Representative Kevin Mannix Contact information

Kevin Leese Mannix was born on November 26, 1949, in New York City, U.S. He is an American politician, business attorney, and former chairman of the Republican Party in the U.S. state of Oregon. Mannix has served in both houses of the Oregon Legislative Assembly, as a Democrat and, later, a Republican.

Mannix earned a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts in 1971 from the University of Virginia. In 1974, he earned his J.D. degree from the University of Virginia School of Law. Prior to serving in the legislature, Mannix worked in several different capacities, including Assistant Attorney General of Oregon, Assistant Attorney General of Guam, and a law clerk to the Oregon Court of Appeals.

Mannix was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives five times beginning in 1988. From 1989 through 1996, Mannix served in the Oregon House of Representatives as a Democrat. In 1997, he became a Republican and was appointed to the Oregon State Senate. He was elected back into the Oregon House in November 1998 and served through 2000.

Mannix is a driving force behind the effort to get tougher sentences for criminals. In 1994, he authored Ballot Measure 11, which established mandatory minimum sentences for violent crimes, including murder, manslaughter, serious assault, kidnapping, rape, sodomy, unlawful sexual penetration, sexual abuse, and robbery.

Kevin is a practicing business law attorney and established the Mannix Law Firm in Salem, OR in 1986 where they represent small businesses, churches, private schools, and non-profit agencies. Kevin has been married to his wife Susanna for 48 years, and together they have three children and five grandchildren.

Kevin grew up in South America, living in Ecuador, Panama, and Bolivia while his father served in the Foreign Service. When Kevin arrived in Quito, Ecuador, at the age of five, he was placed in first grade at a Catholic school, with all classes in Spanish. Until grade four, Kevin experienced total immersion in education in Spanish. He developed a great sense of Latin American culture. He spent seven years of the next nine, growing up in Latin America.

Upon return to the US, Kevin attended high school at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia, during its first year of racial integration. The African American high school had been closed, and most of its students were transferred to Wakefield. Many social and community activities at the school were terminated. Over the next three years, Kevin exercised a leadership role in reestablishing the full range of student social and cultural activities in a fully integrated environment. His running mates for Sophomore Representative on Student Council were the first African Americans elected at Wakefield. Kevin went on to serve as Student Council Vice-President and President. During his presidency, the last major community activity which had been canceled because of integration - an outdoor fair known as Wakefield Day - was reestablished. This event had previously been sponsored by adults in the community, but the Student Council itself sponsored the reestablished Wakefield Day, and it was a great success - for all students.

Kevin entered the University of Virginia in the fall of 1967, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and his Juris Doctor Degree in May of 1974. While attending UV, Kevin met his wife, Susanna, who was studying for her Bachelor of Science in nursing. When Kevin asked Susanna to marry him, she said yes but told him that she had wanted to be a nurse since she was a little girl and he needed to respect that; she continues as a Registered Nurse to this day, always with Kevin’s full support. Kevin and Susanna were married in June of 1974. He and Susanna picked Oregon to become their home where they raised their three children: Nicholas, Gabriel and Emily.