PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Oregon's Democrats pulled off a takeover of the state's political power centers in 2006, led by Gov. Ted Kulongoski's decisive re-election to a second term, but the year truly belonged to Mother Nature, from the long, hot summer that saw a rash of drownings to the late fall storms that claimed the lives of families, fishermen and mountain climbers alike.

The year was punctuated by flooding and mudslides, and high snowpack levels across the Cascade mountains - a bonanza for the skiing and snowboarding industries, but trouble for low-lying valley and coastal counties where rivers spilled over their natural borders. By July, the heat had set in to stay, and more than two dozen people would eventually drown while kayaking, rafting and swimming in Oregon's churning rivers and tranquil lakes.

And as December arrived, so did the winter weather, whipping up ocean waves that killed four crabbers trying to cross the bar at Gold Beach in December. The same storms trapped a San Francisco family for days in the mountains of Southern Oregon, where they kept their two young daughters alive on berries, crackers and breast milk, and burned their tires for precious warmth. Days later, three adventurous climbers were stranded atop Mount Hood, setting off a rescue operation that made international headlines.

Both those stories ended tragically: Though Kati Kim and her two daughters were rescued, husband and father James Kim, who'd set off to look for help, was not so lucky; searchers found his body in a creek, dead of hypothermia. Up on Mount Hood, searchers found the body of Texas climber Kelly James, but his two companions, Brooklyn resident Jerry Cooke and Texan Brian Hall, are still missing, presumed dead on the mountain.

The Kim family's story, in particular, has sparked calls for reforms to Oregon's rural search and rescue procedures, an issue that's sure to surface in 2007 when legislators convene for a biannual session in Salem where Democrats will control the House, the Senate and the governor's office for the first time in 16 years.

Buoyed by national distaste for Congressional Republicans and the Bush administration, Kulongoski easily fended off challenger Ron Saxton in a race that broke state gubernatorial spending records, costing the two a combined $14.7 million. Democrats, too, took control of the state House of Representatives after a long power drought in the chamber, and political trends in the state seemed to be swinging in their favor, from the bellwether suburban counties that voted Democratic in 2006 to the government-limiting ballot measures that went down to defeat.

Democrats are gleefully looking ahead to 2008, when U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, the state's only Republican to be elected statewide, is up for re-election. His future challenger isn't clear yet, but Smith, too, seems to be gearing up, recently delivering a tirade against the Iraq war on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Now that the Democrats are in charge in Oregon, they'll have to grapple with plenty of fallout from 2006, from the June announcement of a federal investigation into whether Oregon is violating the constitutional rights of patients at the state mental hospital in Salem to tough new high school graduation requirements in English, math and science that are under consideration by the state Board of Education.

Some things, though, may be beyond even their newly empowered reach - Mother Nature's influence again - like the dead zone that reappeared off the Oregon Coast last summer, spreading over an area larger than Rhode Island, lasting 17 weeks and leaving the ocean bottom littered with dead crabs, sea stars and sea anemones.

Politicians also struggled in 2006 to help coastal fishermen, after the commercial salmon season was drastically curtailed in order to protect shrinking returns of wild chinook to the Klamath River in Northern California.

And a federal bill to expand the Mount Hood wilderness bill died in the waning days of Congress this year, though its sponsors hope to revive it in 2007. Congress also failed to reauthorize millions of dollars in payments to counties where timber growing on federal lands was once harvested in abundance, a serious blow to Oregon communities that depend on the money to pay for roads and schools.

Many of Oregon's signature battles, though, were fought in a courtroom in 2006, highlighted by the Supreme Court's January decision in favor of the state's unique assisted suicide law, and capped off with arguments in front of the nation's highest court in October over a closely watched Oregon case that allowed a $79.5 million verdict against a cigarette company.

A decision in that case isn't due until 2007, but several other Oregon cases came to a head this year, including a $75 million settlement in lawsuits filed by more than 150 people against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland over alleged molestations by priests, and guilty pleas from 12 people involved in setting fires as part of a widespread ecoterrorism campaign between 1996 and 2001.

Elsewhere, Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield, one of 2004's most recognizable faces after the FBI mistakenly arrested him on suspicion of involvement in the terrorist bombings in Madrid, resurfaced in 2006, with a $2 million settlement of the lawsuit he'd filed against the federal government.

Mayfield's challenge to the anti-terror USA Patriot Act is ongoing, as is a lawsuit filed in 2006 by a defunct Islamic charity, once based in Ashland, that has challenged the federal warrantless eavesdropping program.

Some differences this year were settled outside the courtroom. Former Nike CEO William Perez and the Beaverton-based sneaker giant parted ways in January, a leave-taking that was chalked up to differences with company founder Phil Knight. Perez was replaced by longtime Nike insider Mark Parker, as Oregon's only Fortune 500 company faced new competition from the January merger between No. 2 Adidas and No. 3 Reebok.

Though unemployment numbers stayed relatively steady in Oregon this year, ending the year at about 5.3 percent, the state's largest private employer, Intel, has trimmed nearly 5 percent of its work force since July, down from about 17,200, in keeping with international cutbacks for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company.

Still, the state's economic forecasts, on which the state budget is based, just kept getting rosier in 2006: the most recent, from November, called for continued growth in capital gains, corporate profits and other business and real estate proceeds. All that growth means that Oregonians will likely get more than $1 billion worth of income tax refund checks late in 2007, or $272 for the average household.

Finally, no story about 2006 can be complete without mention of the 18 men with Oregon ties who died while serving in either Iraq or Afghanistan. They came from cities and towns, from Portland and Pendleton, Scio and The Dalles, Roseburg and Madras, and ranged in age from 20 to 43.

At the funeral for Pfc. Thomas Tucker of Madras, who was mutilated and slain after being kidnapped at a checkpoint near Youssifiyah in June, Kulongoski could have been speaking of them all when he said of Tucker, "We will never forget who he was, what he did, or the love of country that led him from...Iraq to immortality." 

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)