Bob Packwood | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Chair of theSenate Finance Committee | |
| In office January 3, 1995 – October 1, 1995 | |
| Preceded by | Daniel Patrick Moynihan |
| Succeeded by | William Roth |
| In office January 3, 1985 – January 3, 1987 | |
| Preceded by | Bob Dole |
| Succeeded by | Lloyd Bentsen |
| Chair of theSenate Commerce Committee | |
| In office January 3, 1981 – January 3, 1985 | |
| Preceded by | Howard Cannon |
| Succeeded by | John Danforth |
| United States Senator fromOregon | |
| In office January 3, 1969 – October 1, 1995 | |
| Preceded by | Wayne Morse |
| Succeeded by | Ron Wyden |
| Member of theOregon House of Representatives from the 6th district | |
| In office January 14, 1963 – January 3, 1969 | |
| Preceded by | Multi-member district |
| Succeeded by | Multi-member district |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Robert William Packwood (1932-09-11)September 11, 1932 (age 93) Portland, Oregon, U.S. |
| Party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | Willamette University (BA) New York University (JD) |
Packwood introducing an amendment to the Community Development Banking and Financial Institutions Act of 1994. Recorded March 16, 1994 | |
Robert William Packwood (born September 11, 1932) is an American retired lawyer and politician fromOregon who served as a member of theOregon House of Representatives representing the 6th district from 1963 to 1969 and as a member of theUnited States Senate from 1969 to 1995. He resigned from the U.S. Senate under threat ofexpulsion, in 1995 after allegations ofsexual harassment,sexual abuse, andassault of women emerged. He is a member of theRepublican Party.
Since the death ofFred R. Harris in November 2024, Packwood is the earliest-serving living U.S. senator, and is the last living former U.S. senator who assumed office in the 1960s. He is also the last living former U.S. senator who served during thepresidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.
Packwood was born to Frederick William and Gladys Dorothy (Taft) Packwood inPortland, Oregon, graduated from Grant High School in 1950, and in 1954 graduated fromWillamette University inSalem, Oregon.
Packwood is the great-grandson ofWilliam Packwood, the youngest member of theOregon Constitutional Convention of 1857.[1][2] Packwood had his great-grandfather's political bent from his early years. During his undergraduate years, he participated inYoung Republican activities and worked on political campaigns, including laterGovernor of Oregon and U.S. Senate memberMark Hatfield's first run for theOregon House of Representatives. He received theRoot-Tilden-Kern Scholarship toNew York University School of Law, where he earned national awards in moot court competition and was elected student body president.[3] After graduating from the NYU Law School in 1957, he was admitted to the bar and practiced law in Portland.
In 1960, he was elected Chairman of theMultnomah County, Oregon, Republican Central Committee, thus becoming the youngest party chairman of a major metropolitan area in the country.[4] In 1962, he became the youngest member of the Oregon Legislature[5] when he was elected to theOregon House of Representatives after a campaign waged by whatThe Oregonian called "one of the most effective working organizations in many an election moon in Oregon". Hundreds of volunteers went door-to-door, distributing leaflets throughout the district, and put up lawn signs that became "literally a geographical feature" of the district.[6] Because of the effectiveness of his own campaigns, Packwood was selected to organize a political action committee that recruited attractive Republican candidates for the Oregon House throughout the state,[3] and trained them in "Packwood-style" campaigning methods.[7][8] The success of his candidates was credited with the Republican takeover of the Oregon House, thus making Oregon the only state in the Union in which the Republicans were able to score a significant victory in 1964.[7][8][9]
Packwood was a member of theOregon House of Representatives from 1963 to 1968. In 1965, he founded the Dorchester Conference inSeaside, Oregon, an annual political conclave on the Oregon coast that "pointedly ignored state leadership in the Grand Old Party"[10] to bring Republican officeholders and citizens together, to discuss current issues and pass resolutions taking stands on those issues. Initially a forum for liberal politics, it has become an annual networking event for Oregon Republicans.
