Grave Decisions

[September 19th, 2007] U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) and one of the Democrats hoping to unseat him, Steve Novick, stand apart on issues from the withdrawal of troops in Iraq to health care.

Smith is a prosperous and good-looking businessman born into the Udall political family, a Western version of the Kennedys. Novick, who’s running in the Democratic primary next May against House Speaker Jeff Merkley, is a policy wonk raised by a waitress and a union organizer.

But Smith and Novick share one anguishing piece of history, one that voters won’t hear from Novick: Each has lost a family member under heartbreaking circumstances.

Four years ago, Smith’s eldest son, Garrett Smith, who was then about to turn 22, killed himself after suffering for years from debilitating depression. Four months ago, WW has learned, Novick’s 30-year-old brother, Mischa Novick, died from what family members call an accidental overdose of painkillers. They say he had experienced severe back pain, which he had tried to treat with medication.

Smith talks about his personal tragedy—to diminish stigma around mental illness and to raise funding and awareness. Novick, however, won’t.

The personal lives of candidates are political (as evidenced by the City Hall story on page 7), even when they don’t want them to be, says Bill Lunch, a political-science professor at Oregon State University. “That has become a feature of our political life,” Lunch says.

Smith and his family decided immediately to share the information that Garrett had committed suicide, according to news reports from 2003 and Smith’s book Remembering Garrett: One Family’s Battle with a Child’s Depression . The book, published in 2006, is a 208-page account of Smith’s political career and his son, leading up to Garrett’s death in Utah. In 2005, suicide was the second leading cause of death among Oregon youth ages 10 to 24, after motor-vehicle crashes.

“While it was a private loss, I was a public person and owed the public an honest explanation of what had happened,” Smith said Tuesday.

Novick, until questioned by WW about his brother’s death in May, hadn’t spoken publicly about the tragedy. He says he has no reason to believe it was a suicide. Beyond that, he’s not interested in talking about it for fear of accusations that he’d be exploiting his family’s misfortune—à la presidential candidate John Edwards, who’s been blasted by Ann Coulter for telling stories about his dead son on the campaign trail. “I don’t like the idea of talking about my brother as an addendum to my campaign,” Novick says.

Last week marked National Suicide Prevention Week, which began on what would have been Garrett Smith’s 26th birthday. Leading up to that, Sen. Smith was working to promote children’s access to mental health care in the Senate version of a bill to expand medical coverage for kids.

“As I learned more about what had affected our family, I have come to understand that it affects many, if not most, families to one degree or another,” Smith says. “By being in the place where I am, I can have a voice to help end the stigma surrounding mental-health issues and bring the terrible reality of suicide out into the light of day and give other families knowledge and comfort.”

Smith’s mission, to increase funding for suicide prevention and reduce stigma around depression and mental illness, isn’t something his son envisioned. “In writing this book, in becoming a soldier in the battle against youth suicide, I am violating the last thing Garrett asked of me. He wrote in his suicide note, ‘Put me in the ground and forget about me,’” Smith writes in Remembering Garrett . “Forgive me, son, but I cannot forget about you.”

Novick doesn’t criticize Smith for how he’s handled his son’s suicide. Smith says he’s prepared to handle other people’s criticism that he may exploit his son’s death.

Novick won’t be making any link between his brother, a union organizer, and his support for labor causes such as the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill before Congress that would strengthen workers’ rights when it comes to forming unions.

“I hate the idea of his life and death becoming a footnote to my political career,” Novick says.

If you’re contemplating suicide, call 1-800-273-TALK.