Bob Packwood - U.S. Senator

U.S. Senator

In 1968, Packwood won the Republican nomination to run for the U.S. Senate against Democrat Wayne Morse. Morse had been elected to the Senate as a Republican in 1944 and 1950, then switched parties due to his liberal views, and was easily reelected as a Democrat in 1956 and 1962. The relatively unknown Packwood was given little chance, but after an 11th-hour debate with the incumbent, which Packwood was generally considered to have won, and a statewide recount in which over 100,000 ballots were challenged by both parties, Packwood was declared the winner by 3500 votes. He then replaced Senator Ted Kennedy as the youngest senator. Packwood was reelected in 1974, 1980, 1986, and 1992. He became “one of the country’s most powerful elected officials”. His voting record was moderate. He supported restrictions on gun owners and liberal civil rights legislation.

Two years before Roe v. Wade he introduced the Senate's first abortion legalization bill, but he was unable to attract a cosponsor for either. His pro-choice stance earned him the loyalty of many feminist groups and numerous awards including those from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (January 10, 1983) and the National Women’s Political Caucus (October 23, 1985). In 1987, Packwood crossed party lines to vote against the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, and he was one of only two Republicans to vote against the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the court. Both votes were based on the nominee's opposition to abortion rights.

Packwood differed with President Richard M. Nixon on some prominent issues. He voted against Nixon’s Supreme Court nominees Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell, “two of Nixon’s most embarrassing defeats,” as well as Nixon’s proposals for the B-1 bomber, submarines capable of carrying the Trident missile and the supersonic transport (SST). He became the first Senate Republican to support Nixon’s impeachment. In a White House meeting of November 15, 1973, he told President Nixon that the public no longer believed the President and no longer trusted the integrity of the administration.

He played a major role in the enactment of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area Act, which protected scenic Hells 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. Packwood sponsored the bill, and was credited with becoming “a genuine leader in the preservation battle” in Congress and in the end, second only to the idea’s originator “the single most important individual in the history of Hells Canyon preservation”. Environmentalists also praised his advocacy of solar energy, returnable bottles and bike paths.

Deregulation was another interest. In the late 1970s he became a passionate supporter of trucking deregulation and a “persuasive spokesman for reform.” When deregulation became law, “newspaper editorials praised Packwood for his pivotal role in the deregulation battle.”

He has been described as an ardent pro-Israel supporter. He, along with Tom Dine, opposed the F-15 sale to the Saudis under President Reagan.

He was most noted for his role in the 1986 “unlikely triumph of tax reform” while he was chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee. President Ronald Reagan had proposed the idea of tax reform in 1984, but Packwood's initial response was indifference. However, he played a leading role in fashioning "a radically new tax code that will raise business taxes by some $120 billion over five years—and lower personal income taxes by roughly the same amount." Historians of the Act have written that his turnaround “revived the dying tax reform bill”, and credited his “ingenuity and astonishing legislative skill” with passage of the law, which “despite its warts and wrinkles…succeeded at the fundamental purpose of reform.” Packwood’s debating skills were rated A+ in USA Today, July 18, 1986. But his debating and legislative skills could kill bills as well as pass them. His “masterful” floor management has been credited with killing President Clinton’s 1993 health care bill. And he could be stubborn; in 1988 he was carried feet-first into the Senate Chamber by Capitol Police for a quorum call on campaign finance reform legislation.