Bob Packwood, a former U.S. Senator from Oregon and a moderate Republican whose legacy as a champion for women’s rights was ultimately marred by sexual harassment allegations, has passed away at the age of 93.
His family announced his death on Saturday via an obituary sent to media outlets, though no further details were provided.
Throughout his 27-year tenure in the Senate, Packwood was known as a political fighter. Even as his career ended in scandal, he initially resisted resigning, expressing a desire not to be remembered solely for the controversy.
Long before the #MeToo movement, Packwood’s case served as a stark example of how private conduct could dismantle a public image. Once praised by organizations such as Planned Parenthood, the great-grandson of an 1857 Oregon Constitutional Convention member had built a reputation as a fiscal conservative and a social moderate who frequently voted across party lines. His political ambitions were such that he considered a presidential run in 1980.
Elected in 1968, Packwood became the leading Republican voice for abortion rights. However, his standing with women’s groups collapsed in 1993 when the Senate ethics committee launched an investigation into allegations of official and sexual misconduct. More than two dozen women, including former employees and acquaintances, accused him of making unwanted sexual advances.
The ethics investigation eventually expanded to include other acts of misconduct, leading to his resignation in September 1995. Following his departure from the Senate, he established a successful lobbying firm in Washington, D.C.
Senator Ron Wyden, the Democrat who succeeded Packwood in 1996, acknowledged the senator’s contributions to tax reform and abortion rights but insisted that his treatment of women defines his legacy.
“His horrible history as documented in his own diaries will forever overshadow that public record,” Wyden said in a statement. “Simply put, historians’ first line about Bob Packwood must include those women who he abused and assaulted for years and years.”
During his time as chair and ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Packwood was regarded as a master negotiator. He took immense pride in his central role in the 1986 tax reform, which lowered the top income tax bracket and eliminated various itemized deductions.
Over the decades, he was described as an independent, blunt, and outspoken “maverick”—a political survivor who was as comfortable as a “loose cannon” as he was as a skilled partisan.
“I think they probably all ring true,” Packwood told the Associated Press in December 1992. “I would like to think that I am nobody’s lackey. I try to reach conclusions independently and then I’m willing to fight for those conclusions; if necessary, having to fight against my party or my party’s president.”
In later years, as political polarization grew, Packwood continued to advocate for centrism, calling for the implementation of nonpartisan elections in Oregon during a 2010 speech at the City Club of Portland.
Packwood was married to Elaine Franklin, his former chief of staff and a political consultant in Portland. The couple maintained residences in both Washington and the Portland area.
In a 2002 interview with the Salem Statesman Journal, Packwood claimed to have moved past the scandal that ended his political career.
“People have told me it must have been tough on me, or it seems unfair,” he said. “But you cannot go through the rest of life and say look what happened. Pretty soon you become a bore to your friends. I told myself I was not old enough to retire, so I have got to get at life and not complain about it.”