On the recordJune 21, 2018
I rise today to pay tribute to a man who was a loyal and diligent staffer on the Senate Finance Committee for nearly three decades--Mark Prater. Mark began as a tax counsel with the committee in January of 1990. During his 28-year tenure with the committee, Mark has been a shining example of a bipartisan policy staffer. He is a proud Portlander, where he graduated with his accounting degree from Portland State University. He went on to receive his law degree from Willamette University and then his LLM in taxation from the University of Florida. After practicing law for a few years in Portland, Mark thought he would take a 2-year break from practice to work in public service, but after he started working for his home State Senator, Bob Packwood, Mark became consumed by the work on the Finance Committee, which was easy to do but especially for somebody like Mark. This was a time when America had a Republican President and both the Senate and House were controlled by Democrats. Yet the tax staff, including a fresh-faced counsel from Oregon, found ways to get bills across the finish line. Some of those bills included significant budget and energy deals that helped jump-start the economy in the early 1990s. After a few years, Mark was promoted to chief tax counsel in October of 1993--a post that became synonymous with Mark Prater for nearly 25 years. In 2007, Mark was named deputy staff director of the Senate Finance Committee.…
