Pete Sorenson is a County Commissioner in Lane County, Oregon. Born in Washoe County, Nevada, Pete is a lawyer and a progressive member of the Democratic Party.
From 1977 to 1979, Pete was a Special Assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture during the Carter Administration.
While in private law practice from 1982 to 1995, Pete also served as a member of the Board of Education at Lane Community College in Eugene Oregon. During his tenure at Lane Community College, Sorenson advocated strongly for dislocated workers' retraining programs and for childcare for staff and students.
In 1993, Sorenson was appointed to the Oregon State Senate, and was elected to a full Senate term in 1994. He was elected Assistant Minority Leader during the 1995 session.
Instead of running for reelection as a State Senator, Sorenson choose instead to run for County Commissioner in 1996 and was elected to his first term. Pete ran successfully for reelection as a County Commissioner in 2000, 2004 and 2008; in 2008 he ran unopposed. In 2009 he was elected by the four other commissioners as Chair of the Board of Commissioners, a position he has held before.
Sorenson has always run on a "pro-environment, pro-education, pro-senior, pro-regular taxpayer, pro-child, pro-civil rights, pro-civil liberties, and pro-people" platform.
In January 2005, Sorenson announced he would challenge incumbent Governor Ted Kulongoski, also a Democrat. Sorenson was defeated in the May 2006 Democratic primary for Governor, receiving 16.27% of the vote.
In July 2007 Pete Sorenson and Kim Leval were married. Kim is the Executive Director for the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides. Pete has two grown children: Jennifer, a child welfare investigator for the state of Oregon, and Erik, an accountant for Bell Micro.