Early life
Stan Bunn was born in McMinnville,Yamhill County,Oregon,on June 25,1946. [1] [2] One of eleven children in the family with five brothers and five sisters,he was the fourth oldest of Ben and Viola (Fulgham) Bunn's children. [2] [3] [4] His grandfather was once mayor of Lafayette,Oregon,and his father was on the city's school board. [2] He was raised on a dairy near Dayton,Oregon,and went to school at Lafayette Grade School and later Dayton High School. [2]
In high school he wrestled and was a member of the Future Farmers of America,where he raised pigs. [2] At 16 years old,he purchased his first piece of property,a vacant lot in Lafayette. [2] He also persuaded his parents to co-sign on a loan in order for him to buy cattle that year. [3] Soon afterwards,he purchased a used mobile home,his first rental property. [3] The 6' 2" tall student also was class president his senior year,graduating in 1964. [2]
After high school he attended Willamette University in Salem,Oregon,where he majored in economics. [2] Bunn paid for much of the tuition to the small liberal arts school with the funds he earned raising hogs. [2] He served as a page at the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco, [3] which led to an internship with Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield in Washington,DC. [2] During his internship Bunn tutored inner city kids there,which helped shape his political views. [2] "I believed until then that anybody could bootstrap themselves,but I came to believe that the social problems we face need to be dealt with by government." [2] Bunn graduated from Willamette in 1969 with a bachelor of arts degree and then enrolled at Willamette's law school. [1]
During his third and final year of law school in 1972,he ran for a seat in the Oregon House of Representatives as a Republican,to represent Yamhill County. [2] He won the five-person primary,and then won the general election in November. [2] After winning the seat,Democrats challenged Bunn's residency in the district,since he was attending law school in Salem. [2] The challenge failed,and he was sworn in as a 26-year-old legislator in January 1973,while still a law student. [2] Bunn then wrote his third year law school paper on residency requirements. [2] He graduated cum laude from Willamette with a Juris Doctor degree in 1973. [1] [2]
Following law school Bunn began practicing law in Newberg. [2] There he built a practice that expanded to as many as eight lawyers and two offices. [2] He later sold the practice after his election to a statewide office in 1998. [5] Bunn also continued expanding his real estate holdings and owned as many as 14 rental properties. [2] He lived in Yamhill County during these times,first in his hometown of Dayton and later near Newberg. [2] [6]
Political career
Bunn's political career began with his election to the Oregon House in 1972 to represent District 29 and parts of Yamhill,Polk,and Marion counties. [7] He won re-election to a second two-year term in 1974 and served through the 1975 special session of the legislature. [8] [9] [10] In 1973 during this time in the Oregon House,he was the only Republican there who voted against a resolution that praised Republican U.S. President Richard Nixon after Nixon ended the war in Vietnam. [2] [3] He also worked to pass legislation in 1975 to create the Willamette Greenway, [2] and to make the state's laws tougher against drunk drivers. [3]
In 1976,Bunn then ran to serve as the Oregon Attorney General,but lost in the Republican primary,coming in third,and did not run for re-election to the House. [3] After leaving the House he served as chairperson of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission from 1979 to 1981 and was on the Oregon Traffic Safety Commission. [3] [5] He remained out of elected office until he was elected to the Oregon House again in 1984. [11] Representing District 29,he won re-election to successive two-year terms in 1986,1988,and 1990. [12] [13] [14] In July 1987,Republicans appointed his brother Jim to the Oregon State Senate,a seat Stan had hoped to be appointed to instead. [15] [16]
The seat became open when Tony Meeker was appointed as Oregon State Treasurer. [16] Stan considered challenging his brother in the primary election the following May,but declined and ran for re-election in the House. [17] The possible contest between brothers created some tension in the family. [17] In August 1987,Stan declined to pursue the House Minority Leader position after Larry Campbell left the position. [15] Bunn then ran in the 1992 election to replace John Brenneman in Oregon Senate District 2,where Bunn then lived after redistricting. [3] [6] On July 2,1992,he was appointed to the position when Brenneman resigned from the seat. [18] His younger brother Tom was appointed to the House to fill Stan's seat the next day,which lead to three Bunns serving in the Oregon Legislative Assembly simultaneously. [18]
Bunn won the November 1992 election and the four-year term in the Senate. [19] He served through the 1996 special session representing parts of Yamhill,Lincoln,Polk,Lane,and Tillamook counties. [20] While in the legislature this second time,he went against his party and voted to place a Democrat on the Northwest Power Planning Council,with his vote the decisive vote. [2] Other work included writing and passing welfare reform to move recipients into the workforce and medical insurance portability for employees,both in 1995. [2] [3] Later legislator Larry George described Bunn as "...more of a stoic character,more standoffish..." while fellow legislator Bill Bradbury said "[h]e really does absorb the facts of a situation,' and not just have an ideological view to it." [3] Bunn himself described his views as moderate. [21]
