Hooley Oregon State Legislature House/Bills, 1983

The Darlene Hooley papers are organized into three series: I) Campaign records, II) State of Oregon records, and III) United States Representative records. The Campaign records series documents Hooley's opponents and contains information and memorabilia from various campaigns throughout her political career. The State of Oregon records series consists of papers generated and received by Hooley's office during her two terms representing the Twenty-seventh District in the Oregon House of Representatives and during her time serving on the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners. The third series contains materials generated by her office during her six terms representing Oregon’s Fifth District in the United States Congress from January 3, 1997 through January 3, 2009. She served on the Science and Technology, Energy and Commerce, and Budget committees. She was a House Senior Whip for the Democratic Party and a member of the New Democrat Coalition.

Of particular note is the Legislative subseries, which contains appropriations requests for science, technology, energy, and commerce, along with other funding, and is organized by Funding Year (FY), then session of Congress. Many of these requests are for Oregon projects centering on public transportation, i.e. the Light Rail project in the Portland Area, and technology programs such as the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute at Oregon State University. Hooley was successful in securing public investments in Oregon’s Fifth District, which is evident in the materials relating to legislative work on bills concerning Mount Hood, forestry issues, and the Port of Portland. She also obtained millions of dollars in county timber payments in lieu of taxes on federal lands for local schools and roads, federal funding for transportation, port and infrastructure needs, as well as agricultural research and biomedical research funding. This series also contains material on Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act and the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (HR 2622).

Other highlights of the collection include constituent letters from grade school students, photographs of Hooley at work in Congress, and copies of speeches she made on subjects such as women’s rights, science, and trade.