Rep. Peter DeFazio (D) Elected 1986, 9th term
Born:	May 27, 1947, Needham, MA
Home:	Springfield
Education:	Tufts U., B.A. 1969, U. of OR, M.S. 1977
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Myrnie)
Elected  Office:	Lane Cnty. Bd. of Commissioners, 1982-86.
Military Career:	Air Force, 1967-71.
Professional Career:	Dist. Dir., U.S. Rep. James Weaver, 1977-82.
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Eugene is nestled in the southernmost bit of lowland at the end of Oregon's Willamette Valley, surrounded by mountains on three sides. It is a farming center, a lumber metropolis and, most notably, a leafy university town. Settlers first arrived here in 1846, farming in the valley and cutting timber in the hills. In 1876, the University of Oregon was established, a symbol of Oregon's strong Yankee cultural ethic and sparse settlement; its first graduating class had just five students. Thousands of miles from most Americans, Eugene and next-door Springfield, once a lumber town and now with computer chip factories, have grown steadily into the comfortable middle-sized towns in which many Americans would like to live. Eugene has bicycle paths along the river banks and on main streets and likes to bill itself as the Running Capital of the Universe; it is where Phil Knight and his former University of Oregon track coach, Bill Bowerman, started Nike--the first soles formed on a waffle iron. The second-largest city in Oregon and one of the most livable in the nation, it offers the ambience of a small town without the isolation.

Beyond Eugene and Springfield, southwestern Oregon is surrounded by green-clad mountains and for years cut more timber than any other place in the country. But demand for wood is volatile, dependent on the vagaries of interest rates; East Asia increasingly wants unprocessed logs rather than milled lumber, which means fewer jobs for Oregon. The early 1980s, when recession reduced the demand for housing, were tough on southern Oregon; the late 1980s, when cutting of old-growth forests was banned to protect the allegedly endangered spotted owl, were even worse. Fears grew that federal restrictions on logging would destroy the area's economy. But in the mid- and late- 1990s an otherwise robust local economy and active job retraining have resulted in local job gains and far less unemployment than forecast

The 4th Congressional District includes Eugene and Springfield and surrounding Lane County; it goes south on Interstate 5 to include Roseburg in Douglas County, once perhaps the premier logging county in the United States. It extends north to Albany and includes most of Corvallis, but not Oregon State University. It includes the entire southern half of Oregon's stunning Pacific coastline, whose craggy seastacks and surging whitecaps were stained by oil as the cargo ship New Carissa was wrecked in Coos Bay in 1999 and later washed up 60 miles north. Eugene is now heavily Democratic. Roseburg and Albany tend to be Republican, leaving a clash of left and right in the district. The travails of the logging industry have moved the area to the right: the 4th District (with only slightly different boundaries) voted 54%-44% against George H. W. Bush in 1988, but in 2000 the district voted 49%-44% for George W. Bush.

The congressman from the 4th District is Peter DeFazio (pronounced da-FAH-zee-oh), a Democrat first elected in 1986. He grew up in Massachusetts, came to Oregon for graduate school, and in 1977 went to work for 4th District Congressman Jim Weaver. In 1982 he moved to Springfield and won a seat on the county commission. When Weaver retired in 1986, DeFazio won the House seat in a three-way race. DeFazio beat Bill Bradbury (the 2002 Democratic candidate for governor) by a 34%-33% margin and won the general election 54%-46%. DeFazio has compiled a record that seems to satisfy both Eugene and the rest of the district--liberal on most issues, moderate or even conservative on some. An original founder of the loose-knit Progressive Caucus, he made the case that millions of Americans were suffering during the Clinton administration's booming prosperity. He has opposed NAFTA, GATT and trade promotion authority and strongly criticized the Mexican financial bailout. During the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, he spent the week marching with coalitions from organized labor and environmental activists. When the protesters moved a few months later to the IMF meeting in Washington, he blamed international financiers for economic and social ills in developing nations. A leader of the fight against PNTR with China, he said that supporters were "a lot of well-intentioned people … who think it means their salvation, and actually what it means is their destruction." With the return of a Republican President, DeFazio's populist criticism grew even more outspoken--including, sometimes, of his own party.

