Jeff Merkley is a popular American politician who has been serving as the junior US Senator from Oregon since 2009. He belongs to the Democratic party and had previously served as the 64th speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives from 2007 to 2009.
Jeff Merkley started his political career fully in 1998 following his election to the Oregon House of Representatives. He was eventually elected Democratic leader in 2003 and subsequently, he became Speaker of the House in the 74th Oregon Legislative Assembly. Later in 2009, he made his way into the United States Senate after he won over a seating senator; he has remained there since then.
Not just in the Senate for the sake of being there, Jeff Merkley has seen to the amendment of a number of bills and the passage of several other bills into law. He is also known for speaking publicly in support of progressivism in the Senate and based on his achievements, he was considered a possible presidential candidate in 2020. However, he opted to contest for reelection in the Senate. Check out lesser-known facts about him below.
7. Jeff Merkley Is A Graduate Of The World Renowned Stanford University
The prominent politician was born Jeffrey Alan Merkley on the 24th of October 1956, in Myrtle Creek, Oregon. The son of Betty Lou (née Collins) and Darrell Philip Merkley, he comes from a family of fighters, as revealed in the about section on his website. His grandmother was forced to live in a boxcar for some time during the Great Depression, according to his family lore, and his mother was so frugal that she could stretch a dollar beyond anyone could possibly imagine.
Merkley’s father was hit by a very serious sickness but he was able to overcome it and later took a job at a lumber mill and became a union machinist. Life was far from glamorous for the Merkleys’ but together, Jeff’s parents were able to save enough money to acquire a modest house, take their kids on camping vacations every year, and retire comfortably.
Happy 90th birthday, Mom! Her advice for life: "Do your best. Do what's right." Thank you for being an amazing mother and woman. Love you! pic.twitter.com/qh6iYfK47E
— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) June 29, 2017
Jeff had his first-grade education in Roseburg, Oregon, before he moved with his family to Portland. Being a true son of his father, Jeff Merkley took the same determination and energy his father invested into his lumber mill job into his education, and with the help, he received from his public school teachers, he became the first member of his family to bag a college degree.
He attended David Douglas High School, and after his graduation, he proceeded to Stanford University where he studied international relations and graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in 1979. He went on to bag a master’s degree in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University in 1982.
6. He Kicked Off His Career By Working At The Office of The Secretary of Defense
After he was done with his master’s degree, Jeff started working at the Office of the Secretary of Defense on the security of American military technology having been picked as a Presidential Management Fellow. When he was done with his fellowship, he joined the Congressional Budget Office, where he analyzed programs and policies that had to do with nuclear weapons.
Subsequently, Merkley moved back to Portland in 1991, serving as executive director of Portland Habitat for Humanity from then to 1994. He started off the Journey for Mankind, set in motion a pilot project for “YouthBuild” in which youths affected by gang issues constructed homes in their own neighborhoods, began the Walk for Humanity, and launched the development of the Habitat Home Building Center.
Additionally, Jeff Merkley was also opportune to serve at Human Solutions in the office of the Director of Housing Development. In his capacity, he helped his people to put roofs over their heads by making available housing complexes that were affordable.
He also launched the first Individual Development Account (IDA) program in Oregon, which aids families with low income to save money for the purpose of buying a home, starting a business, or attending college. Merkley also served as President of Oregon’s World Affairs Council for 7 years and is still a member of its Board of Trustees.
5. Jeff Merkley Ventured Into Politics Fully In 1998
After years of working in various positions through which he touched many lives, Jeff decided it was time to go into politics full-time. An opportunity for him to hit the ground came in 1998 when he contested for the Oregon House of Representatives under the Democratic Party and won.
Thus, he took over from Frank Shields, becoming a representative of the 47th district in central Multnomah County on the eastern side of Portland. Five years down the line, he was elected to be the minority leader of the Democrats in the House. But following the next election in 2006, his party gathered enough seats and became the Majority in the House.
This saw Jeff become the Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives in the 74th Oregon Legislative Assembly following a unanimous election. His reign as the speaker of the House saw to the passage of some fine bills, including the one that granted immunity to gay marriages.
Merkley contested for the United States Senate after winning five other contenders in his party primaries. He won the incumbent senator, Gordon Smith, in a close-range victory (three percentage points, 49% to 46%) making him the very first politician in Oregon to remove a sitting senator since 1968 when Bob Packwood defeated Wayne Morse.
Subsequently, Merkley, in a letter addressed to the Secretary of State, Bill Bradbury, on January 2, 2009, officially resigned his position in the Oregon House. Four days later, he was sworn in as a Senator of the United States to join fellow Democrats Ron Wyden who also represents Oregon. In the Senate, Merkley has enjoyed a prosperous record and has been the brain behind the passage of some bills which include the ‘Merkley Breastfeeding Amendment.’
