In the upcoming election, Coos County residents won’t have to worry about who to vote for senator. They’ve already got her.

Joanne Verger

Sen. Joanne Verger, D-Coos Bay, is uncontested in her bid for her District 5 seat. Her position in the state Senate was secured when the deadline passed on Tuesday afternoon to file for it and other races. She filed for the office in September.

Verger, 77, said she is pleased she will not have to campaign for her second term in the Senate, and believes she is uncontested because of the hard work she does to represent her constituents.

“We are very, very happy about not having an opponent for the campaign, obviously. But, we do think there has been a huge effort in the last five years to work very hard in District 5,” Verger said. She said she attributed her lack of opponents to her efforts to listen to legislators from both parties, as well as voters. “If you have a weak elected official (who) does not listen to constituents ... people come out to see if they can replace that individual.”  

The senator described her first election for Senate in 2004 as a “very fierce battle” against Florence Republican Al Pearn, and said she is pleased she won’t have to go through the same process of spending time, not to mention money, on a campaign when it could be used more productively.

 “I’m just glad that I can just continue to do my work as a senator and not go through the kind of rigorous campaigns that people have to go through,” Verger said. “I really appreciate my constituents giving me the opportunity to serve the district. That means so much to me.”

Senate President Peter Courtney said Verger is a hard worker and he isn’t completely surprised she won her seat without breaking a sweat.

“Any time you go down to the wire and you don’t draw an opponent, you have to be very good,” Courtney said. “I’d like to be as good as she is.”

Courtney, a Democrat who represents District 11, said he doesn’t recall any other legislator having as much success representing her people and area as Verger does.

“This is the final statement of that,” he said. “I’d like to know how it feels to be that good.”

Courtney described Verger as a tireless advocate for people on the South Coast.

“She just never quits, she never sleeps ... She’s also very, very aware of the needs of her district,” Courtney said. “She knows the Mother Nature part of her district and the human nature of her district. She just knows it and that reflects in her approach in coming to Salem ...”

The Coos Bay Democrat began her political career when she became the first woman mayor of Coos Bay, a position she held for eight years before taking a seat in the state House of Representatives for District 47. In 2004 she won a seat in the Senate. Since becoming a senator, Verger has been instrumental in winning the passage of House Bill 5036, which secured $60 million in state funding for the Coos Bay Channel Dredging Project; protecting coastal waters from shipbreaking; and expanding the Oregon Bottle Bill.

In her second term, and the 2009 legislative session, Verger said she plans to continue to push a property tax relief bill for seniors similar, if not identical, to the one she introduced during this February’s supplemental session. If passed, it would provide relief to seniors older than 75 who earn less than $25,000. Last month Verger said it would help 126,000 seniors in Oregon, but at the time she thought it wouldn’t pass, because bills that caused any fiscal impact weren’t likely to come out of the Senate and House Joint Ways and Means Committee. This week she said there simply wasn’t enough time in the month-long session for Senate Bill 1077 to get very far. While it was reviewed in several hearings, a work session was not held on the topic.

Verger said she also will remain on the Senate Transportation Committee and the Senate and House Joint Ways and Means Committee.