focus, Smith said he continued to oppose abortion, but promised not to back a constitutional amendment banning it and at the end of the campaign said he would vote for Medicaid to cover abortions in cases of rape, incest or threat to life of the mother; he promised to work for a balance of environmental protection, economic development and job creation. Smith won 50%-46%, carrying every county but Portland, two university towns and two northwest counties; he lost metro Portland by 53%-43%. Against some expectations, Smith has compiled one of the more moderate voting records of Senate Republicans. He voted for mandatory background checks and for child safety locks on guns--both reversals of previous stands. He continued to oppose abortion, but in 2000 backed the use of embryonic stem cells in medical research; the cells are used in research to combat Parkinson's disease that has stricken several of his relatives. But he opposed human cloning, fearful of "embryo farms where women are induced to take superovulatory drugs to harvest lots of eggs with the deliberate intention of destroying them." He did not change his position on assisted suicide, however. While his Oregon colleague Wyden repeatedly threatened to filibuster Don Nickles's bill which would have overturned the assisted suicide law Oregon voters approved in 1994 and 1997 referenda, Smith voted for it. "For me, it's an issue of principle on which I'm prepared to stake my political career," he said later. He called on the Bush administration not to prosecute physicians for prescribing lethal drugs, but in November 2001 Attorney General John Ashcroft signaled he would do so; he was blocked from acting by a federal judge and appealed the decision. In the meantime Smith opposed congressional action. Smith strongly supported the 2000 prescription drug bill sponsored by Wyden and Olympia Snowe in 2000 and in summer 2002 wrote his own bill with Bob Graham that at one point seemed the compromise most likely to pass the Senate. He co-sponsored Wyden's "strange bedfellows" health bill which would set up a process for a panel of experts to agree on principles and write legislation which Congress would be required to consider. With Hillary Rodham Clinton he sponsored a bill to create magnet programs for nurses. He was Edward Kennedy's chief co-sponsor of the hate crimes bill that included gays. He voted against the McCain-Feingold campaign finance regulation bill when it passed with 59 votes in April 2001, but when it came back from conference committee in February 2002 he indicated he would provide a 60th vote against a filibuster, and thus assured its passage. Smith serves on Foreign Relations and again he has steered something of a middle course. He was one of the few Republicans to vote for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in October 1999. He supported the Iraq war resolution in October 2002. The election of Wyden in January 1996 and Smith in November 1996 was the first time two senators were elected who had run against each other in the same year. Surprisingly, considering the negative character of their campaign, they became friends. They have held dozens of joint town meetings across Oregon and have issued dozens of joint press releases; they lunch together every Thursday. They have worked together when bills have special impact on Oregon. In October 2001 they threatened to filibuster the USA Patriot Act in order to get an exception from a 1998 law that requires federal prosecutor to follow state legal ethics rules; Oregon prohibits "deceit" and they said that made it impossible for federal authorities to conduct sting operations and undercover investigations. In February 2002 Smith, working with Wyden, brought consideration of the election law bill to a halt by voting to delete a provision, supported by all other Republicans, requiring first-time voters to show photo identification. Smith and Wyden argued that this would undermine Oregon's mail-in voting; they did not get the provision they first sought, but did get a provision allowing Oregon and Washington, where most votes are cast by mail, to require only submission of a driver's license number of part of a Social Security number to prove identity. Smith has tended to oppose measures sought by environmental restriction groups as undue limits on economic activity. He has very strongly opposed breaching dams on the Snake River. He has worked on compromises on specific issues--with Wyden on expanding the Little Sandy watershed protection area, from which Portland gets drinking water; with Congressman Greg Walden to produce the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area; with Wyden, to question the methods by which the National Marine Fisheries Service determined that the groundfish population was declining (which resulted in limits on fishing). He championed the cause of the Klamath Basin farmers who were denied irrigation water because it was said to be needed to protect the endangered sucker fish--a heavily publicized case in Oregon; some water was restored in summer 2002. When California's electricity crisis hit in winter 2001, he and Wyden sought unsuccessfully to bar heavily indebted utilities from declaring bankruptcy. He parted with most of his fellow Republicans to vote against oil drilling in the ANWR and to vote for higher CAFE auto gas mileage standards. He worked with Tom Harkin to provide more generous conservation incentives in the 2002 farm bill and to have them apply to all farmers, not just those who produce subsidized crops. There are signs that Smith is interested in having a long Senate career: In