Mr. Smith Goes to Salem

Energetic Bus Project founder takes his show to Legislature

By Steve Law

The Portland Tribune, Mar 26, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (7 Reader comments)

Some pegged Smith for high office before he ever ran, based on his work mobilizing young activists in the Bus Project.

L.E. BASKOW / TRIBUNE PHOTO

Jefferson Smith remembers romping on Oregon House Speaker Phil Lang’s carpet as a little boy and sniffing Lang’s pipe smoke, in the days when Smith’s father was the speaker’s chief aide.

Three decades later, Smith occupies his own Capitol suite in the wing named after Phil Lang, as an up-and-coming rookie House member serving outer east Portland.

Those who know Smith aren’t surprised he ended up in a Capitol office, given his charisma, Harvard smarts and political pedigree. Some pegged him as a future governor before he ever ran for office, based on his success during the past several years mobilizing young Portland political activists, via a grassroots group called the Bus Project.

“He’s someone that all of Oregon should keep an eye on,” said Kevin Curry, a Republican political consultant and lobbyist from Tigard.

Smith, 35, moved back to Portland in 2001, a couple years out of Harvard Law School, and set about trying to engage young people in progressive politics. It was a reprise of the early-1970s, when his father’s cohorts helped spur a new generation of young Democratic activists with a series of Demo Forum conferences.

Smith concocted the idea of using an old bus to shepherd flocks of teens and young adults to knock on doors for progressive candidates. The Bus Project helped spawn a new generation of young Portland progressives active in state politics, to a level not seen since the early 1970s.

Smith, one of that generation’s rising stars, now has a chance to prove himself in Salem, after running unopposed last year for the House seat vacated by newly elected U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.

Smith’s move from Irvington into the blue-collar east Portland district prompted charges of carpetbagging. Curry said it was a “very shrewd political move” that could ward off future charges of elitism.

Hard to miss

It’s hard not to notice Smith, who talks a mile a minute, sports reddish blond hair and stands 6-foot-5 in basketball shoes. But it’s his quick wit and big personality that stand out.

Driving to Salem one late-February morning, with his knees astride the steering wheel of his too-small Acura, Smith said he’s still “dorkily humbled every time I go into the Capitol building.”

Smith pointed out the disproportionate share of adult foster care homes near his newly purchased house, and vows to improve the oft-neglected neighborhood where fiancé Katy Lesowski was raised.

TRIBUNE PHOTOS: L.E. BASKOW

Once in Salem, he huddled with managers of Adventist Medical Center, David Douglas School District, and other key district players. He strategized with aides on pending bills, listened to pitches from lobbyists seeking his votes, and spent time on get-acquainted sessions with other lawmakers from both parties.

Talking almost stream-of-consciousness at times, Smith dished out quips, rattled off quotes and statistics, and tossed out what he called “wacky” policy ideas.

When lobbyist Sybil Hebb, who represents indigent legal clients, briefed Smith on a bill about strangulation penalties, he quipped: “So, strangulation, for or against?”

Frequent joking aside, Smith is a serious policy wonk. He calls for major changes in Oregon’s health care system, campaign financing and other reforms.

Executives from Adventist, perhaps his district’s largest private employer, told Smith the Democrats’ proposed hospital tax could wipe out Adventist’s profits and cost the equivalent of 155 full-time salaries.

“I would love nothing more than to be the favorite guy at Adventist Hospital,” Smith responded. But, he said, the entire health care system is gobbling up too much of the nation’s resources and a shakeup is warranted. “Come to me the moment you want to join the revolution.”

Smith appears to be following textbook advice for rookies on how to be effective in Salem — avoid grandstanding on the House floor, bone up on issues, learn how to joust with lobbyists, and forge ties with lawmakers from both parties.

Smith has impressed in his first weeks in the Legislature, said state Rep. Vicki Berger, R-Salem, a rare Republican supported by the lefty Bus Project.

“You can see why he’s so effective, particularly with young people,” Berger said. “He’s bright. He’s interesting. You just get sucked in,” she said. He’s “sort of Peter Courtney-esque,” she said, referring to the Democratic Senate president from Salem known for his entertaining quips.

Republicans snicker at Smith’s claim that the Bus Project is bipartisan, and he was a featured speaker at Democratic Party gatherings before he won office.

Yet Smith is teaming with conservatives on a bill requiring the state to post detailed spending information on the state’s Web site. He’s also seeking a compromise on a politically thorny proposal to allow Umatilla County farmers to tap more water from the Columbia River. Democrats are wary of the bill, but Smith spent a summer as a Umatilla ranch hand and is giving it a shot.

Politics in blood

Smith’s father, R.P. Joe Smith, is a former Oregon Democratic Party chairman, and his stepmother, Meredith Woods Smith, now holds that post.

His parents named him after Thomas Jefferson. Coincidentally, he bears the same first and last name as the Jimmy Stewart character in the feel-good movie about an earnest politician, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

Yet it wasn’t ordained that Smith would go to Washington, D.C., or Salem.

Smith’s parents split before he turned 2, and he left Portland to live with his mother, family therapist Suzanne Peck, in South Pasadena, Calif.

Peck “imparted to him a strong sense of social conscience,” said Smith’s father.

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