Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)

During his legislative career, Wyden has spent considerable time working on issues relating to health care, including elderly issues and prescription-drug concerns. He has also tried to establish a bipartisan approach to taxes and remains one of the Senate's most Internet-friendly members.

During President George W. Bush's administration, Wyden was a strong critic of the chief executive. He opposed the President's plan for the War in Iraq, voted to bring troops home and helped shut down a Pentagon data-mining program that he said infringed on the privacy of American citizens.

Senate Reforms

In 1992, Wyden took up the fight to force senators to disclose their names when they put holds on legislation,which until then could be done totally anonymously and strangle chamber actions indefinitely.

In 1999, his efforts led to new Senate procedure that required a senator who put a hold on legislation to inform the legislation's sponsor, committee chairman and the party leaders. The Senate added the Wyden-Grassley amendment, co-sponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), to a lobbying reform bill that passed in 2007. The amendment required senators to announce their opposition to legislation within three days of its introduction.

The Economy

In fall 2008, Wyden was one of only ten Democrats to vote against the government's bailout of the financial industry. He said the bill was flawed because it didn't help homeowners and failed to put new regulatory protections into place.

Wyden was also among a small group of Democrats to criticize President Obama's stimulus package in 2009. He said it needed to include more focus on "roads, bridges and transportation systems." Despite his initial criticism, Wyden voted for the that package.

Wyden has long worked to change the government's approach to taxes. In 2005 he and former Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) introduced the "Fair Flat Tax." The bill, which has gone nowhere, would establish three individual tax rates and a corporate tax rate. It would move capital gains tax rates from 15 percent to an individual rate. In 2006, Wyden pushed a "Cleanse the Code" initiative to simplify the tax code.

Health Care

Even before he entered politics, health care was one of Wyden's top priorities. As a founder of the elderly advocacy group the Gray Panthers, he has also been a leading voice for seniors. He claims to have written the first "federal law to protect seniors from unscrupulous Medicare insurance scams." Wyden has also advocated on behalf of younger Americans, fighting to bring the abortion drug RU-486 to the U.S.

In 2003, Wyden was one of 11 Senate Democrats to vote for the president's Medicare and prescription drug law, which created a prescription drug benefit for seniors and provided subsides to insurance companies to allow them to better compete with Medicare. He called voting for the legislation "the toughest call I've ever had to make."

In 2006, Wyden introduced the Healthy Americans Act, which would guarantee private health care to all Americans, provide benefits equal to those of members of Congress and change the employer-employee health-care relationship so workers could carry insurance from job to job. Wyden reintroduced the bill in early 2009, hoping a Democratic Congress and a new president would be more receptive.

During the ensuring health care wars, he and Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) pushed the bill, along with several other moderate senators.

But, he ultimately voted for Obama's health-care plan, enacted in March 2010.

Technology

Wyden began work on information-technology issues before some congressmen even knew what that meant. In 1998, he sponsored a three-year ban on Internet sales taxes that passed in October of that year. In 2003 he worked to get that ban extended until 2005. The ban on the tax is now in effect until 2014.

Wyden has also focused on Internet privacy and anti-spam issues. He wrote the CAN-SPAM Act, the first law restricting commercial emails. In 2006, Wyden led the fight in the Senate for net-neutrality. The issue involved the rights of Internet service providers to give preferential treatment to owners of web sites who paid a premium. "The Net has been about access and equal treatment and giving everyone a fair shake, and people who own these fat pipes, these cable and telecommunications people who say that they can't keep doing this, want to undermine that," he said.

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