Related Link: http://wyden.senate.gov/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 on February 5, 1996, to the seat once held by his mentor, U.S. Senator Wayne Morse. Elected to his second full term in 2004, Senator Wyden received more votes - over 1.1 million - than any other candidate for office in Oregon's history. Born in 1949 in Wichita, Kansas, Senator Wyden attended the University of California at Santa Barbara on a basketball scholarship. He later earned a B.A degree with distinction from Stanford University and received a J.D. degree from the University of Oregon School of Law in 1974. Following law school, he taught gerontology and co-founded the Oregon chapter of the Gray Panthers, an advocacy group for the elderly. He also served as the director of the Oregon Legal Services for the Elderly from 1977 to 1979 and as a member of the Oregon State Board of Examiners of Nursing Home Administrators during that same time period.
In the U.S. Senate, Senator Wyden serves on the following committees: Finance, Intelligence, Aging, Budget and Energy and Natural Resources. On the Energy Committee, he chairs the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests.
Senator Wyden's home is in Portland. He is married to Nancy Wyden, whom he wed in September 2005. He and Nancy welcomed the arrival of twins, William Peter and Ava Rose, in the fall of 2007. Senator Wyden has two children, Adam and Lilly, from a previous marriage.
