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In July 1971, Lynn Dee Grenz, a 20-year-old OSU sophomore who bore an uncanny resemblance to Bewitched's Samantha, was crowned Miss Oregon. That September, Grenz went to Atlantic City to compete in the fabled Miss America pageant.

For the Milwaukie native, whose only trip away from the Pacific Northwest had been a family vacation to Disneyland, the trek east was an eye opener--particularly when she encountered feminists who were marching to protest the pageant.

"Women were literally taking their undergarments off and burning them," she recalls. "The women's movement was big time, but I wasn't involved in that. I was a woman that came from a sheltered environment in Milwaukie."

At the time, Grenz told The Oregon Journal : "I'm just not that interested in their cause.... I'm sure they have their reasons. But I feel that a woman's place is in the home and she can still do things for her community."

Last week, asked whether the women's movement or the civil-rights movement had made life better for her generation, she shrugged.

With only part of her tongue in her cheek, she quipped that the best thing to come out the 1960s was color TV.

Lynn Dee Grenz is now Lynn Snodgrass, 47, possibly the most powerful woman in Oregon.

Earlier this month, in a meeting that lasted until 4 am, Republican state representatives crowned Snodgrass Speaker of the House. The Republicans, who control both the House and the Senate, tossed aside last session's Speaker, Lynn Lundquist, a rancher from Powell Butte who many Republicans felt was too accommodating to Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber. It's not a charge that's likely to stick to the new Speaker of the House.

Snodgrass, who lives in Boring, is the Legislature's first Portland-area Speaker in nearly a decade. (Portland Mayor Vera Katz was the last Portland pol to hold the position, from 1985 to 1991.)

Snodgrass has undeniable metro-area credentials: She grew up in Milwaukie, got her elementary-teaching degree at PSU, held a seat on the Damascus school board and served on the board of Portland's Metro Home Builder Association. She has also co-owned a successful local nursery and landscaping company since marrying Drake Snodgrass in 1974.

Yet the prospect of Snodgrass as Salem's master of ceremonies gives many Portlanders the jitters.

"We're pretty anxious," admits Marge Kafoury, the city's longtime lobbyist.

"My fear," says Beverly Stein, Multnomah county commissioner and former state legislator, "is that her conservative viewpoint on social issues is going to bog down the Legislature."

Snodgrass' record does suggest an agenda that's a cross between the Contract with America and the Ten Commandments.

Her policy votes, which have repeatedly gotten failing grades from environmental, labor and education groups, place her smack dab in the center of Oregon's 1999 GOP caucus. Her religious convictions, however, place her among a smaller group of Oregon Republicans who want Salem legislators to upend abortion rights and dictate social mores.

The question is: Does Snodgrass have the savvy to rise above her conservative power base and do the right thing for Portland?

If you drive out Foster Road, Southeast Portland's prefab housing, abandoned Chevys, strip clubs and storage warehouses give way to a two-lane rural black top where you have to throw on your high beams. This is Snodgrass' district.

Dotted with tree farms, horse-crossing signs, trailer parks and large McHouses, District 10 straddles Portland's urban-growth boundary. It's home to the contradictions that embody suburban Portland's standoff between development and the rural lifestyle.

In the past 20 years, subdivisions have popped up like Scotch broom. The growth, sparked by new jobs in Portland and nearby high-tech plants like Fujitsu, is creating a bedroom community alongside the blue-collar wood-products workers at Boring's Vanport Manufacturing. These changes are stretching school-district needs and transportation infrastructure--along with the community's patience.

Metro will decide next month whether to take 2,100 acres of land in Snodgrass' district and bring it into the UGB for development. The move, to the dismay of Clackamas County residents, would intensify traffic on the district's two main roads: Sunnyside and Highway 212.

"This is not a city, and we don't want it to turn into a city," says Ann Overton, the manager and bartender at the Timber Tavern, one of Boring's two bars. "There's more traffic, more cars. I don't want the big roads running through here."

