Ginny Burdick

Virginia Burdick (born December 3, 1947) is a Democratic politician from the U.S. state of Oregon, serving her sixth term in the Oregon State Senate. She represents Tigard and Southwest Portland in Senate District 18. She was a member of the Land Conservation and Development Commission from 1987 to 1993. She ran against incumbent Portland City Commissioner Erik Sten in 2006. In the May 2006 primary election, she narrowly missed qualifying for a runoff election. Ginny Burdick is currently serving as the Majority Leader of the Oregon Senate, after serving five years as Senate President Pro Tempore. She represents Oregon Senate District 18, which includes portions of West Portland and Tigard. First elected to the Senate in 1996, Burdick has served as chair of the Judiciary Committee, the Finance and Revenue Committee, and co-chair of the Marijuana Legalization Committee. She currently chairs the Senate Committee on Rules and Executive Appointments. Senator Burdick is one of the Legislature's leading advocates for gun safety legislation. In the 2017 Legislative Session, she joined with Republican Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, to sponsor Oregon’s Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) law. Oregon's ERPO is a tool to help prevent suicide and other harmful behavior by removing dangerous weapons from people in crisis. Similar to Washington's Extreme Risk Protection Order – a ballot measure that passed statewide with about 70 percent of the vote in November 2016 – Oregon's ERPO allows a process for keeping deadly weapons away from a person found by the court finds to be at risk of suicide or being a danger to others. In the 2018 Legislative Session, Senator Burdick strongly supported the passage of House Bill 4145, which strengthened Oregon's gun safety laws by closing the intimate partner loophole. This bill aligns the definition of a domestic violence conviction under Oregon's Unlawful Possession of Firearms statute with the definitions of domestic violence found elsewhere in Oregon law, effectively closing the loophole for when there is a dating relationship. It also adds a stalking misdemeanor as a qualifying offense, subject to firearm dispossession. Sen. Burdick is a native of Portland. She attended Chapman and Bridlemile elementary schools and is a graduate of Wilson High School. She earned her bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Puget Sound in 1969 and her masters in journalism from the University of Oregon in 1973. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, competitive scrabble and attending her book groups. Burdick is also a communications consultant, specializing in crisis communications. She has two daughters.