Gordon Smith
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Gordon Harold Smith (born May 25, 1952) is a United States Senator from Oregon. He is a member of the Republican Party. He is a member of the Udall political dynasty, being a cousin of congressmen Mo and Stewart Udall. Smith was born in Pendleton, Oregon.
Smith's family moved to Bethesda, Maryland when he was a child. After graduating high school he went on a two-year mission for his church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to New Zealand. He then went to college at University of Southern California and became an attorney in New Mexico and Arizona, but moved back to Oregon in the 1980s to become director of Smith Frozen Foods company in Weston, Oregon.
In 1989 he adopted a son, Morgan. Reportedly there were two pregnant mothers willing to give their children up for adoption, with Smith choosing the boy that was born first. In addition, he and his wife Sharon have a daughter, Brittany, born in 1980.
Smith entered politics and was elected to the Oregon State Senate in 1992, becoming president of that body in 1995. Later in 1995, he ran in a special election for a Senate seat vacated by the resignation of Bob Packwood, but was defeated in the January 1996 election by congressman Ron Wyden. He was able to run for the Senate again later that year, however, when Mark Hatfield announced his retirement and Smith became the Republican candidate for the regular 1996 November election. This time he won, and was soon serving as a colleague with his former political opponent, Ron Wyden. Smith also achieved political distinction by being the first person to run for the Senate twice in one year. He was reelected in 2002.
On September 7, 2003, Smith experienced a personal tragedy when his 21-year-old son, Garrett, a college culinary arts major, committed suicide. In 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, authorizing $82 million for suicide-prevention and awareness programs at colleges.
On June 13, 2005, Smith was one of twenty senators who refused to co-sponsor Senate Resolution 39, an official apology to the black community for the Senate's past inaction on lynching.
External links
- Official website (http://gsmith.senate.gov/)
- The Oregonian on Garrett Smith's suicide (http://www.jaredstory.com/garrett_smith.html)
- IMNO Interviews Gordon Smith (http://www.imno.org/articles.asp?qid=133&sid=18)
- redstate.org article on Smith and Senate Resolution 39 (http://chloe-wofford-is-my-fav.redstate.org/story/2005/6/14/152015/842)
| Preceded by: Mark Hatfield | U.S. Senator (Class 2) from Oregon 1997- | Succeeded by: Incumbent |