The bill was added to the United States Health Care Reforms and was signed by President Barack Obama into law. Jeff Merkley was also behind the passage of the ‘Wall Street Reform Bill’ and he was the only senator from the Democrat party that insisted that Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, will not be confirmed as a member of the Senate Committee on Banking.
Merkley saw to the amendment that ended the ‘Liars Loans’ and in addition to that, he brought to pass a bill that will reform the filibuster in the Senate. Subsequently, he was also able to push a bill that is aimed at increasing Energy and Oil independence in the United States.
4. The United States Senator Is Happily Married To A Practicing Nurse
Jeff Merkley has been married to his wife, Mary Sorteberg, for almost thirty years now. Mary, a practicing nurse, met her husband in the 1980s when they were both residents in Washington, D.C. At that time, Jeff had just finished his master’s program and had moved to the U.S. capital where he got a job as a Presidential Management Fellow in the Department of Defense.
Mary, on the other hand, served as a volunteer worker with the Lutheran Volunteer Corps at a homeless shelter in an area described as a “crack-ridden neighborhood,” according to Portland Monthly. This was where Jeff lived.
Jeff Merkley’s roommate also volunteered for the same homeless shelter that Mary worked with. As the Senator revealed to the Statesman Journal in 2014, his roommate invited a number of his co-volunteers, including Mary, for dinner at their apartment. It was from there that their relationship started. The duo eventually moved to Portland in 1991 and got married the following year.
3. Merkley’s Political Success Has A Lot To Do With His Wife’s Support
Speaking in a 2008 interview with the Oregonian, Mary Sorteberg explained that after her husband decided to pursue a career in politics, their family survived on her salary. After Jeff Merkley was elected into the Oregon House of Representatives, he still held a full-time job at the World Affairs Council.
However, Mary told the newspaper that he became exhausted trying to strike a balance between his job in the House of Reps. and keeping his day job coupled with raising their kids who were very young at the time. Seeing how much pressure her husband was faced with on a daily basis, Mary gave her consent for him to quit his job at the World Affairs Council to focus completely on politics.
Even though the Senator’s wife is not active on social media, she usually appears on the profile pages of her husband. On January 6, 2015, Merkley posted the picture below of his wife helping him put something in order on his shirt as he got set to be sworn into the 114th Congress. From the look on his face, it can be easily seen that he is full of love and gratitude to his wife who has stood by him all the way.
According to a report by The Oregonian, Mary Sorteberg was actively involved in her husband’s initial campaign for the U.S. Senate. To see to it that Jeff got into the Senate, she is said to have been involved in sending out emails soliciting donations. She also made an appearance in campaign commercials like the one here.
The Senator has also once disclosed that his wife’s nursing career contributed to shaping his perspective on health care and this was probably why he strongly opposed the single-payer healthcare system during his time as Speaker of the Oregon House and even as a U.S. Senator. Jeff Merkley did not only cite his wife during his campaign against the system in the Senate, but Mary went as far as making campaign commercials for him.
2. Jeff and His Wife Are Parents Of Two Grown Children
The union between the long-serving Oregon Senator and his wife has produced a daughter and a son named Brynne and Jonathan respectively. While there is hardly any information about his son, there are few details about Brynne but nothing personal. She attended David Douglas High in Portland, which is the same high school her father attended.
She seems to have graduated in 2016. A look at Athletic.net also shows that during her time in high school, she was a cross country runner. According to Brynne’s Linkedin account, in 2016, she attended Cornell University where she studied at the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences; Environment & Sustainability, Climate Change, graduating cum laude in 2020.
In 2019, she attended The School for Field Studies where she studied Climate Science in Patagonia Chile, and in 2021, the young lady began her master’s program at the Imperial College Business School. There, she is currently studying Climate Change, Management & Finance and is slated to graduate in 2022.
Brynne Merkley also has a lot of work experience having worked and interned at various firms. From May 2017 to August 2017, she did an internship program at BlueWave Solar in the Greater Boston Area where she served as a Product Marketing Intern.
She also interned as a Summer Analyst at The Westly Group in Palo Alto, California, the United States from May 2018 to January 2019. Moving on, she joined Tesla in Reno, Nevada, where she served as a Workforce, Education & Policy Intern from January to May 2019.
A year later, Brynne landed a part-time remote job at Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability as a Research Assistant – Conservation Finance and left eleven months later. She immediately moved over to The Cadmus Group as a full-time staff, serving in the position of Research Analyst – Energy & Sustainability from March to August 2021.
1. The Senator Lives In East Portland With His Family
Information reported by online property records in Multnomah County, Oregon, reveals that since 1996, Jeff Merkley and his wife have been living in the same house. As of 2018, the taxable value of the house and land, which they bought for $129,000, has increased to $339,450.
Originally constructed in 1946, according to Zillow, the 1,056 square feet house, which sits on a 7,000 square foot space, features a basement, 3 bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms. Apart from the Merkley family, other occupants of their house are their dogs, Sadie, which the Senator referred to on his Instagram as his “forever puppy,” and Roxy, which joined the family in July 2021 via adoption.
