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As he prepares to retire from Congress after a 50-year career in politics, Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer is confident he made the right choice.
The 76-year-old Portlander is known in his home state and Washington, D.C., for his uniform of bow ties and brightly colored biker pins, and for his focus on livability issues, but he doesn’t seem particularly flashy. He was not a politician or a famous politician. he admitted that to himself final floor speech Earlier this month, he focused on new bike lanes and visa programs and urged new lawmakers to find ways to work together.
“My goal as a councilman was to leave this place a little better than I thought it would be, and I’m proud of what we accomplished,” he said. “These are things you won’t see on FOX or MSNBC News. They won’t blow up on the Internet. But they are simple, common sense efforts to bring people together to solve problems.”
Blumenauer has served as dean and oldest member of Oregon’s congressional delegation since former Rep. Peter DeFazio retired in 2023. “I kind of fell into politics,” he told the Capital Chronicle during his junior year studying political science at Lewis & Clark College. In Portland, I had the opportunity to lead Oregon’s effort to lower the voting age to 19.
The campaign was unsuccessful, but a year later states ratified the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, lowering the voting age nationwide to 18. And it gave Blumenauer the opportunity to meet with people from across Oregon and testify before a U.S. Senate committee for the first time.
“It was a lot of fun,” he said. “I felt like I was doing something important, and that led to my work in Congress, which I’ve been doing ever since. It wasn’t the plan.”
He was first elected to the Portland Assembly in 1972 at the age of 24. He remained in Congress until 1979, spent time on the Multnomah County Commission from 1979 to 1986, and served on the Portland City Council from 1987 to 1996. He ran for Congress.
In his decades as a politician, Mr. Blumenauer lost only two elections: 1981 for Portland City Council and 1992 for Portland Mayor.
A different outlook than last year
When he announced his decision to resign last year, Blumenauer said he was confident that Democrats would regain the House majority and was reluctant to resign after learning he could serve as subcommittee chairman of the Appropriations and Ways and Means Committee. He said it had become difficult.
But the Democrats did not win. Republicans will gain a majority of five seats in the House of Representatives, a majority of three seats in the Senate, and former President Donald Trump will return to the White House to start 2025.
Asked what changed between 2023 and 2024, Blumenauer joked that “they forgot they were going to get re-elected,” adding that “the collective memory of President Trump’s first term… “Loss” contributed to the Republican victory, he added.
“People don’t remember how badly he left the country when he was no longer president,” Blumenauer said. “They forget how high the unemployment rate was, the inflation rate, and the problems we had. In the pandemic, many more people died due to inappropriate behavior. I forgot.”
he stand-by In his July decision to ask President Joe Biden to step down, he also said that Biden was the most effective president during Blumenauer’s time in Washington. Blumenauer said Biden simply didn’t have the time or energy to do everything he needed to do as president and campaign.
“I think it’s important in politics to know when it’s time to move on,” Blumenauer said. “I said last October that I had done what I could and that I would actually be more productive if I left Congress, and I am very happy with that decision. I think it was important for President Biden to step back.”
With the exception of Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, and Democratic Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, who will replace Mr. Blumenauer as head of Oregon’s Congressional Delegation, no members of Oregon’s Congress I have no experience with President Trump. The only remaining Republican in the delegation, Rep. Cliff Benz, was elected in 2020. Democrats Val Hoyle and Andrea Salinas will be sworn in in 2022, and Democrats Janelle Bynum and Maxine Dexter, a former state representative who will replace Blumenauer, will take office in November.
focus on bipartisanship
Blumenauer said he is advising his colleagues in Oregon to focus on issues that have bipartisan support.
“I’ve had success in Republican administrations and when Republicans in Congress were in the minority by focusing on what’s important,” he said. “The things we’ve done in terms of transportation, health care, animal welfare efforts, rebuilding and rebuilding America are not so partisan. They bring people together, not divide them. .”
But he also says he has no regrets about leaving Congress, saying it has become increasingly partisan and dysfunctional. He said the situation began to deteriorate shortly before he arrived in Washington, D.C., after Republican Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House in 1995. Mr. Gingrich shortened the working hours of Congress from five to three days a week, sent members home instead of fraternizing with colleagues and sent them to fundraise and campaign in their districts, and encouraged Republicans to ” He encouraged them to stop trying to be nice.
Blumenauer said social media has exacerbated that trend, making Republicans like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz more focused on attracting attention. The more outrageous their actions, he said, the more likely they will be rewarded with campaign contributions and political support in polarized districts.
“That’s a fundamental difference in how much social media and the weaponization of that process has become dominant,” he says. “Many of these people don’t have anyone on staff who works on policy. It’s all about public relations and politics, and I think that’s sad.”
Mr. Blumenauer spent his final weeks in office finalizing projects, writing his exit memo, and finding other members to continue to advocate for his issues. He will speed up federal funding for infrastructure, including the 82nd Street Transit Project in Portland, and find lawmakers who support efforts to fund public broadcasting and make banks available for marijuana-related businesses. is being promoted.
He said he is looking forward to quitting spending 14 hours each week on planes and airports and shifting his focus to his new faculty job at Portland State University’s Metropolitan Institute.
“We’ve been passing our projects on to other people, and every time I turn around, another group is giving me a lifetime achievement award,” Blumenauer said. “I made the decision last October that it was not worth spending two more years of my life trying to get elected to a dysfunctional parliament, and this decision has only gotten stranger. I never felt better.”
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