Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D) Elected May 1996, 4th term
Born:	Aug. 16, 1948, Portland
Home:	Portland
Education:	Lewis & Clark Col., B.A. 1970, J.D. 1976
Religion:	no religious affiliation
Marital Status:	divorced
Elected  Office:	OR House of Reps., 1972-78; Multnomah Cnty. Comm., 1978-86; Portland City Cncl., 1986-96.
Professional Career:	Asst. to Pres., Portland St. U., 1970-77.
Additional Info
Recent Articles · Offices · Committees · Ratings · Key Votes · Election Results District Demographics
More On Oregon
At A Glance · State Profile District Map Redistricting · Almanac Home

Portland, the Rose City set between Mount Hood to the east and the Tualatin Mountains to the west, spanning the Willamette River with its airport and industrial back to the Columbia, is still one of America's least known major cities--and one of its most distinctive. This was not always so. For most of its history Portland was a prosaic city in a magic setting; it was in many ways a muscular, blue-collar town, which piled Oregon lumber and Oregon pears into freight cars or unloaded machines from back East or autos from Japan on its docks. But in the past three decades Portland has been transformed. Out on the Pacific Rim, it increasingly makes its living on foreign trade, seeing East Asians as customers more than competitors. It has become a home of high-tech industries, particularly in the Washington County suburbs to the west--Silicon Forest. Government has also produced change. Oregon's land-use act, passed in 1973, required local governments to set geographic limits on growth; Metro, the regional government established in 1979 just as growth was accelerating, has created something of a counterweight against the endless spread outward of population into former farmland. Portland opened its first light-rail line in 1986 and has encouraged the development of high-density commercial space and housing around transit stops; bicycle paths wind throughout the metropolitan area, and downtown, west of the Willamette River, boasts proud postmodern structures amid classic masonry buildings. By 57%-43%, voters defeated in 2002 a referendum sought by developers to weaken controls on sprawl.

In the process, the central city of Portland, like San Francisco and Seattle, has come to attract political and cultural liberals. And, like those two cities, Portland has its share of traffic congestion and high home prices. But this "livable community" was rated the best city to live in by Money magazine in 2000 and its long-term approach to transportation, creating mixed-use neighborhoods and increasing development density, may ultimately pay off. The city dropped from the fourth-least affordable in the nation to purchase a new home in the early 1990s to 25th by the end of the decade.

The 3d Congressional District takes in the east side of Portland and Multnomah County east of the Willamette River and part of suburban Clackamas County to the south. It extends over suburban plains and hills to the splendid scenery of the Bonneville Dam in the Columbia River Gorge and Mount Hood high in the Cascades. Politically, it is dominated by a cultural liberalism, which sets Portland apart even from its suburbs and the rest of Oregon. In 2000 Portland's Multnomah County voted 64%-28% for Al Gore, and gave Ralph Nader 7% of the vote.

The congressman from the 3d District is Earl Blumenauer, elected in 1996 to replace Ron Wyden after he was elected to the Senate. Blumenauer grew up in Portland, graduated from Lewis and Clark College and its Northwestern Law School. He was inspired by the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements while in his teens; in 1969, in college, he headed a statewide campaign to lower Oregon's voting age. He has held public office almost all his adult life. In 1972, at 23, he was elected to the Oregon House; in 1978 he was elected to the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners; in 1986 he was elected to the Portland City Council. In these offices he has championed many of the policies that have made Portland distinctive--regional light rail transit, curbside recycling, land use planning. He initiated a law taking away the cars of repeat drunk driving offenders. He encouraged bike riding and Regional Rail Summits, which try to bring neighborhood residents into the process of planning for higher densities at transit nodes. Blumenauer has had his name on the ballot 26 times and has had some setbacks, notably when he lost the 1992 mayoral race to Vera Katz. But when Wyden was elected to the Senate, Blumenauer was the obvious successor. He won the special election 68%-25%. His campaign slogan: "Vote Earl, Vote Often."