July 2002 he proposed repealing the Senate Republicans' term limits on chairmen; this was rejected by the Republican Conference 28-18. Heading into the 2002 cycle, it was not apparent whether this Republican senator from a state where Democrats have been winning most recent statewide elections--and which was evenly split in the 2000 presidential election--would have serious competition. His stands on abortion, assisted suicide and environmental issues were not as out of line with as many voters as some Democrats thought, but they were sure to be portrayed in the press, liberal-leaning in Oregon, as extreme right-wing positions. The toughest competitor seemed to be Governor John Kitzhaber, concluding his second term with still high ratings. But Kitzhaber, with a young family and fond of fly fishing, took his time deciding whether to run; in September 2001, on a fishing trip after the September 11 attacks, he issued a one-sentence press release saying he would not. Two other Democrats were mentioned as possibly competitive candidates, and both had trailed but held Smith under 50% in the February poll--4th District Congressman Peter DeFazio and Secretary of State Bill Bradbury. DeFazio would have to give up his House seat to run, a seat House Democrats feared they would lose with another candidate, and in October 2001 he asked the DSCC for assurances of its "strongest possible support"--i.e., a commitment to the maximum legal financing. DSCC Chairman Patty Murray wouldn't give such a commitment and top staffer Jim Jordan said he "just might want to sit back and watch the process for a while." Translation: No serious money until you raise a lot yourself and rise in the polls. On the last day of October, DeFazio announced he would not run. Meanwhile, Bradbury decided to run without the assurances DeFazio sought. Bradbury and Smith go back a ways. In 1993 Bradbury was Senate President and Smith a Senate freshman; at the end of the longest session in state history, Smith told Bradbury he had the votes to delay adjournment indefinitely unless Bradbury appointed more Republicans to the Emergency Board, a group of legislators with spending power when the legislature is out of session; Bradbury backed down. Smith also beat Bradbury by accepting a deal that included a cigarette tax increase but also delayed for four years imposing an employer mandate in the Oregon Health Plan--a delay that became permanent after Republicans won majorities in the legislature in 1994. In October 2001, Bradbury announced for Senate; he had no serious primary opposition. Bradbury attacked Smith's votes on environmental issues, abortion, tax cuts, education spending and assisted suicide. He had revealed to voters some time before that he has multiple sclerosis, which makes it difficult for him to walk long distances; he carried a director's chair so he wouldn't have to stand for long periods. Smith had two strong assets. One was his work with Wyden. Wyden endorsed Bradbury and conducted fundraisers for him, but he also pledged not to attack Smith in any way and they continued to send out joint press releases. The other asset was money. By April 2002 Smith had raised $4 million--twice as much as Bradbury would during the whole campaign. And, although Smith had spent none of his own money on his November 1996 campaign, Democrats knew that he could always get out his checkbook and match whatever they raised for Bradbury. In the spring, the DSCC ran some ads attacking Smith. But for most of the spring and summer and into October Smith had a monopoly on airtime. He ran ads on his accomplishments, stressing in the Portland media market his support of expanded health care benefits for women and children and his opposition to oil drilling in ANWR. In the Medford media market, he stressed his opposition to the cutoff of irrigation water to Klamath Basin farmers. On radio ads in rural areas, he called Bradbury an "environmental extremist." In September, he ran in the Portland market an ad featuring Judy Shepard, mother of murdered student Matthew Shepard, praising him for his support of including gays in the hate crimes bill--the first pro-gay rights TV ad run by any candidate, the Human Rights Campaign said. "I'm the first candidate of either party to ever run an ad to mention the gay community in a positive way," he said. "The next time the issue comes to the floor, I'm going to have a veto-proof majority"--a way of saying he was independent of George W. Bush. Lon Mabon, running as a third party candidate, said, "If you vote for Gordon Smith, you're voting for homosexuality." By September Smith was leading in a media poll 53%-30%. Bradbury went up with TV ads in October, attacking Smith for opposing assisted suicide and accusing Smith of preferring his own views to those of voters. But he couldn't come close to matching Smith, who ultimately spent $5.6 million to his $2.1 million. Smith won 56%-40%, carrying every county in the state but one, Multnomah (Portland). With big margins in the suburbs he carried metro Portland 51%-45% and the Willamette Valley 56%-40%; he carried southwest Oregon 63%-34% and east Oregon 70%-26%. Smith was Oregon chairman for George W. Bush in 2000 and seems to be taking a hand in party affairs and to see that Bush carries the state this time. In November 2002 he moved to oust Christian broadcaster Perry Atkinson from the chairmanship of the Oregon Republican party and backed former legislator Lynn Snodgrass; in December 2002 both backed out, and defeated governor candidate Kevin Mannix, a former Democrat, got the post.
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