Sen. Ron Wyden

Sen. Ron Wyden was first elected to Congress in 1980 to represent Oregon's 3rd District. In 1996, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in a special election, becoming the first U.S. senator to be elected in a vote-by-mail election. He was sworn in to the seat once held by his mentor, U.S. Sen. Wayne Morse.

Since his days as co-director of the Oregon Gray Panthers, Sen. Wyden has been a leading voice on health care and drafted the first federal law to protect seniors from unscrupulous Medicare insurance scams. In late 2006, Sen. Wyden proposed the first major bipartisan healthcare reform legislation in more than a decade, the Healthy Americans Act.

Sen. Wyden serves on the following Senate committees: Finance, Intelligence, Aging, Budget, and Energy and Natural Resources, where he chairs the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests.

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