In the House, Blumenauer has a liberal voting record and a distinctive agenda. He rides his bicycle everywhere from his Capitol Hill apartment, and formed a Bicycle Caucus with more than 100 members; he fought for showers for bike commuters and boasts that he has never driven a car in Washington. But he does get around the city in other ways: He ran the Marine Corps Marathon in slightly over four hours. He was astonished to find that the House subsidized parking for employees, but not mass transit; now, employees can get subsidized transit fares. He is interested in what seem like quixotic projects now, but may not be in a few years: An interstate highway system for bicycle paths, development of ''livable communities'' on the sites of Denver's closed Stapleton Airport and closed military bases. He demands that the Army Corps of Engineers show greater concern for the environment. Blumenauer has actively promoted trade across the Pacific--a key element of Portland's economy. He supported PNTR with China but he joined the 90% of House Democrats who opposed trade promotion authority in 2001 and 2002. When Portland's police chief said that he would not comply with a Justice Department request that local law enforcers interview foreign visitors about possible terrorist activities following September 11, Blumenauer defended the response as "entirely appropriate."

He proudly terms Portland a model for the future of the city, with its ample bicycle lanes, public transit and limits on sprawl. And he has taken his gospel of livability and civic values elsewhere in local visits, through his Livable Cities Task Force (more than 50 members) and his own political action committee ($200,000-plus raised). At his best, according to a profile in The Washington Post, Blumenauer is "directing attention to a topic most folks simply take for granted and, with a combination of realism and idealism, offering a fresh perspective." How popular his sometimes eclectic ideas become nationally, and how well their unintended consequences can be ironed out, remains to be seen. Either way, his seat seems safe. He has won reelection handily.

Recent News Coverage
Search the CongressDaily, Hotline, House Race Hotline, National Journal and Technology Daily archives using the form below:

DC Office
2446 RHOB 20515, 202-225-4811; Fax: 202-225-8941; Web site: www.house.gov/blumenauer

State Offices
Portland, 503-231-2300.

Committees

• International Relations (16th of 23 D): Asia & the Pacific; Europe.
• Transportation & Infrastructure (15th of 34 D): Highways, Transit & Pipelines; Railroads; Water Resources & Environment.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	100	93	100	100	78	38	28	35	4	6	0
2001	90	--	100	86	--	--	19	30	0	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	86%	--	15%		74%	--	25%
Social	90%	--	0%		94%	--	6%
Foreign	96%	--	0%		86%	--	13%
For National Journal's complete 2002 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 107th Congress (More Info)
1. Approve Bush Tax Cuts * 2. Limit Patients' Bill of Rights N 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Ban ANWR Development Y 5. Faith-Based Charities N 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts N		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion N  8. Arm Commercial Pilots N  9. Trade Promotion Authority N 10. Bar Funds for Intl. Court N 11. Authorize Force in Iraq N 12. Deny Home. Sec. Dept. Union N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Earl Blumenauer (D)	156,851	67%	$353,543
	Sarah Seale (R)	62,821	27%
	Other	15,305	7%
2002 primary	Earl Blumenauer (D)	68,893	87%
	John Sweeney (D)	9,992	13%
2000 general	Earl Blumenauer (D)	181,049	67%	$404,807
	Jeffery L. Pollock (R)	64,128	24%	$92,005
	Tre Arrow (Green)	15,763	6%
	Other	10,221	4%
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (84%); 1996 (67%); 1996 (68%)

2000 presidential
	Gore (D)	176,831	61%
	Bush (R)	93,213	32%
	Other	20,264	7%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Third District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: D +15
• District Size: 1,054 square miles
• Population in 2000: 684,279; 93.1% urban; 6.9% rural
• Median Household Income: $42,063; 11.7% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 24.6% blue collar; 59.4% white collar; 16.0% gray collar; 13.1% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 77.2% White, 5.2% Black, 5.4% Asian, 0.9% Amer. Indian, 0.3% Hawaiian, 3.3% Two+ races, 0.2% Other, 7.6% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 14.5% German, 8.7% Irish, 8.4% English
• Click here for statewide demographic data.