Skip to main contentAt 6-foot-3, Gary Wilhelms is taller than most legislators and towers over his boss, Speaker of the House Karen Minnis. As he stretches his long arms across the table to make his point, there are no strings attached.
"This speaker has been around here for 15 years," the speaker's chief of staff says of Minnis, a third-term Republican from Wood Village, who spent more than a decade as an aide to her husband, state Sen. John Minnis.
His point? No one is pulling her strings, certainly not him.
Still, you can't blame people for wondering. Wilhelms' stature matches his experience and age. The 65-year-young chief of staff keeps pace with his twentysomething peers in a position that regularly requires 14-hour days. But then, he is used to it. This session, the longest in state history, will be his 16th in a political career that has taken many shapes, dating back to 1972, when he was elected the freshman Republican state representative from Klamath Falls.
As a result, some staffers--and even lawmakers--view him as a father figure. "Today we were talking about the kicker," says Troy Nichols, the 29-year-old chief of staff to House Majority Leader Tim Knopp. "He was there at the time the kicker was passed. He adds a sense of legitimacy."
Chiefs of staff are traditionally jack-of-all-trade aides whose role is to make their bosses' lives easier: managing the troops, standing in during important meetings, working damage control on political boondoggles, writing legislation. Wilhelms operates in all the traditional roles, but he does so with a playbook tested over the course of three decades of political wheeling and dealing.
Wilhelms rose through the Democrat-controlled House of the '70s to the post of minority leader before stepping down after the 1979 session. He then launched a 17-year career as the chief Oregon lobbyist for US West and its predecessor companies. Retiring from the national utility in 1995, he returned to public service in 1997 as a special assistant for then-Senate President Brady Adams.
In December 1999, Wilhelms transferred from Adams' office to work for House Speaker Lynn Snodgrass, whose lack of experience led to a series of embarrassments during the previous session.
There, he served as chief of staff in the role of battle-tested caretaker for a House whose experienced ranks were decimated in the post-term-limits era.
Wilhelms plays a similar role as political sage on Minnis' staff.
"He is a backstop to prevent embarrassing errors," says Oregon State University political scientist Bill Lunch.
Wilhelms' first big challenge came before the session started, when he helped Minnis in the no-win task of committee assignments. The previous session, Snodgrass' successor, Mark Simmons, had snubbed the Democrats on requests for certain placements.
This year, six Democratic members were allowed to swap assignments following the placement announcement. Many give credit to Wilhelms.
"When people weren't happy with a committee assignment in the last session, it would have been 'Tough, buddy,'" says Rep. Joanne Verger (D-Coos Bay). "This time they were changed without any problem. He was accommodating."
While a few Salem watchers grumble that Wilhelms has too much influence over Minnis, most observers, even off the record, say they do not view the veteran politico as de facto speaker.
"I think he may be more involved," says Verger, "He's out and about in the Capitol, but I'm not left with any doubt in my mind about who the speaker is."
In fact, some say they wish Wilhelms would take on the role he played as a lawmaker and as Adams' top aide --serving as a mediator between conservative Republicans and moderate Democrats. Although he's held leadership posts in the Oregon GOP, during his last two House races he received both the Republican and Democratic nominations.
"He is not an ideologue," says former state Rep. Tony Van Vliet, a moderate Corvallis Republican who served with Wilhelms for three sessions. "He is conservative, but not unwilling to negotiate."
These days, such willingness is in short supply. House budget negotiations repeatedly grind to a halt as Republican vows to limit taxes regularly butt heads with Democratic funding guarantees. Wilhelms blames the recently overturned term-limits laws for the deadlock's heated atmosphere. Particularly in the freshman-and-sophomore-heavy House, he says, lawmakers have lost "the ability to build collegiality."
If there ever were a time for Wilhelms to dust off his credentials as an inter-party diplomat, it's now. His connections run long and deep in every facet of the lawmaking process. His relationship with Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who once served as an aide on a committee Rep. Wilhelms sat on, could help seal the deal on the school budget, the primary stumbling block to closing the session.
"A willingness to accept the political reality--at the end we will see it," says Lunch. "At that time you see the skills of those who know how to bargain and compromise."
Van Vliet agrees that Minnis may now need Wilhelms' experience more than ever.
"If she is taking any of his advice, you would get some solutions," he says. "I think he would give her an inkling on some options with the problems she has now."
WWeek 2015