In 2003, Wyden voted to bar excessive overseas deployments of members of the National Guard and Reserves.

Wyden also voted many other times for withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq, against funding for the war without binding timelines, and against the establishment of permanent military bases in Iraq.

Wyden supports free trade ; while in the House, he voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement and has subsequently supported many trade deals in the Senate being one of the very few Democrats to vote in favor of the Central America Free Trade Agreement.

During the global financial crisis of 2007-2010, Wyden voted against the financial bailouts backed by the Bush administration.

However, Wyden ultimately voted for the bill and voted mostly with his party on various amendments to the bill.

Wyden voted for the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005, which would change federal law to allow federal money to fund embryonic stem-cell research, ending a federal ban.

Wyden voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

Wyden also voted to renew the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.

Wyden personally opposes assisted suicide and stated he voted against the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, first enacted in Oregon in 1997, each time in appeared on the ballot by voter referendum.

Wyden is critical of the estate tax, which he feels is inefficient, and has voted repeatedly to abolish it.

However, Wyden voted against the Bush tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003.

" Wyden delayed the PIPA in the Senate by placing a hold on the legislation in 2010, which prevented the bill from being considered by the full Senate even after it was unanimously voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

For several minutes, the vote total was stuck at 58-39, until Senators Lindsey Graham ( R-SC ), Trent Lott ( R-MS ), and Ron Wyden ( D-OR ) voted in quick succession in favour to pass the vote 61-39.

Wyden was one of 23 Senators to vote against the authorization of military force in Iraq in 2002.

In 2011, Wyden supported for the no-fly zone and other intervention in Libya in order to protect civilians, stating that " The violence of Colonel Gaddafi against his own people is a humanitarian crisis.

Wyden is a supporter of environmental protection measures, and was among the minority of senators to vote against confirming the appointment of Gale Norton as Secretary of the Interior.

Wyden has also publicly announced support for same-sex marriage and was one of 14 Senators to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.

In 2006, Wyden was one of 10 senators to vote against re-authorization of the Patriot Act.

Wyden was the first politician in Congress to stand against the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act ( SOPA ) ( in the House ) and the PROTECT IP Act ( PIPA ) ( in the Senate ) on the grounds that it would " step towards an Internet in which those with money and lawyers and access to power have a greater voice than those who don ’ t.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was not part of the original Senate legislation, but was added in conference with the House, where it had been separately introduced by Representatives Christopher Cox ( R-CA ) and Ron Wyden ( D-OR ) as the Internet Freedom and Family Empowerment Act and passed by a near-unanimous vote on the floor.

In 2007 Wyden sponsored ( with Representative Gabrielle Giffords in the House ), the Stop Arming Iran Act, which would have barred the Defense Department from selling surplus F-14 parts and prohibit buyers who have already acquired surplus Tomcat parts from exporting them in order to prevent Iran from acquiring the parts.

In 2009 Wyden sponsored the Healthy Americans Act, an act that would institute a national system of market-based private insurance.

Wyden has shown support for increasing Medicare funding, enrolling more of the uninsured in federal programs ( although his Healthy Americans Act would eliminate many of these programs including Medicaid and SCHIP and replace them with private insurance ), importing lower priced prescriptions from Canada, and negotiating bulk drug purchases for Medicare in order to lower costs.

In 2003 Wyden joined with Senators Lindsey Graham ( R-SC ) and Trent Lott ( R-MS ) to help pass the Bush Administration's Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act.

Although Wyden was ultimately passed over in favor of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, he took advantage of the interim to reintroduce his Healthy Americans Act, with additional co-sponsorship from Republican Senators led by Tennessee's Lamar Alexander and Utah's Bob Bennett as well as from fellow Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley.

Despite undergoing tests in advance of prostate surgery scheduled two days later, Wyden appeared up in the Senate chamber in December 2010 to vote for the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010.

In 2011, with the expiration of the Patriot Act approaching and with efforts to reauthorize the Act once more intensifying, Wyden and fellow Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley sharply criticized the rush to pass the bill.

Wyden stated on the Senate floor that " The Patriot Act was passed a decade ago during a period of understandable fear.

" Wyden offered an amendment to reform the " business-records provision " of the Patriot Act, which he views as being used abusive and secret way.

In a May 2011 speech in the Senate, Wyden sharply criticized the use of Patriot Act, stating: " The fact is that anyone can read the plain text of the Patriot Act, and yet many members of Congress have no idea how the law is being secretly interpreted by the executive branch, because that interpretation is classified.

In 2006, Wyden informed Senate leadership that he would block legislation overturning the Death with Dignity Act.

On November 19, 2010, Wyden announced he would take the steps necessary to put a hold on The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act ( COICA ) so it is not enacted into law this year.

In June 2011, Wyden announced his " Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act " in partnership with Representative Jason Chaffetz ( R-Utah ).

On November 10, 2005, Wyden was one of five Senate Democrats who joined 44 Republicans in voting " yes " on Amendment no.

Wyden married his current wife, Nancy Wyden ( née Bass ), co-owner of New York's Strand Bookstore, on September 24, 2005.

Later that fall, Wyden easily defeated his Republican opponent, Darrell Conger, with 71 percent of the vote.

Wyden was elected to a full term in 1998 with 61 percent of the vote, and in 2004, was re-elected to another full term, receiving 64 % of the vote compared to 31 % for his main opponent, Republican Al King.

Wyden was among several moderate Democratic senators who in early January 2009 criticized President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus plan, calling for a greater emphasis on " tangible infrastructure investments " and warning that an effort had to be made to differentiate it from the Bush bailouts Wyden had opposed.

The 1998 Internet Tax Freedom Act was a United States law authored by Representative Christopher Cox and Senator Ron Wyden, and signed into law on October 21, 1998 by President Bill Clinton in an effort to promote and preserve the commercial, educational, and informational potential of the Internet.

In a government report released in December 2008, Inspector General Devaney called MacDonald's management " abrupt and abrasive, if not abusive ," and U. S. Senator Ron Wyden, who commissioned the report, attributed the " untold waste of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers ' dollars " to MacDonald's actions.

Wyden added, " While I continue to have concerns about ensuring that taxpayers are protected if this loan is to occur, I believe that if the President can unwisely provide $ 750 billion of taxpayer money for the investment banks who took horribly unacceptable risks and helped trigger an economic collapse, we certainly have a duty to attempt to preserve a cornerstone domestic industry and the jobs of hundreds of thousands of working people whose personal actions are in no way responsible for the current economic crisis.

U. S. Senator Ron Wyden, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests, attributed the " untold waste of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers ' dollars " to MacDonald's actions.