DeFazio often takes idiosyncratic views. He authored a bill, with support from both sides of the spectrum, to allow patients greater access to alternative medical treatments, and sought to create special labels for genetically engineered food. He has been a harsh critic of airlines and their broken promises to consumers; a pet cause has been his advocacy of poor treatment of dogs and cats during flights. He also attacked the lack of regulations for cruise ships. Unlike most Democrats, he offered a specific proposal in 2002 to fix Social Security financing: Remove the payroll deduction limitation that benefits the top wage earners. On gun control, he continued to part company with many Democrats. He took the lead in the House in July 2002 with his amendment to permit airline pilots to carry guns in the cockpit. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and the Bush administration opposed this, and the Senate had avoided the issue. But DeFazio won by an astonishing 250-175; the Senate a few weeks later followed suit and the Bush administration went along. After the catastrophic wildfires in summer 2002, DeFazio teamed with Republican colleague Greg Walden to seek a middle ground to speed the thinning of brush in the forests. DeFazio's environmental allies denounced him as a turncoat. The bipartisan effort collapsed at the Resources Committee just before the election, but members pledged to try again.

DeFazio has won re-election by impressive margins in a district, which before him was often marginal. After Senator Bob Packwood resigned in 1995, DeFazio ran to succeed him. He had far less money than Portland Congressman Ron Wyden, whom he attacked for receiving money from Packwood contributors; in an ad, DeFazio made the best of this: ''[DeFazio's] '63 Dodge tells the lobbyists and special interests he's not for sale.'' His opposition to gun control, NAFTA and GATT provided clear contrasts with Wyden. He ran strongly in the 4th District and the two nearby counties, leading Wyden 72%-22% there. But Wyden ran ahead 61%-32% in the rest of the state, for a 50%-44% victory in the primary, and went on to win the seat. Since then, DeFazio has called for public financing of campaigns. After Governor John Kitzhaber announced in September 2001 that he would not challenge Senator Gordon Smith, DeFazio considered running for the Senate again. This time he would have had to give up his House seat to do so, and he said he would run only with the "strongest possible support" from Democratic leaders. DSCC Chairman Patty Murray said he was the party's top choice, but executive director Jim Jordan said he "just might want to sit back and watch the process for a while." Translation: No big money till DeFazio raised lots himself and rose in the polls. So in October 2001 he announced he would not run for the Senate. In November 2002, against a 77-year-old former legislator who said every Oregon household should be required own a gun, DeFazio won 64%-34%. Should he not run in some future election, this might well be a seriously contested seat.

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DC Office
2134 RHOB 20515, 202-225-6416; Fax: 202-225-0032; Web site: www.house.gov/defazio

State Offices
Coos Bay, 541-269-2609; Eugene, 541-465-6732; Roseburg, 541-440-3523.

Committees

• Select Committee on Homeland Security (10th of 23 D): Emergency Preparedness & Response; Infrastructure & Border Security.
• Transportation & Infrastructure (4th of 34 D): Aviation (RMM); Coast Guard & Maritime Transportation; Railroads.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	95	93	100	100	79	38	31	30	12	0	0
2001	100	--	100	93	--	--	13	25	16	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	95%	--	0%		77%	--	20%
Social	78%	--	22%		67%	--	29%
Foreign	80%	--	21%		81%	--	19%
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 N 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 Y  9. Trade Promotion Authority N 10. Bar Funds for Intl. Court Y 11. Authorize Force in Iraq N 12. Deny Home. Sec. Dept. Union N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Peter DeFazio (D)	168,150	64%	$286,417
	Liz VanLeeuwen (R)	90,523	34%	$150,482
	Other	4,808	2%
2002 primary	Peter DeFazio (D)	unopposed
2000 general	Peter DeFazio (D)	197,998	68%	$332,650
	John Lindsey (R)	88,950	31%	$34,788
	Other	4,117	1%
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (70%); 1996 (66%); 1994 (67%); 1992 (71%); 1990 (86%); 1988 (72%); 1986 (54%)

2000 presidential
	Bush (R)	156,362	49%
	Gore (D)	142,123	44%
	Other	22,601	7%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Fourth 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: R + 3
• District Size: 18,034 square miles
• Population in 2000: 684,280; 69.2% urban; 30.8% rural
• Median Household Income: $35,796; 13.7% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 26.3% blue collar; 55.2% white collar; 18.5% gray collar; 16.9% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 89.7% White, 0.5% Black, 1.5% Asian, 1.2% Amer. Indian, 0.1% Hawaiian, 2.5% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 4.2% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 14.7% German, 10.1% English, 8.8% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.