Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski is surrounded by Oregon representatives and senators in Salem on Thursday, after the legislature finished this year’s session. Kulongoski won approval of many of his top priorities in the session. AP Photo

SALEM (AP) - From creation of a state rainy day fund to the hiring of more state troopers to major new investments in education, Gov. Ted Kulongoski won approval of many of his top priorities in the just-ended 2007 Oregon Legis-lature.

One of the key reasons for that was the Democratic governor himself was far more involved in the nitty-gritty of the session - a contrast to two years ago when some lawmakers called him an aloof, “missing-in-action” governor.

As the 2007 session came to a close, an ebullient Kulongoski touted the Legislature's list of accomplishments on education, the environment and health care after “years of gridlock” brought on by recession and split control of the Legislature.

Of course, Kulongoski was helped by the fact that his fellow Democrats were running the show in both the House and Senate for the first time in 16 years.

Still, a key Democrat said the governor played a key, behind-the-scenes role in rounding up legislative support on such difficult issues as creating Oregon's first comprehensive savings account and fashioning a proposed rewrite of the Measure 37 property compensation measure.

“The governor really hit his stride this session. He was very much a player,” Senate Majority Leader Richard Devlin of Tualatin said Friday.

Kulongoski, for his part, indicated after the session's adjournment Thursday that he's going to work to keep advancing some of the issues that emerged from this session.

He said he plans to spend an “awful amount of time” persuading voters to approve two measures lawmakers placed on this November's ballot - a cigarette tax hike to pay for children's health insurance and the plan to scale back rural development that's allowed under Measure 37.

“We owe it to the citizens of Oregon to continue pushing policies that help our working families and improve the lives of all our citizens,” the governor said.

Kulongoski has acknowledged that 2005 wasn't a banner year for him and that he lacked a compelling message to lawmakers.

But he came into the 2007 session with an agenda centered on providing health coverage to uninsured children; putting more state troopers on the roads; investing more money in public schools; and making the state a leader in the area of alternative energy.

Gary Conkling, a Portland political analyst who also lobbies the Legislature for various clients, said Kulongoski kept a sharp focus on those issues and worked collaboratively with lawmakers in the House and Senate to move that agenda.

“He played an appropriate behind-the-scenes role in brokering a lot of agreements that helped move the session along,” Conkling said.

Kulongoski also was well-served by some staff changes that included putting Tim Nesbitt, the former labor leader and now one of Kulongoski's top advisers, in charge of the effort to craft a Measure 37 rewrite for the November ballot, Conkling said.

“Nesbitt played an instrumental role in that discussion,” Conkling said. “That put the governor's office right at the center of that issue.”

Looking beyond November's special election on the cigarette tax and the Measure 37 rewrite, Kulongoski said he would continue to work on issues for the February legislative session, such as bringing Oregon into compliance with new federal driver's license requirements.

In the long term, the governor said he'll push to increase the corporate minimum tax - set at $10 in 1931, and unchanged ever since - and dedicate the funding to construction needs at Oregon's seven public universities and 17 community colleges.