Suzanne Bonamici chalks up a left-of-center record in Oregon Legislature

Democratic congressional candidate Suzanne Bonamici has racked up one of the most liberal voting records of any lawmaker in Salem during her five years in the Legislature.

She’s been a consistent supporter of environmental causes and has been a close ally of unions and other groups that work tightly with Democrats in the Legislature. She acknowledges that she can’t recall ever voting against a tax or fee hike that has made it to the floor.

In some of the Legislature’s most contentious votes, she’s sided with lawmakers from such Democratic strongholds as Portland, Eugene and Corvallis instead of with rural or suburban moderates.

Bonamici’s record attracted little attention as she was easily elected to the House in 2006 and the Senate in 2008 and 2010 in safely Democratic districts.

But that’s changed now that she’s running against Republican Rob Cornilles in the 1st Congressional District, where independent voters in the political middle could play a decisive role.

Bonamici, who left the Legislature last month to pursue her race for Congress, rejects the idea that she stands to the political left of most of her colleagues. Instead, she says she is a pragmatic problem-solver who listens carefully to constituents and works in a bipartisan fashion.

"I look at each piece of policy and make a decision based on whether that particular bill is going to be good for constituents and good for my district," she says. "If I’m seen as someone who stands up for consumers and small businesses and seniors, working families, I’m proud of that."

But Republicans say that Bonamici, who lives in the Beaverton area, tilts more closely in her voting to the Portland side of the district than she does to the Washington County side.

"She’s a Pearl District liberal and her voting record clearly identifies her that way," says Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Hillsboro. "Without a question she’s more liberal than the rest of the Washington County delegation."

You can get a quick sense of Bonamici’s record from legislative rating guides put out by several groups.

For example, she was one of just four senators — out of 30 in the chamber — described as a "Gold Medalist" this year by the Oregon AFL-CIO. The Oregon League of Conservation Voters said she voted with their group 100 percent of the time, except for once in 2009 when she approved a transportation tax increase opposed by the environmental group.

And her record on taxes was one reason why Associated Oregon Industries said in 2009 — the year that a Democratic super-majority rammed through several bills over Republican objections — that Bonamici had the second-worst voting record of any senator on business issues.

A onetime consumer attorney, Bonamici got her first taste of the Legislature as an aide to then-Rep. Diane Rosenbaum, D-Portland, a veteran union activist who is now Senate majority leader.

"She shared a lot of the same values I did," says Rosenbaum, who adds that Bonamici is "not somebody who toes the party line because it’s the party line. She does her research" and decides on issues independently.

Indeed, Bonamici was known as a close reader of bills who didn’t always take the easy vote. An example of that was a 2009 bill that allowed officials more leeway to keep alleged drunken drivers who refused to take a blood or breath test from quickly regaining their driving privileges.

Politicians are loath to be seen as soft on drunken driving, and every senator present voted for it — except Bonamici.

She reels off several bills she supported to crack down on drunken driving but says this one went too far.

Bonamici says she worried about people who needed to drive to work but could lose their licenses for up to three years under the bill. "You just lead to cycles of problems and poverty," she says.

When Bonamici was in the minority on a bill — the House and Senate were always in Democratic hands during her time in those chambers — it was often with such like-minded lawmakers as Rosenbaum or Sen. Jackie Dingfelder, D-Portland, the strong-willed chair of the environment committee.

In 2008, for instance, she was among 15 House Democrats who voted against a bill excluding illegal immigrants from getting drivers’ licenses.

In 2010, she joined six Democrats and three Republicans in opposing a bill repealing the ban prohibiting teachers from wearing religious garb in the classroom.

Critics pointed to the law as a relic of 1920s anti-Catholic bigotry. Bonamici sided with the American Civil Liberties Union, which feared ending the ban could lead to religious indoctrination.

Bonamici told the Senate that she would vote for the bill if she believed that "teachers could wear religious dress and schools would remain religiously neutral." However, she added, "religious dress is a religious statement, and a teacher making … a statement from one religion every day, one religion to young children, does that maintain religious neutrality?"

In 2009, she was one of three senators who voted against allowing older biomass facilities — which often burn wood waste at mills — from being considered a form of renewable energy that utilities are required to provide.

Sometimes, Bonamici cast the critical vote to overcome conservative opposition. In 2009, businesses fought bitterly against a labor-backed bill that would allow workers to skip workplace meetings that involved political or religious issues.

Union officials said they wanted to protect workers from being harangued about such things as how to vote in upcoming elections. But business lobbyists fumed that it was an attempt to aid labor organizing campaigns and saw it as an unfair infringement on their control of the workplace. While two Democrats peeled off to vote with Republicans, Bonamici stayed with the narrow 16-14 majority that passed the bill.

Bonamici also stuck with Democrats that year on divisive votes to raise taxes on corporations and high-income earners. She supported increases in hospital and insurer taxes for health care, a hike in the gas tax and the unsuccessful referral to voters in 2007 asking them to raise cigarette taxes by 84.5 cents a pack. She also supported the bill that kept businesses from getting $96 million in state tax cuts that they otherwise would have received as the result of the passage of President Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus package.

Bonamici says she wound up backing every tax measure that came to the floor because schools and universities have been so chronically underfunded. "We just don’t have the revenue we need to be able to fund education at the level it needs to be funded," she says.

Once, Bonamici was caught by surprise when colleagues didn’t share her matter-of-fact approach to money issues. This year, she sponsored a bill increasing from $100 to $200 the limit on how much judges can charge to perform weddings outside their courthouses or in non-working hours. She thought it made sense because it had been a long time since the cap had been raised.

But during floor debate, one Republican senator said the bill would raise the cost of marriage, and to Bonamici’s surprise the legislation was rejected. It wasn’t a fee bill, she says, arguing that critics misunderstood the measure. Besides, she adds, "The libertarian people would probably say there shouldn’t be a cap at all."

Bonamici was no libertarian on education issues in the Legislature. She voted against bills passed by the Legislature this year that allow online virtual schools to expand, let colleges sponsor charter schools and that make it easier for students to transfer to another school district.

"It isn’t that I don’t support educational choice," says Bonamici. But she notes that the vast majority of students are in traditional public schools and the legislative focus should be on "more choice within those existing public schools," such as magnet and arts programs.

The Oregon Education Association was so angry at the Legislature this year that it gave many of its longtime allies an "F" grade on its rating scorecard. Still, Bonamici was one of four senators to receive a "C," the highest grade the teacher’s union gave any senator. In 2009, Bonamici was one of three senators who received a 100 percent rating from the union.

During her campaign, Bonamici has focused heavily on her work that is widely popular. She talks about pushing through bills to aid homeowners in foreclosure proceedings and that seek to protect seniors from a common type of life insurance scam. She also often refers to a bill she sponsored that provides more state loan funds to help small businesses expand.

If she gets elected to Congress, she says, "I’ll be voting for the people who are here, the businesses who are here. … I’m going to look at each piece of policy and determine if that is for the district."