In 1996,Stan ran in the Republican primary to represent Oregon's 1st congressional district,at a time when his brother Jim was running for re-election in Oregon's 5th Congressional district. [3] One of six Republicans in the primary,he finished third in the race with Bill Witt winning the party's nomination. [22] During his campaign,he teamed up with his brother to run a joint commercial featuring two talking hamburger buns with the tag line "We just have to get our Bunns to Washington". [23] [24]
State school superintendent
Bunn returned to politics in February 1998 to run for the non-partisan Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction to replace the retiring Norma Paulus as head of the Oregon Department of Education. [21] He was one of sixteen candidates in the May primary,finishing first and faced Democratic Senator Margaret Carter in a runoff in the November 1998 election. [25] [26] Bunn's campaign focused on stabilizing funding for schools, [2] continuing school reform, [1] reducing class sizes, [26] and supporting charter schools,but not school voucher programs. [1] He spent over $100,000 of his own money in winning the position,defeating Carter 522,263 votes to 412,235 votes. [26] [27] [28]
Bunn took office on January 4,1999, [29] with plans to reduce class sizes,increase teacher training,create a reserve fund to help stabilize school funding,and work to better the relationship between teachers' unions and the Department of Education. [27] [30] [31] [32] He also supported the concept of charter schools as long as local schools retained control of those schools. [27] While in office,the state adopted legislation to allow for charter schools in 1999. [33]
Bunn also proposed changing the state's certificate of initial mastery (CIM) to a program with seven separate CIMs, [34] but the Oregon State Board of Education declined to adopt his proposal. [35]
In 2001,potential ethics violations arose over use of a state cell phone and state vehicle for personal use. [36] Soon after,a previously tabled bill in the legislature that would change Bunn's office to an appointed position in lieu of an election was reintroduced. [36] The legislation never made it into law. While an ethics investigation was pending,it came to light in 2001 that Bunn was delinquent on almost $15,000 in property taxes. [37] The taxes were owed in two counties,some as far back as 1997,with one property facing foreclosure by the county. [37] County records disclosed a pattern of late payments on property taxes dating to as early as 1992. [37] Bunn paid all the back taxes,including interest,and apologized for the transgression,blaming it partly on a change of address due to selling his law firm and on not having the money after leaving private legal practice. [25] [37]
Ethics investigation and Boy Scouts controversy
In August 2001,Oregon's ethics commission began a formal investigation of the accusations against Bunn for using his office for personal gain. [5] Bunn denied any wrongdoing and expected to be cleared by the commission where he was once chairman. [5] The investigation focused on his use of a state issued cell phone,a state owned automobile,travel expenses,long-distance telephone calls,and even use of frequent flyer miles earned while traveling for state business. They also examined whether he used his office to continue his legal practice. [5] His department was also undergoing a state audit at the time over concerns of lack of oversight on state issued contracts. [5]
Meanwhile,an Oregon circuit court judge ruled against Bunn's decision to allow Boy Scouts to recruit at public school. [38] Judge Ellen Rosenblum determined Bunn had abused his discretion in not finding evidence that the group discriminated against those who did not believe in God. [38] Thus,state antidiscrimination laws prohibited the group from recruiting at schools,and Bunn was ordered to alter the policy that allowed the Boy Scouts to recruit in schools. [38]
Regarding the ethics complaint,the state commission determined Bunn made 1,433 violations of the ethics laws and faced up to a $1,000 fine for each violation as well as a fine for as much as double the value of the improper benefits. [39] [40] The commission also removed 1,334 of the charges made against Bunn. [39] Bunn had reimbursed the state for many of the personal expenses and returned the state car and state cell phone after the improprieties were discovered by The Oregonian newspaper. [5] [39] Some of the long-distance phone calls at issue were to his ex-wife,who also worked for the Department of Education in the same building as Bunn. [39] There was also a charge he used his office to get a free trip to Los Angeles for his daughter. [39] He drew further scrutiny when he mailed his defense of the allegations to state legislators using state funds and letterhead,which led to another ethics complaint. [25] [41]
Bunn did not accept the findings of the commission,so the commission sued to enforce the findings in court. [42] [43] While the legal action was in progress,the ethics commission decided to pursue the allegations against Bunn concerning the free trip for his daughter,but declined to investigate the mailing incident. [43] Ultimately,Bunn and the ethics commission reached a settlement on all the allegations with Bunn paying $25,000 to the commission. [44] Federal judge Robert E. Jones mediated the settlement where Bunn did not admit to any violations,and the $25,000 could not be characterized as a penalty. [40] [44] [45]
In March 2002,he filed to run for re-election to his office while the ethics case against him was still pending. [25] [42] [46] Bunn was optimistic the investigation would exonerate him and that voters would focus on his record instead of the ethics issues. [42] He ran against State Senator Susan Castillo and Rob Kremer in the May primary,and finished a distant third to Castillo with 114,203 votes to her 406,247. [47] [48] Castillo won enough votes to avoid a runoff in the November general election and took over for Bunn on January 5,2003. [29]
