Stan Bunn

Stan Bunn (born June 25, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer in the U.S. state of Oregon.

Born and raised in Yamhill County, he is part of a political family that includes his brother Jim Bunn who served in Congress.

Stan Bunn was born in McMinnville, Yamhill County, Oregon, on June 25, 1946.

One of eleven children in the family with five brothers and five sisters, he was the fourth oldest of Ben and Viola (Fulgham) Bunn's children.

His grandfather was once mayor of Lafayette, Oregon, and his father was on the city's school board.

He was raised on a dairy near Dayton, Oregon, and went to school at Lafayette Grade School and later Dayton High School.

In high school he wrestled and was a member of the Future Farmers of America, where he raised pigs.

At 16 years old, he purchased his first piece of property, a vacant lot in Lafayette.

He also persuaded his parents to co-sign on a loan in order for him to buy cattle that year.

Soon afterwards, he purchased a used mobile home, his first rental property.

The 6' 2" tall student also was class president his senior year, graduating in 1964.

After high school he attended Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, where he majored in economics.

Bunn paid for much of the tuition to the small liberal arts school with the funds he earned raising hogs.

He served as a page at the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco, which led to an internship with Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield in Washington, DC.

During his internship Bunn tutored inner city kids there, which helped shape his political views.

"I believed until then that anybody could bootstrap themselves, but I came to believe that the social problems we face need to be dealt with by government."

Bunn graduated from Willamette in 1969 with a bachelor of arts degree and then enrolled at Willamette's law school.

A self-described moderate Republican, Stan served in both houses of the Oregon Legislative Assembly, including a successful run for the Oregon House of Representatives while in law school in 1972.

During his third and final year of law school in 1972, he ran for a seat in the Oregon House of Representatives as a Republican, to represent Yamhill County.

He won the five-person primary, and then won the general election in November.

After winning the seat, Democrats challenged Bunn's residency in the district, since he was attending law school in Salem.

Bunn's political career began with his election to the Oregon House in 1972 to represent District 29 and parts of Yamhill, Polk, and Marion counties.

The challenge failed, and he was sworn in as a 26-year-old legislator in January 1973, while still a law student.

Bunn then wrote his third year law school paper on residency requirements.

He graduated cum laude from Willamette with a Juris Doctor degree in 1973.

Following law school Bunn began practicing law in Newberg.

There he built a practice that expanded to as many as eight lawyers and two offices.

In 1973 during this time in the Oregon House, he was the only Republican there who voted against a resolution that praised Republican U.S. President Richard Nixon after Nixon ended the war in Vietnam.

He won re-election to a second two-year term in 1974 and served through the 1975 special session of the legislature.

He also worked to pass legislation in 1975 to create the Willamette Greenway, and to make the state's laws tougher against drunk drivers.

Bunn also made unsuccessful attempts to be elected as Oregon Attorney General in 1976 and to serve in Congress representing Oregon's first congressional district in 1996, when his brother was running for re-election in the neighboring Congressional district.

Bunn faced scrutiny over back taxes while Superintendent of Public Instruction and also was accused of committing over one thousand ethics violations by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, stemming primarily from the use of a state car and use of a state cell phone for personal use.

Bunn challenged their findings and later reached a settlement in which he did not admit wrongdoing and paid $25,000 to the Commission in a payment that could not be called a fine.

In 1976, Bunn then ran to serve as the Oregon Attorney General, but lost in the Republican primary, coming in third, and did not run for re-election to the House.

After leaving the House he served as chairperson of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission from 1979 to 1981 and was on the Oregon Traffic Safety Commission.

He later sold the practice after his election to a statewide office in 1998.

Bunn also continued expanding his real estate holdings and owned as many as 14 rental properties.

He lived in Yamhill County during these times, first in his hometown of Dayton and later near Newberg.

Later he served as Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction from 1999 to 2003, in a political career spanning four decades.

In non-elective offices, he was chairman of the state's ethics commission and on the Oregon Traffic Safety Commission between stints in the legislature.