Democratic U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer is increasingly confident that he made the correct decision as he gets ready to leave Congress after a five-decade political career.
The 76-year-old Portland native has never been a particularly ostentatious or well-known politician, but he is well-known in his home state and in Washington, D.C., for his attention on livability concerns and his bow tie and colorful bike button. In his final floor speech earlier this month, he acknowledged that while urging incoming members of Congress to find ways to collaborate, emphasizing the new bike lanes and a visa program he worked on.
“I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished, and my goal as a member of Congress was to leave this place a little better than I found it,” he said. These are items that you won’t see on MSNBC or Fox news. It won’t spread like wildfire on the internet. However, they are straightforward, commonsense attempts to unite individuals in order to address issues.
Since former Representative Peter DeFazio retired in 2023, Blumenauer has served as the dean and oldest member of Oregon’s congressional delegation. He told the Capital Chronicle that he “just sort of fell into politics.” He had the opportunity to spearhead Oregon’s push to lower the voting age to 19 while he was a junior at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, where he was studying political science.
Although the campaign was unsuccessful, states adopted the 26th Amendment a year later, bringing the national voting age down to 18. Additionally, it provided Blumenauer with the chance to speak before a U.S. Senate committee for the first time and meet with people throughout Oregon.
“I had a great time,” he stated. I had the impression that we were working on a significant project, and it naturally led to my service in the Legislature, which I have continued to do ever since. There was no plan.
At the age of 24, he was elected for the first time in 1972 to serve as Portland’s representative in the Legislature. He served on the Multnomah County Commission from 1979 to 1986, remained in the Legislature until 1979, and then campaigned for Congress in 1996 after serving on the Portland City Council from 1987 to 1996.
Blumenauer only lost two elections in his decades in politics: one for mayor of Portland in 1992 and another for the Portland City Council in 1981.
A different perspective from the previous year
Blumenauer stated last year that he was confident Democrats would retake the House and that it was more difficult for him to step away since he knew he could be chairman of a subcommittee of the Ways & Means Committee, which writes the budget.
However, Democrats lost. Republicans will begin 2025 with former President Donald Trump back in the White House, a three-seat Senate majority, and a five-seat U.S. House majority.
When asked what had changed from 2023 to 2024, Blumenauer joked that they had forgotten to be reelected. He went on to say that Republicans won because of a general amnesia regarding Trump’s first term.
Blumenauer stated, “People don’t remember how bad he left the country when he was no longer president.” They overlook our issues, the high unemployment rate, and the inflation rate. Due to incompetent response, the pandemic claimed more lives. Everyone has completely forgotten about that.
Although he stated that Biden was the most successful president during Blumenauer’s years in Washington, he still stands by his July decision to call for Biden to resign. Blumenauer claimed that Biden just lacked the time and energy to complete all of his campaign and presidential duties.
Blumenauer stated, “I think it’s important in politics to know when it’s time to move on.” Last October, I felt like I had done everything I could and that I could be more effective if I left Congress. I’m glad I made that decision. Since there is so much that has to be done, I believe that President Biden’s resignation was crucial.
With the exception of Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and Democratic Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, who will replace Blumenauer as dean of Oregon s congressional delegation, none of Oregon s congressional representatives have experience with a Trump presidency. Rep. Cliff Bentz, the only remaining Republican in the delegation, 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 s advising his Oregon colleagues and others to focus on issues where they can find bipartisan support.
I ve had success with Republican administrations and Republicans in Congress when we were in the minority by focusing on things that matter, he said. What we ve done in terms of transportation, health care, working on our initiatives with animal welfare, 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 said has become increasingly partisan and dysfunctional. In his telling, things started changing for the worse shortly before he arrived in D.C., with Republican Newt Gingrich s 1995 ascension to House speaker. Gingrich cut the congressional workweek from five days to three, sending lawmakers home to fundraise and campaign in their districts instead of fraternizing with colleagues, and he encouraged Republicans to stop being nice.
Social media made that trend worse, Blumenauer said, leading to representatives like Republicans Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz focusing solely on getting attention. The more outrageous their behavior, the more they re rewarded with campaign contributions and political support in lopsided districts, he said.
That is a fundamental difference in terms of how much social media and weaponizing the process has come to dominate, he said. A number of these people have nobody on their staff that works on policy. It s all about public relations and politics, and I think that s sad.
Blumenauer has spent his last few weeks in office wrapping up projects, writing exit memos and finding other members of Congress to continue advocating for his issues. He s pushing to accelerate dispersing federal funds for infrastructure, including Portland s 82nd Avenue transit project, and finding lawmakers to champion funding for public broadcasting and efforts to make banking available for marijuana-related businesses.
He said he s looking forward to no longer spending 14 hours each week on airplanes or in airports and to shifting his focus to a new faculty job at Portland State University s Institute for Metropolitan Studies.
We ve taken our projects and handed them off to other people, and every time I turn around, there s another group that s giving me a lifetime achievement award, Blumenauer said. Having made the decision last October that it just wasn t worth it to spend two more years of my life to try and be elected to a dysfunctional Congress and it just got weirder I couldn t feel better about the decision.
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