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In1968, Packwood was nominated to run for the U.S. Senate in Oregon as the Republican candidate againstDemocratic Party incumbentWayne Morse. Morse had been elected to the Senate as a Republican in1944 and1950, then switched parties due to his liberal views, and was easily re-elected as a Democrat in1956 and1962. The relatively unknown Packwood was given little chance, but after an 11th-hour debate with the incumbent before the City Club of Portland, which Packwood was generally considered to have won,[11] and a statewide recount in which over 100,000 ballots were challenged by both parties,[12] Packwood was declared the winner by 3,500 votes.[13] Packwood replaced U.S. Senate memberTed Kennedy fromMassachusetts as the youngest member of the U.S. Senate.[14] Packwood was re-elected in1974,1980,1986, and1992.
Packwood's voting record was moderate. He supported restrictions on gun owners and liberal civil rights legislation. Packwood voted in favor of thePassage of Martin Luther King Jr. Day establishingMartin Luther King Jr. Day as afederal holiday, and theCivil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 (as well as to overridePresident of the United StatesRonald Reagan's veto).[15][16][17]
Packwood differed with PresidentRichard Nixon on some significant issues. He voted against Nixon'sSupreme Court of the United States nomineesClement Haynsworth andG. Harrold Carswell,[18] as well as Nixon's proposals for theRockwell B-1 Lancer, submarines capable of carrying theTrident and theSupersonic transport (SST).[18] He became the first U.S. Senate Republican to support theImpeachment process against Richard Nixon, which was unsuccessful.[2] In a White House meeting on November 15, 1973, he told Nixon that the public no longer believed him, and no longer trusted the integrity of the administration.[19]
Two years before theRoe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court, Packwood introduced the Senate's first abortion legalization bill, but he was unable to attract a co-sponsor for it.[20] Hisabortion-rights movement stance earned him the loyalty of many feminist groups,[21] and numerous awards, including those from thePlanned Parenthood Federation of America (January 10, 1983) and theNational Women's Political Caucus (October 23, 1985). In 1987, Packwood crossedparty lines to vote against the nomination ofRobert Bork to the Supreme Court of the United States, and he was one of only two Republicans to vote against theClarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1991.[3] Both votes were based on the nominee's opposition to abortion rights.[3]
He played a major role in the enactment of theHells Canyon National Recreation Area Act,[22][failed verification] sponsoring a bill which protected scenicHells Canyon, the deepest river gorge in North America, by making it into a 652,488-acre (2,640.53 km2)National Recreation Area on the borders of northeastern Oregon and western Idaho.[23][24] Environmentalists also praised his advocacy of solar energy,container-deposit legislation, and bike paths.[18]
Deregulation was another interest of Packwood's. In the late 1970s, he became a passionate supporter of trucking deregulation, and a "persuasive spokesman" for reform.[25]
He has been described as an "ardent" pro-Israel supporter. He opposed a sale of F-15s to Saudi Arabia under President Reagan.[26]
He was most noted for his role in the 1986 tax reform, while he was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.[27] President Ronald Reagan had proposed the idea of tax reform in 1984, but Packwood's initial response was indifferent. However, he played a leading role in fashioning a tax code that would raise business taxes by some $120 billion over five years, and lower personal income taxes by roughly the same amount.[3]
Packwood's debating skills were rated A+ byUSA Today in the issue of July 18, 1986.[citation needed] But his debating and legislative skills could kill bills as well as pass them. His floor management has been credited with killing President Clinton's 1993 health care bill.[28] And he could be stubborn; in 1988, he was carried feet-first into the Senate Chamber by Capitol Police for aquorum call on campaign finance reform legislation.[29][30]
Packwood's political career began to unravel in November 1992, when aWashington Post story detailed claims of sexual abuse and assault from ten women, chiefly former staffers and lobbyists.[31] Publication of the story was delayed until after the1992 election, as Packwood had denied the allegations and thePost had not gathered enough information about the story at the time.[32][33] Packwood defeated the Democratic nominee, U.S. House of Representatives memberLes AuCoin, 52.1% to 46.5%–easily his closest race since his initial run for the seat a quarter-century earlier. Eventually, 19 women came forward.[34][35]
