Jeff Merkley
Democrat · OR · U.S. Senate
Bio
Jeffrey Alan Merkley is an American politician who is the junior United States senator from Oregon. He was first elected to the Senate in 2008. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served from 1999 to 2009 as the representative for the 47th district in the Oregon House of Representatives, which covers central Multnomah County, including portions of eastern Portland; he was the speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives during the last two years of his tenure.
Full bio on Wikipedia →Record of service
- In office
- 17.6 years
- First took office
- 2009 (3 terms)
- Seniority
- 32 of 100 by time served
- Age
- 69
- Senate class
- 2 · junior senator
- Baker City, OR · 541-278-1129
- Bend, OR · 541-318-1298
- Eugene, OR · 541-465-6750
- Medford, OR · 541-608-9102
- Portland, OR · 503-326-3386
- Salem, OR · 503-362-8102
Service history, offices and identifiers from unitedstates/congress-legislators (public domain). Years served sum each term rather than subtracting the first start date, so a break in service is not counted as time in office.
Reported net worth
- Assets
- $4.5M – $15.5M
- Liabilities
- $365k – $800k
- Net worth
- $3.7M – $15.2M
- Since 2017
- +$6.0M
From annual financial disclosures, which report every asset and debt as a bracket — so these are ranges, and the figure shown is their midpoint. A primary residence is not a reportable asset while its mortgage is a reportable debt, which pushes some members negative. How this is calculated →
Overall lean (DW-NOMINATE)
Issue profile
Each issue runs left ↔ right, scored from how the member voted on bills tagged to that issue (−1…+1). Issues with too few votes are blank. Overall lean uses DW-NOMINATE.
How they score against the parties
Jeff Merkley's voting record compared with each party's national platform, issue by issue — the same similarity score used across the site.
On the political map
Jeff Merkley (the large ringed dot) among every current member of Congress and the party platforms.
Each small dot is a current member (Dem · Rep); the larger dots are party platforms — click one for its closest members. Economic axis: taxes, healthcare, labor, energy. Social axis: abortion, guns, immigration, civil rights, crime.
Do you vote like Merkley?
Answer a few questions on the issues and see which members of Congress — and which party — actually line up with you.
Caucuses & committees
Where Merkleysits in Congress's own organization — each group's lean is computed from its members' voting records. Explore them all on the caucuses and committees pages.
Committees
- Joint Committee on Printingcenter · 10 members
- Senate Committee on Appropriationscenter · 29 membersCommerce, Justice, Science, and Related AgenciesEnergy and Water DevelopmentDepartment of Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies (Ranking Member)Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related AgenciesState, Foreign Operations, and Related ProgramsAgriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies
- Senate Committee on Environment and Public Workscenter · 19 members
- Senate Committee on Foreign Relationscenter · 22 members
- Senate Committee on Rules and Administrationcenter · 17 members
Most and least aligned members
Treating Merkley's 14 issue scores as a vector, cosine similarity measures whether two voting records point the same way (+100%) or in opposite directions (−100%) — the colleagues whose records align most and least with theirs.
Recent notable votes
Latest news
Judge bulldozes Markwayne Mullin as wildfire victims suffer amid Trump 'pronoun' ruleA federal judge ruled DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin cannot withhold Oregon disaster relief over President Donald Trump's 'pronoun' mandates as wildfires burn across the state.In a blistering order on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Michael McShane explained wh…
Raw Story · August 21, 2026
Senators slap back as Trump launches 'alarming' attack on privacyWhat Happened: Citing reporting by ProPublica, eight Democratic U.S. senators have criticized the Trump administration’s demands to access the health data of millions of people as a condition of giving lifesaving aid to other countries. In a letter to Secreta…
Raw Story · August 19, 2026
Jeff Merkley Wants To Save Big Government From Donald TrumpThe Oregon senator's "For Our Republic Act" would check many of the president's abuses while preserving the powerful federal state he commands.
Reason · August 14, 2026
This cowardly act officially killed the old-school GOPThe Republican Party as we’ve known it officially died this week as Acting Attorney General Todd “Trumpsimp” Blanche’s nomination essentially became inevitable. The personal lawyer of a convicted felon adjudicated rapist Epstein Bestie will almost certainly b…
Raw Story · August 9, 2026
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