Kate Boyer, a gentle sixtysomething clerk just up the street at the Jackpot Food Mart--a convenience store and impromptu dining hall for the workers at Vanport--says the town needs money for schools and roads and health care. She's reluctant, however, to pay higher taxes to an inefficient big government.

Snodgrass moved to Boring in the early 1980s and became politically active as a school parent. Ironically, her career began in reaction to a pet bill sponsored by Larry Campbell, the former Republican Speaker of the House whom many current legislators say Snodgrass resembles politically.

The bill forced school districts to merge with larger ones. In 1994, Snodgrass' school district did just that and unified with Gresham's. Snodgrass was enraged.

"We didn't want to unify with Gresham," Snodgrass says. "We liked what we were. We liked the small local control. But the state passed a mandate and made us do it."

Snodgrass calls the state mandate--and prior frustration over her daughter's large classes--a pivotal reason for her first legislative run in 1994. Snodgrass won that election with her "volleyball mom" sensibility--her youngest daughter Megan played high school volleyball--and a Ronald Reagan appeal that resonated with the unemployed timber workers and new-money commuters that make up her district. She's held the seat ever since. Earlier this month, she trounced Democratic challenger Mike Smith, who got only 35 percent of the vote.

Though Snodgrass has been in the state House since just 1995, she has been a prominent force. Last session she was chosen Republican majority leader, picked by her peers to go to the mat for the caucus agenda, corral votes, make deals and lean on party members to toe the line.

As majority leader, Snodgrass pushed a predictable conservative agenda.

She supported referring assisted suicide back to the voters.

She pushed the marijuana-recriminalization bill.

She supported SB 600, legislation that would have forced taxpayers to compensate landowners for obeying green regulations.

She also cosponsored a bill at the request of Oregon's largest business lobby, Associated Oregon Industries, that would have eliminated using "incidental student fees"--a tax on students to fund campus groups and activities--for political purposes. The bill, critics say, was aimed at weakening student support for groups like the consumer and environmental watchdog OSPIRG, a steadfast critic of AOI's agenda. The bill failed after widespread opposition from students and higher-ed administrators.

Snodgrass' agenda was also decidedly anti-environmental. The Oregon League of Conservation Voters reported that Snodgrass cast a green-friendly vote just 7 percent of the time in the '97 session and 0 percent in the '95 session. Only six House legislators had a lower score last session; seven scored the same.

As Speaker, Snodgrass led the campaign to send Measure 65 to voters last November. The ballot measure, a constitutional amendment, failed. If it had passed, Measure 65 would have allowed unprecedented interference in state agency rules. The measure was widely viewed as an effort to gut the powers of the Land Conservation and Development Commission.

Snodgrass also voted for a bill that would have stopped the Department of Environmental Quality from expanding vehicle-inspection and maintenance programs into Columbia and Yamhill counties as part of a plan to maintain Portland's clean air. The bill, which passed the House 36-20, was vetoed by the governor.

Some environmentalists hold Snodgrass in particular disregard because of her role as majority leader. "She was more than just a bad vote," says Jonathan Poisner of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters. "Even though a handful of legislators were worse than she was, as majority leader she has a record of pushing bills that would have weakened Oregon's environmental laws."

In fact, as a result of the Republican Legislature's attack on Oregon's environmental laws in 1997, majority leader Snodgrass was named one of the 24 worst state legislators in the country by the National Association of Conservation Voters.

While liberals assail her record, Associated Oregon Industries says Snodgrass voted its way 88 percent of the time during her two sessions in the house. During the Measure 47 rewrite, for example, Snodgrass supported the controversial timber-industry tax cut that would have decreased the industry's taxes by an estimated $26 million, according to the OLCV.

Snodgrass' conservatism is not out of sync with the views of the other 33 Republicans in the Oregon House. On that score, Snodgrass is a mainstream Oregon Republican.