As the situation developed, Packwood's diary became an issue. Wrangling over whether the diary could be subpoenaed and whether it was protected by the protection ofFifth Amendment to the United States Constitution against self-incrimination ensued. He did divulge 5,000 pages to theUnited States Senate Select Committee on Ethics but balked when a further 3,200 pages were demanded by the committee. It was discovered that he had edited the diary, removing what were allegedly references to sexual encounters and the sexual abuse allegations made against him. Packwood then made what some of his colleagues interpreted as a threat to expose wrongdoing by other members of Congress. The diary allegedly detailed some of his abusive behavior toward women and, according to a press statement made byRichard Bryan, at that time serving as U.S. Senate member from Nevada, "raised questions about possible violations of one or more laws, including criminal laws".[36]
Despite pressure for open hearings from the public and from female U.S. Senate members, especiallyBarbara Boxer fromCalifornia, the Senate ultimately decided against them.[why?] The Ethics Committee's indictment, running to ten volumes and 10,145 pages, much of it from Packwood's own writings, according to a report inThe New York Times, detailed the sexual misconduct, obstruction of justice, and ethics charges being made against him.[37] The chairman of the Ethics Committee, Republican U.S. Senate memberMitch McConnell fromKentucky, referred to Packwood's "habitual pattern of aggressive, blatantly sexual advances, mostly directed at members of his own staff or others whose livelihoods were connected in some way to his power and authority as a Senator" and said Packwood's behavior included "deliberately altering and destroying relevant portions of his diary" that Packwood himself had described in the diary as "very incriminating information". On September 7, the committee unanimously recommended that Packwood beexpelled from the Senate.[37]
The following morning, the committee released its findings. With bipartisan pressure mounting, Packwood announced his resignation from the Senate, saying that he was "aware of the dishonor that has befallen me in the last three years" and his "duty to resign."[37] DemocraticUnited States House of Representatives memberRon Wyden won the seat in aspecial election.
After the sexual harassment case came to light, Packwood entered theHazelden Betty Ford Foundation clinic for alcoholism in Minnesota, blaming his drinking for the harassments.[38]
Four years later, during debate onImpeachment of Bill Clinton, McConnell said that the Republicans knew that it was very likely Packwood's seat would fall to the Democrats if Packwood were forced out. However, McConnell said, he and his fellow Republicans felt that it came down to a choice of "retain the Senate seat or retain our honor."[39]
Soon after leaving the Senate, Packwood founded the lobbying firm Sunrise Research Corporation. The former senator used his expertise in taxes and trade, and his status as a former Senate Finance Committee chairman, to land lucrative contracts with numerous clients, among them beingFreightliner Trucks,Marriott International, and the now-defunctNorthwest Airlines.[40] Among other projects, he played a key role in the 2001 fight to repeal theestate tax in the United States.[citation needed] In 2015, Packwood returned to the Senate as a witness for theUnited States Senate Committee on Finance, which was again considering tax reform. He and U.S. Senate memberBill Bradley fromNew Jersey spoke on theTax Reform Act of 1986.[41]
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Republican nominee forU.S. Senator fromOregon (Class 3) 1968,1974,1980,1986,1992 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chair of theNational Republican Senatorial Committee 1977–1979 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chair of theSenate Republican Conference 1979–1981 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chair of theNational Republican Senatorial Committee 1981–1983 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. Senator (Class 3) from Oregon 1969–1995 Served alongside:Mark Hatfield | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Ranking Member of theSenate Commerce Committee 1979–1981 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Howard Cannon | Chair of theSenate Commerce Committee 1981–1985 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chair of theSenate Finance Committee 1985–1987 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Co-Chair of the Senate Committee System Study Committee 1977 Served alongside:Adlai Stevenson III | Position abolished |
| Preceded by | Ranking Member of theSenate Finance Committee 1987–1995 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Daniel Patrick Moynihan | Chair of theSenate Finance Committee 1995 | Succeeded by |
| Honorary titles | ||
| Preceded by | Baby of the Senate 1969–1971 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Most senior living U.S. senator Sitting or Former 2024–present | Current holder |
| U.S. order of precedence (ceremonial) | ||
| Preceded byas Former U.S. Senator | Order of precedence of the United States as Former U.S. Senator | Succeeded byas Former U.S. Senator |
| Commerce and Manufactures (1816–1825) |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Commerce (1825–1947) | ||
| Interstate Commerce (1887–1947) | ||
| Interstate and Foreign Commerce/Commerce (1947–1977) | ||
| Commerce, Science, and Transportation (1977–present) | ||
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| Class 2 | | |
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| Class 3 | ||
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
