Bob Packwood is dead. The former Oregon senator, a Republican who spent decades playing both sides of the aisle before his career imploded in a spectacular mess of sexual harassment allegations, passed away at 93. His family announced the death on Saturday. They skipped the details.
He was a political street fighter. For 27 years, Packwood ruled the Senate as a rare breed: a social liberal who championed abortion rights and a fiscal hawk who hated taxes. Then the floor fell out. Long before the #MeToo movement had a name, Packwood became the poster boy for powerful men behaving badly behind closed doors.
The fall was steep. In 1993, the Senate Ethics Committee started digging. More than two dozen women—former staffers and acquaintances—accused him of unwanted, aggressive sexual advances. He fought back. He refused to quit. But the pressure cooked him. By September 1995, he resigned in disgrace.
“His horrible history as documented in his own diaries will forever overshadow that public record,” said Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, the man who took Packwood’s seat in 1996. Wyden didn’t mince words. He insisted that any history of Packwood must lead with the women he abused and assaulted for years.
It was a grim end for a man who once seemed untouchable. Born into Oregon political royalty—his great-grandfather helped write the state’s constitution—Packwood entered the Senate in 1968 by knocking off Wayne Morse, a local legend. He was only 36. He was a maverick. He ran the National Republican Senatorial Committee until he publicly insulted Ronald Reagan for alienating minorities and women, losing his leadership post in the fallout.
But Packwood knew how to cut a deal. As head of the Senate Finance Committee, he brokered the massive 1986 tax overhaul, slashing top rates and killing loopholes. He was proud of that. He was also proud of his independent streak. He called himself nobody’s lackey.
Then came the diaries. When investigators demanded his personal journals, Packwood fought all the way to the Supreme Court. He lost. Chief Justice William Rehnquist refused to step in. The diaries reportedly detailed not just the harassment, but attempts to bully accusers and solicit jobs for his ex-wife from lobbyists.
He didn’t stay down long. Washington always welcomes back its disgraced sons if they know how the machine works. In 1997, Packwood launched Sunrise Research Corp., a lobbying firm that quickly started pulling in $1.5 million a year. He traded his Senate pin for a lobbyist badge. He loved the money, even if he missed the power.
He spent his final decades splitting time between Portland and D.C. with his wife, Elaine Franklin, his former chief of staff. He claimed he got over the scandal. He told a local paper in 2002 that complaining about the past makes you a bore. He chose to get on with life. Now, life is over.