At the same time, her religious convictions--she describes herself as a "woman of faith"--give her views a moral twist that are extreme even by Salem's standards.

Snodgrass is a deeply religious woman who holds early-morning Bible studies in her home. Her group, which has included Christie Adkisson of Oregon's Christian Coalition, is currently studying the role of women in the Bible.

"I think that fundamentally what's wrong with society," she told Willamette Week, "is people not recognizing that we are put here by a higher power that we have to be accountable to at some point in time."

"Religion shapes all her values," says Salem Democrat Peter Courtney, who served as House minority leader during the '97 session.

In Salem, Snodgrass' religious convictions have surfaced in both typical and odd ways.

In both her House sessions, Snodgrass has been the chief or cosponsor of bills to limit abortion and curtail sex education. Most of them languished in committee.

She voted against a 1997 gay-rights bill that would have duplicated a Portland law against discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation in the workplace. The bill passed the House 40-20 but died in the Senate.

In 1997, Snodgrass was widely criticized for trying to pass a law that would have established April as "Christian Heritage Month." Resting on the logic that October is Gay and Lesbian History Month and February is Black History Month, she wanted to honor the contributions of Christian people and thought. The Oregon ACLU said the resolution was unconstitutional because it amounted to a state endorsement of a certain religion. As chair of the rules committee, Snodgrass resurrected the bill late in the session, but it died on Lundquist's desk.

On May 29, 1997, Majority Leader Snodgrass let the moralist wing of her party act out one of the session's creepiest moments.

Rep. Ron Sunseri had sponsored a bill that would have required parental approval for students to fill out school surveys about sexual activity and lifestyle. Snodgrass, who supported the bill, called her troops into caucus to prepare for the vote. Then they emerged on the House floor for debate. In what one Salem lawmaker called "the most surreal moment of my political career," Snodgrass issued a warning to the squeamish before Republican Rep. Steve Harper read a sample survey. The intent was to demonstrate the depravity of the public schools. The survey, reportedly given to students in the Lake Oswego school district, asked them about masturbation, sexual positions and gay sex.

According to several legislators present, Harper reveled in the details like Kenneth Starr overheating about Monica Lewinsky's thong underwear.

The caucus' strategy paid off. On the same day, the bill passed the House 35-23, only to be vetoed by Kitzhaber a month later.

Five days after the House vote, questions arose over whether the Lake Oswego school district had ever administered the survey.

In an angry letter dated June 3, Lake Oswego Schools Superintendent William Korach told the House of Representatives, "Your example was inaccurate. The Lake Oswego School District has never seen, never approved, and never administered the survey that you reportedly attributed to our district."

The $64,000 question is: What kind of an impact will Snodgrass' leadership have on Portland?

Longtime Northeast Portland legislator Margaret Carter says she's worried that the new Speaker's social agenda will undermine important social services. Carter, who considers her a close friend, believes Snodgrass will try to punish the Oregon Health Plan budget for funding abortions and will seek to disrupt public-school services that accommodate sexual and medical needs.

"There will be an attempt [to cut] the Oregon Health plan over funding of abortion. There will be a challenge to teen and high-school medical services on issues of sexuality," Carter says. "She's conservative. Portland should be concerned."

More pressing, perhaps, is school funding and the widespread belief that Snodgrass harbors animosity toward the Portland district.

Commissioner Erik Sten remembers a dinner he and other Portland commissioners had with Snodgrass shortly after he was elected to the city council in 1996: "She seemed really negative toward Portland's schools. She wasn't sympathetic to the idea that we needed to make Portland schools work. She said the problem was we were paying Portland teachers way too much."

Sten is anxious about Snodgrass' bias. "I hope she brings a more thoughtful approach," he says, "but from what I saw she doesn't bring an open mind. I hope she doesn't take out her anger on Portland."

