We wuz robbed.
I first moved to Eugene in 1980. I’d lived in Salem Oregon for 4 years before that. I was pretty impressed with the politicians of the time. Tom McCall, a Republican Governor, had passed a bunch of progressive land use laws to prevent over-development. He liked tourists but encouraged them to go home.
Wayne Morse preceded him in politics, a Republican who switched to Independent when Ike chose Nixon as his running mate then to Democrat in the mid-1950s. He’d ultimately become best known for being one of only two Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that permitted LBJ to wage war in Vietnam. Another Senator - Mark Hatfield - was such a dove that he voted against every military budget resolution throughout his Senate career.
The environment and peace were big in Oregon upon my arrival. When I reached Eugene in 1980, another cantankerous soul was US Rep Jim Weaver- (D) who was busy trying to get local utility companies out of agreements with the WPPSS nuclear power plant due to cost overruns plus a dislike of nuclear power in general.
Weaver had two aides working on that, Cynthia Wooten and Peter DeFazio. I was a food stamp worker, attending community college at night. I was on the student council as well and came up with a plan to have a Peace Day with several guest speakers, since the anti-nuke movement was huge at the time. One of the speakers I invited was DeFazio, who had just succeeded Weaver in the US House.
This district is a challenge to navigate for a politician. It’s the size of Connecticut, contains two liberal college cities (Eugene and Corvallis) but the rest of the county is filled with conservatives, many of them families of loggers and millworkers.
DeFazio managed to represent both sides extremely well for 36 years, retiring last month. Wikipedia includes this about him though he’s been far more effective than most of those peers in getting things passed:
DeFazio has a progressive voting record. In 1992, he co-founded the Congressional Progressive Caucus with Bernie Sanders, Ron Dellums, Lane Evans, Thomas Andrews, and Maxine Waters, and was its chair from 2003 to 2005. During the 1999 World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, DeFazio marched with protesters who opposed the WTO's new economic globalization policies
Our local paper did a great piece about his career. It’s not a short read but I recommend it highly. This is how good government is supposed to work and with all the polarized dysfunction in our current government, I think you’ll find his stories refreshing.
It just seems appropriate to add this because he was noteworthy for getting his audiences to sing along, no matter their political beliefs. And once together in song, he found them more receptive to actual discussion and cooperation.
What beautiful photos! We were certainly robbed of many more. 😢
My brother has lived in OR for over 30 years . He is an old hippie /poet who loves the outdoors. But he told me recently that the state he moved to in order to avoid the John birch society of his home in socal has swung to the right . He lived in Corvallis , Salem , and Bend . Pete Seeger is a personal hero for both of us .