Bob Packwood

Robert William Packwood was born on September 11, 1932, in Portland, Oregon, to Frederick William Packwood and Gladys Taft. His father worked in and around the Oregon Legislature (OPB describes him as a tax analyst there, and other accounts as a utilities lobbyist). The family had deep roots in state history: his great-grandfather William Packwood was the youngest delegate to the Oregon Constitutional Convention of 1857, and Packwood later recalled that he had a hand in the state seal. Packwood grew up in Portland and graduated from Grant High School.

Packwood attended the California Institute of Technology before transferring to Willamette University in Salem, where he graduated with a political science degree in 1954. At Willamette he was active in the Young Republicans and worked on Mark Hatfield's first campaign for the Oregon House; Hatfield had been one of his professors. He then received a Root-Tilden scholarship to New York University School of Law, won national moot court awards, was elected student body president, and earned his law degree in 1957.

Packwood returned to Portland to practice law and quickly rose in Republican politics. In 1960 he became chairman of the Multnomah County Republican Central Committee, the youngest party chairman of a major metropolitan area in the country. In 1962 he was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives, its youngest member, after a volunteer-driven campaign that The Oregonian called one of the most effective in years. He served in the Oregon House from 1963 to 1969 and organized efforts to recruit Republican legislative candidates statewide. He also founded the Dorchester Conference, an annual Oregon Republican gathering.

In 1968 he unseated Democratic Senator Wayne Morse after a recount, winning by about 3,500 votes and becoming the youngest member of the U.S. Senate. He took office on January 3, 1969, and was re-elected in 1974, 1980, 1986 and 1992. He chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee (1977 to 1979 and 1981 to 1983), the Senate Republican Conference (1979 to 1981), the Senate Commerce Committee (1981 to 1985), and the Senate Finance Committee (1985 to 1987 and again in 1995).

As Finance chairman he shepherded the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which lowered individual tax rates and broadened the tax base by closing loopholes and raising business taxes. He later said the key compromises were struck quietly in a back room before formal sessions. The committee approved the bill unanimously, and President Reagan signed it in October 1986.

Other positions included early support for Nixon's impeachment in 1974, the Senate's first abortion legalization bill around 1970, votes against the Haynsworth, Carswell, Bork and Thomas Supreme Court nominations, support for civil rights legislation, trucking deregulation, opposition to F-15 sales to Saudi Arabia, and environmental work on Hells Canyon and the Columbia River Gorge. In 1993 and 1994 his floor management is credited with helping defeat President Clinton's health care bill.

After resigning in 1995 he founded the lobbying firm Sunrise Research Corporation, earning more than $440,000 in 1998 from clients such as Freightliner Trucks, Marriott International and Northwest Airlines. In 2015 he testified before the Senate Finance Committee with former senator Bill Bradley on the 1986 tax reform.

In 1964 Packwood married Georgie Ann Oberteuffer (also known as Georgie Oberteuffer Crockatt). The couple adopted two children, William (Bill) and Shyla. They divorced in 1991, and Georgie died in 2025. In 1998 Packwood married Elaine Franklin, his former Senate chief of staff, who had defended him during the misconduct inquiry. Her sons Simon and Jonathan became his stepsons. Packwood was a Unitarian Universalist. In later years he and Elaine lived in Lake Oswego, Oregon, after he sold his home in the Dunthorpe area, and they often spent time in Rancho Mirage, California. During the scandal he entered treatment for alcoholism and attributed some of his conduct to drinking.

Packwood was a moderate Republican who often broke with his party. He was the leading Republican advocate of abortion rights for two decades, explaining that women volunteers on his early campaigns had described how brutal and unsafe illegal abortion was. He supported civil rights laws, gun restrictions, trucking deregulation, solar energy, bottle deposit laws and bike paths, and was a strong supporter of Israel. He described himself as a believer in bipartisan dealmaking and, in a 2015 City Club of Portland talk, reflected on the decline of compromise in Congress. Critics, including journalist Steve Duin, argued that some of his independent stands were also shrewd political and fundraising strategy, and noted that before the 1992 race he shifted toward timber interests against environmental groups he had once helped.

In November 1992, shortly after his narrow re-election, The Washington Post published allegations from ten women, mainly former staff members and lobbyists, describing forcible kissing, groping and other sexual advances going back to his first year in the Senate. The Post had delayed publication until after the election because Packwood denied the claims. Eventually around 20 or more women came forward; The New York Times described more than 20.

The Senate Ethics Committee opened an inquiry that turned on Packwood's personal diaries. He provided thousands of pages but resisted further demands; the full Senate voted 94 to 6 in 1993 to enforce a subpoena, and courts ordered the diaries produced after Chief Justice William Rehnquist declined to intervene in March 1994. Investigators found that he had altered diary tapes and transcripts after the inquiry began. On September 6, 1995, the committee unanimously recommended his expulsion, citing a pattern of sexual misconduct, obstruction of the inquiry, and an effort to enhance his personal finances by seeking favors (including a job for his then wife) from people with interests before him. Chairman Mitch McConnell described a habitual pattern of aggressive, blatantly sexual advances directed mostly at people whose livelihoods depended on him. Packwood announced his resignation on September 7, 1995, and set it to take effect on October 1, 1995.

In a 2013 interview with OPB, Packwood said that in most cases he could not remember the women or the incidents. Accusers including Julie Williamson and Lauri Hennessey said he never truly apologized for the harm he caused.

Packwood remains one of the most consequential and most contested figures in Oregon political history. He is credited with the Tax Reform Act of 1986, a landmark of bipartisan legislating, with early and persistent Republican support for abortion rights, and with protections for Hells Canyon and the Columbia River Gorge. The Dorchester Conference he founded remains a fixture of Oregon Republican politics, and his papers are held in the Packwood Archives at Willamette University.

His resignation became a turning point in how Congress handled sexual harassment, coming in the wake of the Anita Hill hearings. When he died, his successor Senator Ron Wyden said that the first sentence historians write about Packwood must include the women he abused and assaulted for years. From 2024 until his death he was the most senior living former U.S. senator.

Packwood received recognition from abortion rights and women's groups before the scandal, including honors from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (January 10, 1983) and the National Women's Political Caucus (October 23, 1985). As a law student he won national moot court awards. Environmental groups praised his role in creating the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area.

The scandal made Packwood a frequent target of late-night television, including David Letterman's comedy bits about him. His story was revisited after his death in the OPB podcast episode "The messy legacy of Bob Packwood". Earlier interviews include a 2007 oral history about Bob Dole for the Dole Archive and a 2015 City Club of Portland talk on partisanship. The 1986 tax fight was chronicled in the PBS Frontline documentary "Taxes Behind Closed Doors" and in the book Showdown at Gucci Gulch by Jeffrey Birnbaum and Alan Murray.

Bob Packwood died on Saturday, June 6, 2026, at a residential care facility in Rancho Mirage, California, at the age of 93. The Oregonian reported the time of death as 12:45 p.m. A family spokesperson said he died of natural causes. His wife Elaine Franklin announced the news, saying: "He touched many lives and leaves behind a lasting legacy of public service. He will be deeply missed." He was survived by his wife, his children William Packwood and Shyla, two stepsons, Simon and Jonathan, and three grandchildren. The family asked that memorial donations go to Lakewood Center for the Arts and the Packwood Archives at Willamette University. Burial or memorial service details were not made public.