SUZANNE BONAMICI

Bonamici tapped for Senate seat

By Jewish Review

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Portland attorney and now former Oregon House Dist. 34 Rep. Suzanne Bonamici has been named to succeed Oregon Sen. Brad Avakian who resigned his Senate seat to become Oregon Labor Commissioner.

Bonamici’s appointment came April 30 when commissioners from Multnomah and Washington counties chose the 53-year-old West Slope resident from three candidates considered for Oregon Senate Dist. 17 vacancy.

The other two candidates were Paul Terdal, a management consultant in Portland, and Julie Young, a children’s advocate in Portland.

A graduate of the University of Oregon Law School, Bonamici first worked as an attorney for the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C., where she met attorney Michael Simon who would become her husband. In 1986 the couple moved to Portland where Bonamici worked in a law firm until her children were born, when she took a break from the law. She has two children, a son and a daughter.

Her husband is an active leader in the Jewish community. He chairs the Oregon Chapter of the American Jewish Committee and is a past chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland Community Relations Committee.