Maverick Republican Sen. Bob Packwood of Oregon, who resigned after sexual harassment scandal, dies

PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) — Former Sen. Bob Packwood, a moderate Oregon Republican whose reputation as an abortion and women’s rights advocate was tarnished by sexual harassment allegations at the end of his career, has died. He was 93 years old.

Packwood’s death Saturday was announced by his family in an obituary sent to media outlets. Additional details were not included in the release.

Packwood was a political wrangler who for the first time refused to leave the council in which he served for 27 years, saying he did not want to be remembered solely for this controversy.

Before the #MeToo era, Packwood stood out as an example of private behavior that tarnishes a man’s public image. It has been praised by Planned Parenthood and others.

The grandson of a member of the 1857 Oregon Constitutional Convention, Packwood has established himself as a socially moderate and fiscal conservative who often votes across party lines. He considered running for president in 1980.

Elected to the Senate in 1968, Packwood was known as a leading Republican advocate for abortion rights and was widely admired by women’s groups across the country until the Senate Ethics Committee opened an investigation into allegations of sexual and official misconduct in 1993.

More than two dozen women, former employees and acquaintances, accused him of making unwanted or uninvited sexual advances.

The allegations remained the target of an ethics investigation, which was expanded to include other allegations of official misconduct. He resigned in September 1995 and then went to start a lucrative lobbying operation in Washington.

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, who replaced Packwood in 1996, said he should be praised for his achievements on abortion rights and tax reform, but how he treated women trumped everything.

“His horrific past, documented in his own diaries, will forever overshadow the public record. Simply put, historians’ first line about Bob Packwood should include the women he harassed and assaulted for years,” Wyden said in a statement.

Packwood, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and then ranking Republican, was an expert at making the deals and compromises needed to get tax legislation through Congress. He was most proud of the leading role he played in 1986’s sweeping tax reform, which lowered the top income tax bracket and eliminated many itemized deductions.

Throughout his career, he has been described as outspoken, independent, outspoken, a maverick, a boatman, a loose cannon, a skilled partisan and, above all, a political survivor.

“It probably all feels right,” Packwood told The Associated Press in December 1992.

“I would like to think that I am no one’s servant. I try to achieve results independently, and then I am ready to fight for those results, if necessary, against my party or the chairman of my party,” he said.

Packwood won his first Senate election at the age of 36, narrowly defeating Democratic Senator Wayne L. Morse, an Oregon legend who had held the seat for 23 years. He quickly gained attention as a rising star in the GOP. In 1980, he was elected chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

But he lost his seat after the White House backed an opponent after Packwood publicly accused President Ronald Reagan of alienating women, African Americans and Jews.

Just two weeks after Packwood was re-elected in 1992, The Washington Post published allegations from former female staffers and acquaintances that the senator had subjected them to uninvited sexual advances.

The Senate Ethics Committee also investigated allegations that Packwood solicited business from lobbyists for his ex-wife, used his staff to threaten female accusers to remain silent, and obstructed the investigation by altering his personal diaries.

The Senate held an extraordinary two-day debate in 1993 over whether Packwood would have to comply with an ethics committee subpoena for his diaries, which reportedly contained entries relevant to the investigation. The Senate voted 94-6 to enforce the subpoena.

Packwood took the case to the federal courts and lost; that case ended when Chief Justice William Rehnquist denied Packwood’s request for intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Packwood founded his lobbying business, Sunrise Research Corp., in 1997. By 1999 the company was grossing $1.5 million a year. His business slowed in later years, but in 2010 he told an audience at the Portland City Club that he still spent about half his time in Washington lobbying for a few clients.

According to The Oregonian, Packwood told the audience it was an interesting job but “not as fun as being in the Senate.”

As Congress became increasingly partisan following his departure, Packwood continued to advocate a centrist approach and called for Oregon to hold nonpartisan elections in a 2010 City Club speech.

Packwood’s wife, Elaine Franklin, was his former chief of staff who became a political consultant in Portland. The couple had homes in the Portland area and Washington.

In a November 2002 interview with the Salem Statesman Journal, Packwood said he was over the scandal that forced him out of office.

“People told me it was hard for me or that it seemed unfair,” she said. “But you can’t live the rest of your life and say, ‘Look what happened. Before long, you’ll become an annoyance to your friends.’

“I told myself I’m not old enough to retire, so I should hold on to life and not complain about it,” Packwood said.