Ronald Lee "Ron" Wyden is the senior United States Senator for Oregon, serving since 1996, and a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served in the United States House of Representatives from 1981 to 1996. Wyden was born Ronald Lee Wyden in Wichita, Kansas, the son of Edith and Peter H. Wyden , both of whom were Jewish and had fled Nazi Germany a few years earlier. Wyden grew up in Palo Alto, California, where he was a basketball star for Palo Alto High School. He attended the University of California, Santa Barbara on a basketball scholarship, and later transferred to Stanford... University, where he received his B.A. in 1971. He received a J.D. degree from the University of Oregon School of Law in 1974. While teaching gerontology at several Oregon universities, Wyden founded the Oregon chapter of the Gray Panthers; he led that organization from 1974 to 1980. Wyden is also the former director of the Oregon Legal Services Center for Elderly, a nonprofit law service. Wyden ran for the United States House of Representatives in 1980.
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