Oregon Public Broadcasting

Senator Gordon Smith has fired a shot across the bow at his opponent for this fall's election. April Baer reports that during a speech Tuesday Smith took Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley to task for his leadership on health care.

Smith says Merkley dropped the ball last year. Congress had passed an expansion of the kids' health coverage known as S-CHIP. All that was needed, Smith says, was for the Oregon House Speaker to nail down matching money with a tobacco tax.

Gordon Smith:  "He had to find five Republicans to agree on some compromise to put a bill forward the governor could sign.  He wasn't able to do that."

Merkley says he was doing battle with well-heeled tobacco lobbyists.  And he says Smith could have been more helpful selling the plan to Republicans in Salem.

Jeff Merkley: "Gordon Smith flew into the state, made a big deal  out of supporting the plan I was championing, and proceeded to say he wasn't going to try to influence anyone to try to support it."

Neither man got what he wanted. Merkley was not able to get the Healthy Kids plan passed. And Smith's vote to expand S-CHIP was torpedoed by a presidential veto.