Snodgrass says that as Speaker she will be attentive to the needs of Portland. At the same time, she does acknowledge that she has held a grudge against Portland schools. She says, "Erik is right. First of all, you have to understand where I live. I represent school districts that have had to downsize and downsize and downsize because less money is coming in. I watched our programs go down and class sizes get larger and electives get fewer. At the same time, Portland wasn't doing anything. And I still view it that way."

What's interesting about Snodgrass' views is how inaccurate they are. The fact is that since the passage of Measure 5 in 1990, the Portland school district has suffered while more rural districts like Snodgrass' have benefited. Gresham-Barlow, for example, has seen its budget jump from $43.3 million in 1991-92 to $57.9 million in 1998-99--a 33.7 percent increase. More important, per-student moneys in the district have gone up 20.6 percent, from $3,859 to $4,656. During the same period, Portland's public-school budget has gone down from $285 million to $279 million, and per-student money has dropped 2.4 percent, from $4,736 to $4,619.

Not everyone is convinced Snodgrass will be bad for Portland. "Lynn Snodgrass will be the first Speaker from the metro area in 10 years," says Portland Democrat Rep. Chris Beck. "The fact is she drives into Portland more than (former Speakers) Bev Clarno or Lynn Lundquist or Larry Campbell. She drives on our streets, she eats downtown, she goes to the Performing Arts Center. She has an intuitive understanding of Portland issues."

Beck hopes that she'll rise above the partisanship of her previous position as majority leader and honor the broader goals of her new position as Speaker. "It remains to be seen if she has the courage to rise above partisan politics and help solve the problems of Portland," he says.

There's evidence that Snodgrass will meet this challenge.

City Commissioner Charlie Hales says Snodgrass "delivered" last session by corralling her caucus to support the governor's transportation package, which originally passed the House but not the Senate. "I argued with Lynn over raising taxes to support the transportation package," says Hales, former lobbyist for the Homebuilders Association. "Obviously she's not anxious to do that, but ultimately she delivered her caucus on that issue. She bargained in good faith, and we came up with responsible legislation."

Outgoing Republican Rep. Chuck Carpenter is another pol who thinks Snodgrass has been judged too quickly and too harshly. The moderate legislator, who is openly gay, says he will not soon forget her support of his candidacy against arch conservative Bill Witt. Although Witt's politics are more in line with Snodgrass', she went out of her way to support the socially liberal Carpenter. She even cut a radio commercial for him in the primary.

Carpenter ultimately lost to Witt, and Snodgrass took heat for supporting Carpenter.

"I feel bad I won't be serving with her next legislative session," Carpenter says. "This isn't Attila the Hun."

It remains to be seen which version of Lynn Snodgrass will surface as Speaker. The first clue will come when she decides who will chair key legislative committees like education and ways and means. "If she makes Ron Sunseri [a pro-voucher Republican firebrand] chair of education," says Democrat House campaign director Nik Blosser, "that will be quite a message."

As we went to press, the Salem rumor mill was in full gear, with everyone from Lundquist to Sunseri slated to chair the education committee. There's even talk that if Snodgrass' appointments cater too much to the conservative

wing of her party, a moderate coalition may choose a new Speaker.

In this month's late-night Republican caucus tussle to choose a Speaker, however, Snodgrass is reported to have pledged that she wouldn't bring her social agenda to the floor. She also says she recognizes her role as Speaker cannot be hotly partisan.

"There's a lot of speculation that it's going to be an adversarial relationship [between Democrats and Republicans] all the way through, and I don't see that," says Snodgrass. "Where Gov. Kitzhaber and I disagree is going to be wonderful for the state because we can use those disagreements to come out with good policy. Through negotiation--I don't mean compromise--we'll get things done. That negotiating process is what Oregonians want to have."

A veiled threat against compromise? Or an earnest call for bipartisan policy making? The political pageant begins in January.

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Willamette Week | originally published December 9, 1998