Darlene Hooley was sworn in for an historic 6th term on January 4, 2007, as the U.S. Representative from Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, which includes all of Marion, Polk, Tillamook and Lincoln Counties as well as significant parts of Clackamas, Benton, and Multnomah Counties.

She serves on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, as well as the Budget Committee and the Science and Technology Committee. 

For the past ten years Hooley has established a reputation as a member who gets things done.  She has fought hard for and won funding for all sorts of job creating projects and public investments in the 5th District, including over $25 million in county timber payments for local schools and roads, federal funding for transportation, port and infrastructure needs, agricultural research funding at OSU and biomedical research funding at OHSU. 

Hooley has become a National leader on behalf of our troops, both active duty and National Guard.  She has fought to secure proper training and equipment for our soldiers serving around the globe.  Hooley has traveled to Iraq, Ft. Hood and Ft. Lewis to assess the needs of our soldiers, and received national recognition from “60 Minutes” for her leadership in helping to secure armored Humvees and adequate body armor for soldiers serving in Iraq.

Hooley has also made taking care of our veterans a top priority.  When the Vancouver and White City, VA health care facilities were threatened by funding cuts, Hooley successfully battled to keep them open.  She has also been a leader in the fight to make veteran’s healthcare funding mandatory, so that our veterans are not forced to fight for budget leftovers, but instead are guaranteed the health care they were promised and they have earned.

Hooley has been a national leader in the fight against methamphetamine, working with communities and health advocates to develop national standards for meth prevention and treatment.  She wrote significant provisions of the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act, the major anti-meth legislation of the 109^th Congress.

Since her election to Congress, Hooley has been an outspoken advocate for fiscal responsibility and for providing much needed tax relief to working families, farmers and small business owners.  She has fought for increased federal funding for homeland security efforts, increased flexibility and smaller class sizes in Oregon schools, measures to level the playing field for farmers, fair Medicare reimbursement for Oregonians and fair pricing and coverage of prescription drugs for seniors.

Hooley is the leader in Congress on ID theft prevention efforts and a top advocate of increased medical and financial privacy.  In the 108th Congress, Hooley passed her landmark consumer protection bill that provides all Americans the ability to see their credit reports from all three major credit bureaus annually at no cost.

Born on a family farm in Williston, North Dakota, Hooley moved to Salem, Oregon when she was eight.  After graduating from high school in Salem, Hooley earned her B.S. in Education from Oregon State University.  She has lived, worked and raised a family in Oregon’s 5th District. 

A former reading, music, and physical education teacher, Hooley began advocating for safer playgrounds in the mid-1970s.  After serving on the Park District Board, she was elected to the West Linn City Council where she served for four years.   She went on to serve in the Oregon State Legislature and as a Clackamas County Commissioner.

During her four terms in the Legislature and more than two terms as a Clackamas County Commissioner, Hooley earned a reputation as a serious, consensus-building lawmaker more interested in formulating policy than engaging in the usual political and ideological bickering. The Congresswoman helped to reform the state's welfare system, authored the state's first recycling laws, rewrote Oregon's land-use laws, and wrote and passed equal pay laws.

As an incoming freshman U.S. House member, she was elected a President of her class in 1997.  During her second term in Congress, she was selected as whip at Large and served in that role until 2003, when she was named Senior Whip.

Hooley lives at home in Oregon and commutes to Washington, DC weekly for votes.