Oregon: Junior Senator

Sen. Gordon Smith (R)

Gordon Smith (R) Elected 1996, 2d term up 2008
Born:	05-25-1952, Pendleton
Home:	Pendleton
Education:	Brigham Young U., B.A. 1976, Southwestern U., J.D. 1979
Religion:	Mormon
Marital Status:	married (Sharon)
Elected  Office:	OR Senate, 1992–96, Pres., 1994–96.
Professional Career:	Law Clerk, NM Supreme Court, 1979–80; Practicing atty., 1980–81; Pres., Smith Frozen Foods, 1980–96.
DC Office	404 RSOB, 20510 202-224-3753 Fax: 202-228-3997 Website: gsmith.senate.gov
State Offices	Bend:541-318-1298; Eugene:541-465-6750; Medford:541-608-9102; Pendleton:541-278-1129; Portland:503-326-3386;
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Gordon Smith, Oregon’s junior senator, was first elected to the Senate in 1996. Smith was born in Pendleton and grew up in the Washington suburbs, after his father sold his food processing business to serve as an aide to Eisenhower Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson. He is a cousin of former Congressmen Morris and Stewart Udall and of their sons, Congressmen Mark 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. He ran against Ron Wyden for the Senate seat from which Bob Packwood resigned. He lost after a battle of negative ads, 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 for two Senate seats 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, 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%.

Against some expectations, Smith has compiled one of the more moderate voting records of Senate Republicans. "As a Republican senator from a politically divided state, Smith's Senate terms are six-year balancing acts in which he must please both conservatives in this party and enough liberal Oregonians to get reelected. In an increasingly polarized political world, Smith straddles a rare middle ground,” The Oregonian wrote in August 2006. He frequently upsets ideologues on each side. He voted for mandatory background checks and for child safety locks on guns—both reversals of previous stands. He continued to oppose abortion, but backed the use of embryonic stem cells in medical research; the cells are used in research to combat Parkinson’s disease, which has stricken several of his relatives. But he did not change his position on assisted suicide. While Wyden repeatedly threatened to filibuster legislation to overturn the assisted suicide law Oregon voters approved in 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. After the Supreme Court upheld the law in January 2006, Smith announced he would end his public opposition to it, though his personal position on the matter remained unchanged.

Smith has been Edward Kennedy’s chief cosponsor of the hate crimes bill that adds penalties for crimes committed because of the victim’s gender, sexual orientation or disability. He disappointed some of his admirers in gay rights groups by sponsoring a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage; he said he favors letting states decide whether to recognize civil unions. 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. He offered amendments to the 2003 Medicare/prescription drug bill to insure reimbursement of health clinics serving the poor and to require cost-based reimbursement for screening and diagnostic mammography. In voting for immigration reform, he cited his experience in hiring hundreds of Latino agricultural workers. He supported the Iraq war resolution in October 2002. By December 2006, he turned against the handling of the war; citing the growing attacks on U.S. soldiers, he told the Senate, “That is absurd. It may even be criminal.”

Smith has tended to oppose measures sought by environmental restriction groups as undue limits on economic activity. He very strongly opposed breaching dams on the Snake River. 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. He parted with most of his fellow Republicans to vote for higher CAFE auto gas mileage standards and against oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But he supported in 2005 a budget bill that included a provision to permit ANWR drilling, citing as a reason another part of the bill with his plan to prevent drastic Medicaid cuts; after the bill returned from a conference with the House, the ANWR provision had been stripped. He questioned Ron Wyden’s proposal to double the wilderness area in the Mount Hood National Forest, and threatened to sponsor an amendment to end all legal challenges to salvage logging in the area affected by the 2002 Biscuit fire.

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 cooperated when bills have special impact on Oregon. “When we vote the same, everyone seems delighted. When we vote differently, everyone feels represented,” he said. Smith got a seat on the Finance Committee in 2003. Wyden got a seat there two years later, only the third time in history that a state has had both its senators on that committee. Smith was a lead sponsor of the main provision in the 2004 corporate tax bill reducing from 35% to 5.25% the tax on foreign profits returned to the United States; this resulted in a major repatriation of capital for many firms abroad, including some with big operations in Oregon, like Nike, Intel and Hewlett-Packard. In July 2006, he and Wyden filed an incremental bill to help uninsured families that face catastrophic medical costs.

In September 2003 Smith’s 21-year-old son, afflicted with bipolar disease, killed himself. Smith announced this on the Senate floor six months later and said he would sponsor a bill to train childcare professionals and to develop screening for youth suicide prevention. He presented his bill, authorizing $60 million in grants to states and tribes and $22 million to colleges and universities, in July. Two months later, as Smith spoke tearfully on the floor, it was passed by both houses on the same day. In 2006, he wrote a book on his son, Remembering Garrett.

Smith faced reelection in 2002. Retiring Governor John Kitzhaber probably would have been the strongest potential opponent but he declined to run. That left Secretary of State Bill Bradbury. Bradbury attacked Smith’s votes on environmental issues, abortion, tax cuts, education spending and assisted suicide. He had earlier revealed to voters that he has multiple sclerosis, which made 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—nearly 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. Lon Mabon, running as a third party candidate, said, “If you vote for Gordon Smith, you’re voting for homosexuality.” Bradbury went up with TV ads in October, attacking Smith for opposing assisted suicide and accusing him 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).

After the 2006 election in which Republican Ron Saxton lost badly to Governor Ted Kulongoski and Democrats gained control of the state House, Smith seemed more vulnerable in his 2008 reelection. Democratic Congressmen Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio both declined to run but in August 2007, state House Speaker Jeff Merkley announced he would challenge Smith. Merkley was heavily favored to win the Democratic nomination over Portland political activist Steve Novick. 

Committees

• Aging (Special) (RMM of 10 R).
  
• Commerce, Science & Transportation (5th of 11 R)
  Surface Transportation & Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety & Security (RMM); Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries & Coast Guard; Interstate Commerce, Trade & Tourism; Science, Technology & Innovation; Aviation Operations, Safety & Security; Consumer Affairs, Insurance & Automotive Safety.
• Energy & Natural Resources (9th of 11 R)
  Water & Power; National Parks; Public Lands & Forests.
• Finance (5th of 10 R)
  International Trade & Global Competitiveness (RMM); Energy, Natural Resources & Infrastructure.
• Indian Affairs (6th of 7 R).