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As he prepares to leave Congress after a five-decade political career, Democratic U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer is increasingly certain he made the right choice.
The 76-year-old Portlander, known in his home state and in Washington, D.C., for his uniform of a brightly colored bow tie and bike pin and for his attention to livability issues, n has never been a particularly flashy or famous politician. He recognized that in his final speech earlier this month, highlighting new bike lanes and a visa program he has worked on, while urging new members of Congress to find ways to work together.
“My goal as a member of Congress was to leave this place a little better than I found it, and I’m proud of what we did,” he said. “These are things you won’t see on Fox or MSNBC news. This is not going to explode on the Internet. But these are simple, common-sense efforts to bring people together to solve problems.
Blumenauer is the dean and oldest member of Oregon’s congressional delegation since former Rep. Peter DeFazio retired in 2023. He told the Capital Chronicle that he “kind of fell into politics”: while studying political science at Lewis & Clark College. in Portland, he had the chance to lead Oregon’s efforts to lower the voting age to 19.
This campaign was unsuccessful, but a year later the states ratified the 26th Amendment, lowering the voting age nationwide to 18. And it gave Blumenauer the opportunity to meet people across Oregon and testify for the first time before a U.S. Senate committee.
“I had a lot of fun,” he said. “I felt like we were doing something important, and that kind of led us to service in the Legislature, and I’ve been doing that ever since.” It wasn’t a plan.
He won his first election to represent Portland in the Legislature, at the age of 24 in 1972. He remained in the Legislature until 1979, spending 1979 to 1986 on the Multnomah County Commission and served on the Portland City Council from 1987 until 1996, when he ran for Congress.
During his decades in politics, Blumenauer lost only two elections: a 1981 campaign for Portland City Council and a 1992 campaign for Portland mayor.
Different perspectives last year
When he announced his decision to step down last year, Blumenauer said he was certain Democrats would regain control of the House and that knowing he could chair a subcommittee of the committee of Ways and Means responsible for drafting the budget made his departure more difficult.
But the Democrats didn’t win: Republicans will begin 2025 with a five-seat majority in the House of Representatives, a three-seat majority in the Senate and former President Donald Trump back in the White House.
“They forgot about getting re-elected,” Blumenauer joked when asked what changed between 2023 and 2024. He added that “collective amnesia” around Trump’s first term helped Republicans win .
“People don’t remember how much he left the country when he was no longer president,” Blumenauer said. “They forget how high the unemployment rate was, the inflation rate, the problems we had. More people have died from the pandemic because of inept actions. People have forgotten everything. »
He stands ready his July decision to call on President Joe Biden to step down, although he also said Biden was the most effective president during Blumenauer’s years in Washington. Biden simply didn’t have the time or energy to do everything he needed to do as president and campaign, Blumenauer said.
“I think it’s important in politics to know when it’s time to move on,” Blumenauer said. “I felt that last October I had done what I could do and that I could be more productive by leaving Congress, and I feel very good about that decision.” I think it was important for President Biden to step down because there is so much that needs to be done.”
With the exception of Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and Democratic Representative Suzanne Bonamici, who will replace Blumenauer as the oldest member of Oregon’s congressional delegation, none of Oregon’s congressional representatives have l experience of a Trump presidency. Rep. Cliff Bentz, the delegation’s only remaining Republican, was elected in 2020; Democrats Val Hoyle and Andrea Salinas in 2022 and Democrats Janelle Bynum and Maxine Dexter — the former state representative who will replace Blumenauer — in November.
Focus on bipartisanship
Blumenauer said he advises his colleagues in Oregon and others to focus on issues where they can find bipartisan support.
“I had success with Republican administrations and Republicans in Congress when we were in the minority by focusing on the things that matter,” he said. “What we’ve done in terms of transportation, in health care, in working on our animal welfare initiatives, in rebuilding and renewing America, these are things that are not intensely partisan. They bring people together rather than divide them.
But he also doesn’t regret leaving Congress, which he says has become increasingly partisan and dysfunctional. He said things began to get worse shortly before he arrived in Washington, with Republican Newt Gingrich becoming Speaker of the House in 1995. Gingrich reduced the congressional work week from five to three days, sending lawmakers home to raise money and campaign in their districts instead of fraternizing with their colleagues, and he encouraged Republicans to stop being “nice.”
Social media has made this trend worse, Blumenauer said, leading representatives like Republicans Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz to focus solely on attention. The more scandalous their behavior, the more they are rewarded with campaign contributions and political support in lopsided districts, he said.
“It’s a fundamental difference in terms of the domination of social media and the weaponization of the process,” he said. “A number of these people don’t have anyone on staff who works on policy. It’s all about PR and politics, and I find that sad.”
Blumenauer spent his final weeks in office wrapping up projects, writing exit memos and finding other members of Congress to continue pushing his causes. He is pushing to speed up the distribution of federal funds for infrastructure, including Portland’s 82nd Avenue transit project, and finding lawmakers to defend funding for public broadcasting and efforts to make banking services accessible to marijuana-related businesses.
He said he’s looking forward to moving away from spending 14 hours a week on planes or in airports and focusing on a new professorship at Portland State University’s Institute for Metropolitan Studies.
“We’ve given our projects to other people, and every time I turn around, there’s another group giving me a lifetime achievement award,” Blumenauer said. “After I made the decision last October that it just wasn’t worth spending two more years of my life trying to get elected to a dysfunctional Congress – and it got even stranger – I couldn’t I don’t feel any better about this decision.”
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