Senator Gordon Smith is seeking re-election to a second term this year. His political career began in 1992 when he was elected as an Oregon state senator from Pendleton. During his first term in office he served as Minority Leader and was elected Senate President in 1994. After losing the U.S. Senate race to replace Sen. Bob Packwood to Ron Wyden in 1996, he ran for the seat vacated by Sen. Mark Hatfield and won, beating out Democrat Tom Bruggere. He was the first United States senator elected from Eastern Oregon in 70 years.

As a senator he sits on the Energy and Natural Resources, Foreign Relations, and budget committees. He is chairman of the subcommittee on European Affairs, Known as a moderate Republican, Smith has shown an independent streak. In 1999 he broke with GOP leadership, first, to back a hate-crime bill, and, later, to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would prohibit underground testing by the world's 44 nuclear powers. In 2000, he supported a bill that would have effectively ended the state's physician-assisted suicide law in spite of the fact that Oregonians have twice voted for the measure. But Smith stayed with his party in the impeachment trial of President Clinton and in '97 voted for family-planning programs overseas, something he said he would support in his '96 campaign. Although he opposes abortion, Smith supports family planning and the Oregon Health Plan, which provides family planning services to low-income Oregonians. He has also been a supporter of a balanced budget and was called upon in 2000 by the GOP leadership to help them end the campaign finance impasse.

Smith has supported increasing cigarette taxes to provide health coverage for uninsured children, banning late-term abortions, higher spending on education programs and giving students tuition tax credits. He has been opposed to background checks for gun buyers, though he sponsored a bill to prevent criminals from buying weapons at gun shows. He opposes breaching dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers to restore fish habitat. He believes the dams are too valuable for energy and irrigation in the Pacific Northwest. Migrant workers have also been a concern. Smith is a chief sponsor of a bill to expand a "guest worker" program which would increase the number of migrant workers available for seasonal agricultural jobs.

Before his political career, as president of his family's frozen food company, Smith Frozen Foods, Smith became a millionaire.

Gordon Smith was born in 1952 in Pendleton, Oregon. His family later moved to Washington D.C. where his father served as a cabinet member for President Eisenhower. He graduated from Brigham Young University in 1976 and from Southwestern University School of Law in 1979. After graduation he moved to Phoenix, Arizona where he worked in a private law practice. He moved back to Pendleton to head Smith Frozen Foods and save it from bankruptcy.

Smith is 50 years old. He and his wife live in Pendleton, when he is not in Washington, with their three adopted children.

--From Oregon Public Broadcasting