Merkley endorsed by JStreetPAC

JStreetPAC has endorsed House Speaker Jeff Merkley for U.S. Senate. The group cited Merkley’s outspoken opposition to the Iraq War and his successful efforts to bring together Democrats and Republicans in the Oregon Legislature to pass the most progressive agenda in the country in 2007 in making the endorsement.

JStreetPAC is a federal Political Action Committee established to promote meaningful American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflicts peacefully and diplomatically.

“America is in dire need of leaders with real national security experience and sound judgment. Jeff Merkley has both,” JStreetPAC Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami said. “Jeff opposed the Iraq war from the very beginning and has promoted a diplomatic two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Having served as a national security analyst in the Pentagon and Congress, Jeff has the foreign policy experience to differentiate between real and manufactured threats to the country.”

“I am honored to have the endorsement of JStreetPAC,” Jeff Merkley said. “Gordon Smith and the Bush Administration have taken America down a dangerous foreign policy path. It’s past time to end the war we never should have started and bring our troops home. We need to restore our integrity and standing in the world by rejecting torture practices and respecting the Geneva Conventions. As a U.S. Senator, I’ll fight to repair our reputation and make America work for working families again.”

Born in the small town of Myrtle Creek, Jeff Merkley has spent his lifetime fighting for change for Oregon families. The son of a sawmill worker, he spent his early years in Roseburg, where the children of loggers and mill workers learned the value of honest work, good schools, and strong families. Jeff worked hard, earned scholarships and became the first in his family to go to college. He went on to serve as a national security analyst, first for the Pentagon and then for Congress. After returning to Oregon with his wife Mary, Jeff led Habitat for Humanity and worked with low-income families to rebuild neighborhoods and purchase their first home.

As Speaker, Jeff helped lead the fight against special interests to make health care more affordable, clamp down on pay day loan scams, pass landmark environmental legislation, and create thousands of family-wage jobs in Oregon. Working together, Oregonians achieved results – restoring fiscal responsibility by creating the state’s first “rainy day fund,” cutting taxes for working people, and passing sweeping ethics reform to clean up government.

In the U.S. Senate, Jeff will fight to end the tax breaks going to companies that ship our jobs overseas, stand up to oil companies to invest in renewable energy, and end the war in Iraq. For detailed information on Jeff’s plans to bring change to Washington D.C., visit www.jeffmerkley.com.

Posted September 11, 2008
Press